Merrimo User Guide › Engines, tools, and settings

Export your story on Mac

In Merrimo on your Mac, one Export sheet turns your story into files for other people and other apps: the canvas as a print PDF or webtoon slices, the manuscript as a script or an ebook, the World as a pitch bible, or the whole project as an archive.

Open the Export sheet

1. Choose File > Export… (⇧⌘E). The sheet opens with the settings you last exported this project with.
2. To go straight to a canvas format, choose File > Export PDF… or File > Export Long Image…. In the canvas, the toolbar's Export button opens the sheet too.

The sheet is laid out like the Print panel. The preview on the left shows what you'll get, drawn as you change the options; use the arrows under it to step through the pages or slices. On the right, choose what to export at the top (Canvas, Manuscript, World or Project), then a Format and a Preset. Below them, each group of options shows a one-line summary; click a group's title to open or close it.

Pick where it goes, then keep working

1. Read the checks above the buttons: they warn about anything that may come out wrong, such as art too small to print sharply. They never stop you exporting.
2. Click Export…, then choose the file, or the folder for a format that writes several files.
3. The sheet closes and the export runs in the background. The toolbar's activity item shows it ("Exporting … as slices", with a count such as "7 of 18"), and you can cancel it there.
4. When it's done, a notification says what was exported. Click Show in Finder to see the files.

Use presets

A preset sets every option at once for where the export is going. The Preset menu lists them for what you're exporting:

• WEBTOON Canvas: an 800 px strip in JPEG slices up to 1280 px tall. The checks hold it to WEBTOON Canvas's 2 MB per image and 100 images per episode.
• Naver Webtoon: a 690 px strip.
• Social Story: a JPEG of each page at quality 90 and at exactly the page's size in pixels (1,080 × 1,920 for a Social Story page), numbered in reading order: "Fiesta 01.jpg" to "Fiesta 12.jpg". A story whose pages use a Social size opens its first export on this preset. The checks say how many images there are, their size and the largest.
• Print · US Comic: a PDF at 300 ppi with 1/8 in bleed and crop marks. Print · Manga is the same in grayscale.
• Home Printer · Letter: each page fitted to a sheet of US Letter.
• Review Copy, Reading Draft, Production Draft, Submission, Ebook and Pitch Bible for scripts, manuscripts, books and the World.

Change any option after picking a preset and its name in the menu reads "(edited)". Choose Save Current Settings as Preset… to keep your own; it's there in every project. Show Presets… lists them and lets you delete yours. Last Used Settings brings back what you last exported this project with.

Export the canvas

Under Pages, choose all of them, one chapter, a range (From … to), or the pages holding your selection on the canvas.

PDF

Each page prints at its real size: a 6 × 9 in page is a 6 × 9 in PDF page. Lettering stays sharp, as text and shapes, unless you flatten it.

• Page Size: the trim comes from the document; click Frame Settings… to change it. Set the Bleed in inches, and turn on Crop marks. Safe area draws the margins in the preview only. Paper can fit each page to Letter or A4 instead.
• Quality: the Resolution (150, 300 or 600 ppi) decides how large each picture is drawn; Lettering is Vector Text or Flattened into the page; Color or Grayscale.
• Extras: include the cover, and add page numbers.

The checks name any picture that will print below 300 ppi at its size, by page and panel. Art that isn't on your Mac yet is downloaded before the export; if it can't be (you're offline), the checks say which pages would print a placeholder.

Long Image (slices)

For webtoon platforms: the pages stack into one long strip, cut into images.

• Strip: the Width in pixels (the pages scale to fit), the Page gap and its color.
• Slices: the most a slice may be (Height up to … px). With Cut between panels on, a slice ends at the last gutter above that height, never through art or a balloon; the preview notes where a cut moved ("Cut moved up 348 px to a gutter"). When a panel is taller than a slice there's no gutter to cut at: the cut lands at the height, and a check names that slice.
• File type: PNG, or JPEG with a quality. Names is a pattern such as The Turning Tide 02-###: the last run of # is the slice number, and the example beside it shows the first file's name. A folder for each chapter puts each chapter's slices in a folder of its own, numbered from 1.

Choose Phone under the preview to read the strip at a phone's width (360, 390 or 430 points), the way it scrolls on one. The checks say whether the slices fit the preset's platform.

Images, comic book archives and fixed-layout ebooks

• Images: a PNG or JPEG of each page, named by a pattern. Size is The page size (each page's own size in pixels, which Social and Webtoon stories start on) or a resolution of 150, 300 or 600 ppi; beside it is the first image's size in pixels, and Page Settings… changes the page size. On iPhone and iPad, the Images row reads what comes out, such as "1,080 × 1,920 px · JPEG 90", and the line under the preview names the page and the image size ("Page 1 of 12 · 1,080 × 1,920 px").
• Comic Book Archive (.cbz): the pages as pictures for comic readers, with the title, the issue number you give, and the writer.
• EPUB, fixed layout: for Apple Books and Kindle, each page on a screen of its own or facing pages as spreads.

Export the manuscript

Under Chapters, export them all or one chapter.

• Screenplay PDF: industry layout in Courier, with a title page, scene numbers on the left, the right or both, (MORE) and (CONT'D) where a speech breaks across a page, each chapter on a new page, and an optional watermark across every page. The checks name chapters with no screenplay yet: they're left out.
• Final Draft (.fdx) and Fountain: the screenplay for other screenwriting apps, title page included.
• Manuscript PDF: the prose in standard manuscript format, double-spaced, ready to send to an agent or editor.
• Word (.docx) and Markdown: the prose for editors and other apps, with your choice of scene-break mark.
• EPUB: an ebook. Its cover is cropped from the World's key art, with the title and author on it if you like; set the title, author, ISBN and language under Book Details, and choose a contents page, the scene-break mark and chapter art. The reader picks the typeface. A check warns when the cover is smaller than the 1600 × 2560 px stores ask for.
• Scene List (.csv): a row per scene with its chapter, heading, characters and page, for scheduling.

The Title Page group holds the title, Written by, Contact and Draft. Written by, Contact and Draft are saved with the story, so every export (and everyone you share the story with) uses the same ones.

Export the World

• World Book (PDF): a pitch bible. Choose what it includes (the premise and key art, characters, locations, props, and the style and palette) and the page shape (16:9, Letter or A4). Each subject gets a page in the order it first appears, with its whole picture, scaled to fit and never cropped; a subject with no picture gets its initials instead, and a check names them.
• Pictures: a folder of each subject's picture, in Characters, Locations and Props folders.
• Spreadsheet (.csv): a row per subject with its summary and its memory.

Export the whole project

• Merrimo Archive: one file with the story's chapters, panels, canvas and World, and their pictures, to keep or hand over.
• Everything: a folder with the canvas PDF, the screenplay, the manuscript and the World Book, whichever your story has.