novelibre helps novelists to plan extensive novels and to keep track of them during creation and revision.
novelibre is designed for writers who are familiar with LibreOffice or OpenOffice.
novelibre is an add-on to OpenOffice or LibreOffice that helps to break down large novels into parts, chapters and sections, all of which are provided with additional information called metadata. The metadata remain permanently associated with the chapters and sections in the ODT manuscript throughout the work on the novel. novelibre makes information about the story world accessible and and relates characters, locations, and items to the sections. novelibre can hold information about plot lines and plot points that are assigned to the sections.
What distinguishes novelibre from other writing software is the integration of other applications into the workflow, which are powerful and proven. novelibre is not an "all-in-one" solution, but a novel organizer that is embedded in a customizable ecosystem.
- With novelibre, extensive novels can be broken down into parts, chapters, and sections.
- You can store data on characters, locations, and items that are important for the story. This includes the optional definition of a viewpoint character for each section.
- All of this appears as a clear and editable tree structure with listed information.
- Summaries can be entered at all these levels, from which synopses and lists can be generated.
- If you choose a narrative structure, novelibre can display stages (e.g. acts or steps) in the tree. When plotting, descriptions of these stages can be entered, from which novelibre can generate its own documentation. Prefabricated structural models can also be imported from templates.
- novelibre also allows you to create and document an underlying structure of plot lines (e.g. subplots or character arcs) apart from the chapters and sections. This can then be linked to the sections of the novel text.
- novelibre provides a plot grid with plot line notes for each section. This allows you to see the big picture and keep track of multiple subplots.
- To keep track of progress, the word count and the completion status of the sections are displayed.
- Individual chapters and sections can be flagged as "unused" to exclude them from document export.
- You can add information about the narrative time and duration to each section. If you enter a date, the day of the week is displayed. You can also call up the age of characters that are assigned to a section. The date and time information can be synchronised with dedicated timeline software.
- For the actual writing work, novelibre starts the Writer word processor with a structured manuscript in Open Document Text format (.odt). At the end of a work cycle, novelibre reimports the manuscript and updates the writing project. New chapters and sections can also be created in the process.
- For printing, novelibre exports a neatly designed novel manuscript that can be formatted as you wish applying Writer document templates.
- novelibre saves its data in a well-documented, XML-based file format (.novx), which can also be read as plain text and displayed with a standard web browser.
- novelibre is written in Python and should run on several operating systems, like Windows and Linux.
- The application is ready for internationalization with GNU gettext. German translations are provided.
novelibre's functionality can be extended by plugins. Here are some examples:
- A relationship matrix
- A book/series collection manager
- An on-demand update checker
- A daily progress log viewer
- A Story Template management plugin
- A plugin to connect novelibre with the Zim Desktop Wiki
- A Timeline viewer plugin
- A Timeline sync plugin
- An Aeon Timeline 2 sync plugin
- A theme changer
- A yw7 file importer/exporter
- A simple "markup" section editor
- A clipboard plugin
- A project statistics view plugin
- Windows or Linux. Mac OS support is experimental, see discussion.
- Python version 3.6+.
- For current Windows versions, use version 3.9.10 or above.
- For Vista and Windows 7, use version 3.7.2.
- Linux users: Make sure you have the python3-tk package installed. To see the tooltips, make sure that you have the idle3 package installed.
- Either LibreOffice or OpenOffice.
At present, the development phase is coming to an end. Nevertheless it is recommended to check for updates from time to time, as well as for the plugins.
I use the program myself and fix bugs immediately if I notice any. As far as I can tell, novelibre runs fast and reliably under Windows and Linux. It should also under other operating systems for which there is a reasonably up-to-date Python 3 installation. However, there is a lack of a broad user base, which is why one cannot speak of real proven operation.
Download the latest release novelibre_v5.1.2.pyzw
- Launch novelibre_v5.1.2.pyzw by double-clicking (Windows/Linux desktop),
- or execute
python novelibre_v5.1.2.pyzw(Windows), resp.python3 novelibre_v5.1.2.pyzw(Linux) on the command line.
Many web browsers recognize the download as an executable file and offer to open it immediately. This starts the installation.
However, depending on your security settings, your browser may initially refuse to download the executable file. In this case, your confirmation or an additional action is required. If this is not possible, you have the option of downloading the zip file.
The package is also available in zip format: novelibre_v5.1.2.zip
- Extract the novelibre_v5.1.2 folder from the downloaded zipfile "novelibre_v5.1.2.zip".
- Move into this new folder and launch setup.pyw by double-clicking (Windows/Linux desktop),
- or execute
python setup.pyw(Windows), resp.python3 setup.pyw(Linux) on the command line.
You may wish to install plugins; the update checker is highly recommended.
See the online user guide
- The logos and file icons are made using the free Pusab font by Ryoichi Tsunekawa, Flat-it.
- The toolbar icons are based on the Eva Icons, published under the MIT License. The original black and white icons were colored for this application by the maintainer.
Solutions for tasks that are not everyday.
- scap_novx: Python script for generating a novelibre project from a Scapple outline.
- novx_xtg: Python script for exporting XPress tagged text from novelibre projects.
Writer macros that may come in handy when editing your manuscript.
- novelibre-tools: OpenOffice/LibreOffice extension for processing documents in connection with novelibre.
- StyleSwitcher: Quickly switch between the style sheets of different document templates.
- curly: Conversion of "curly quotes", typographical apostrophes, ellipses and so on in several languages.
- emph: Use character styles instead of direct formatting to mark up text.
This is Open Source software, and novelibre is licensed under GPLv3. See the GNU General Public License website for more details, or consult the LICENSE file.
The modules in the widgets package are licenced under the MIT License.