Saving & Exporting

Your manuscript stays on your device. Scriblit saves to a small project file you control, and exports clean, submission-ready files when you’re ready to share.

Saving, exporting, and importing at a glance

Three actions move your work in and out of Scriblit, and it helps to keep them straight because they serve different purposes.

Saving writes your editable project to a .spb file. This is the format you keep working in. It holds everything: text, spreads, illustration notes, author notes, and your document settings, and it reopens exactly where you left off.
Exporting produces a read-only delivery file such as Word, PDF, or plain text. It is a one-way snapshot formatted for agents and editors. You share it, but you do not keep drafting in it.
Importing brings an existing document into Scriblit. Opening a .spb restores a project as it was. Opening a Word file, a Google Doc, or a text file converts its contents into a new Scriblit manuscript.

The short version: save a .spb to protect and continue your work, export a Word or PDF to submit it, and import when you are starting from something you already wrote elsewhere.

The .spb manuscript file

Scriblit saves your work as a .spb file, the Scriblit picture book project format. It holds your text, spreads, illustration notes, and document settings, and reopens exactly where you left off in the web or desktop editor.

File → Save (Ctrl+S / ⌘+S) saves to the file you opened, or prompts for a location the first time. When your manuscript is linked to a Google Drive file, Save overwrites it silently, with no picker.
File → Save As… saves a copy to your computer or to Google Drive. When saving to Drive, the dialog shows the current destination folder with a Change… button so you can pick a different folder before saving.
In browsers without local file-system access (Firefox, Safari), Save becomes Download Save Copy, and the .spb file downloads instead of saving in place.
File → Open… reopens any .spb file.

File → Open restores your manuscript, with spreads, notes, and settings included.

Opening and importing from Google Drive

File → Open… lets you choose where to open from: This computer or Google Drive. Choosing Google Drive connects to your Google account and opens a picker where you can select a Scriblit manuscript (.spb), a Word file, a Google Doc, or a plain-text file. A .spb reopens as a project. Every other format is imported, meaning it is converted into a new Scriblit manuscript using the same parser as a local open. The Drive link, including the source file and its parent folder, is saved inside the .spb so it persists across sessions. You can disconnect Google at any time from the Share menu, or from the Offline & Storage tab of Preferences.

Sharing and exporting

The Share menu delivers submission-ready files either to your computer or straight to Google Drive:

Word (.docx), the standard for agent and editor submissions, with your contact header, spread labels, and bracketed illustration notes formatted to industry convention.
PDF, a fixed-layout copy, ideal for sharing a read-only draft.
Plain text (.txt), for pasting into query forms and email bodies.

On a phone or tablet, sharing an export hands the file to your device’s native share sheet, so it can go straight to Mail, Messages, or Files. See Mobile & Desktop for the platform differences.

When you share to Google Drive, files are written to a chosen export folder rather than your Drive root. Scriblit resolves the folder automatically: it uses the folder bound to your document first, then your last-used export folder, then the default export folder set in Preferences, and finally My Drive root as a fallback. Publishing the same format with the same title overwrites the prior delivery file; giving it a new title creates a new file alongside the old one.

Export options, including whether spread labels appear, label position, contact header, and pitch, live in Preferences → Export. Default Google Drive folders for manuscripts and exports are set in the same tab. See Preferences for the full list.

You can also control whether a cover letter is included in your export, sent as a separate file, or kept private. Learn more in Cover Letter.

Privacy

Scriblit performs saving, opening, and exporting on your device. Your manuscript text is never uploaded to Scriblit’s servers. When you choose a Google Drive destination, your file goes directly from your browser to your Google account.