How revision tracking works
Colophon keeps a permanent record of how your book changes, paragraph by paragraph. It does this without touching your files: it remembers how each chapter looked, reads it again later, and records the difference when you ask it to.
The cycle
- Take a baseline. Colophon remembers every chapter as it stands now. See Take a baseline.
- Write. Revise your chapters in your usual app and save them as normal.
- Check for changes. Colophon reads your folder again and shows which chapters differ from what it remembers. Nothing is recorded yet. See Check for changes.
- Record a revision. Colophon saves what changed as one pass, with a note from you if you like, and remembers the chapters as they now stand. See Record a revision.
Then keep writing, and repeat steps 2 to 4 whenever you finish a pass.
Words you'll see
- Baseline — how a chapter looked when you took a baseline. It's the starting point Colophon compares against.
- Pass — one recorded revision. A pass can cover several chapters, and it keeps your note.
- Changed — the chapter's prose differs from its baseline or from your last recorded pass.
- Not tracked yet — a chapter file Colophon hasn't seen before. It's tracked from your next baseline or recorded revision.
- Not in the folder — a chapter Colophon was tracking that is no longer in your manuscript folder.
- Read differently — the chapter is being read with a different format from when its baseline was taken. See Choose how Colophon reads your files.
Good to know
- Recorded passes are permanent. They can't be edited or deleted.
- Each pass keeps the paragraphs that changed, not a copy of the whole chapter.
- Colophon tracks each chapter by its file name. If you rename a chapter file, Colophon sees one chapter leave the folder and a new one arrive.
- If you change a chapter's title and keep its file name, the chapter shows as changed, marked retitled with the title it had before. When you record the pass, History keeps the old title.
- A pass recorded at the end of each writing session is easier to read later than one that covers a month of work.