In Ulysses, all writing is done in sheets, and all sheets are stored in groups. Select a group in the library, and its content will appear in the sheet list. Select a sheet in the sheet list, and it will appear in the editor.
Sheets are equivalent to classic documents, though they don’t require a “title” or a “file name” or such. Groups not only serve as storage locations, but they are also one of the main tools to keep your library organized.
Sheets
Let’s start by creating a new sheet. To add a sheet, click or tap the New Sheet button in the sheet list. On iPhone, you can also find this button in the library.
On a Mac or on an iPad with an external keyboard, you can create a new sheet with the shortcut ⌘N.
That's it. Now you can start writing, whether it's a blog post, an essay or the next chapter of your novel. The sheets can contain as much text as you like.
Material Sheets
Sometimes, however, you might want to use a sheet to collect information, take simple notes, or write down rough ideas. This is where material sheets come in handy. You can use them for supporting “material” that is not meant to become part of your final text. Material sheets will automatically be excluded during export and when calculating statistics or the progress of a writing goal. Thanks to a visual marker in the sheet list, they're easy to recognize.
On Mac, go to the Files menu and select New Material Sheet. To convert an existing sheet, right-click the sheet in the sheet list and select Use as Material Sheet.
On iPad or iPhone, add a regular sheet and then convert it via the Material button in the dashboard. Alternatively, you can touch and hold the regular sheet in the sheet list and select Use as Material Sheet.
Favorite Sheets
Do you have sheets that you use frequently? If so, you can mark them as favorites so they appear in the respective group in the topmost section of the library.
On Mac, right-click the sheet and select Add to Favorites.
On iPad/iPhone, open the dashboard and select Favorite. Alternatively, go to the sheet list, touch and hold a sheet, and choose the option from the context menu.
Split, Merge & Glue Sheets
You might want to split your text into handy chunks when working on large projects. This way, it’s a lot easier to oversee the whole of your work and rearrange the order of its various parts if necessary. In Ulysses, you can also merge several sheets into one or glue sheets to make them behave like one, e.g., during export.
Split a Sheet
On Mac, right-click the sheet right where you want to split it and select Split Here… from the context menu. This will automatically create two glued sheets.
On iPhone or iPad, go to the editor, touch and hold the position where you’d like to split the sheet, tap the arrow and then Split Here.
Glued sheets are highlighted with a colored line in the sheet list. When selecting one of them, all are shown in the editor. They will also be exported together. However, it’s important to know that glued sheets are actually two separate sheets; they only behave as if they were one. That’s why gluing is only available when the group’s sorting is set to manual. If you sort the sheets of a group by title or date, glued sheets will be arranged in order, so you can’t see if they’re glued.
Merge and Glue Sheets
On Mac, go to the sheet list and hold ⇧ (shift). Then, select the sheets in question, right-click them, and choose Merge Sheets or Glue Sheets from the context menu. To unglue sheets, right-click one of the glued sheets and select the option.
On iPhone or iPad, open the sheet list menu via the circled ellipsis top right, choose Select Sheets, and mark the sheets you’d like to glue or merge. Then tap the circled ellipsis at the bottom of the sheet list, and select the action from the context menu.
To unglue sheets, touch and hold one of the glued sheets to open the context menu, and select the option.
Organize Your Sheets Into Groups
Groups allow you to organize your projects and texts. Each group can contain an unlimited number of sheets, and you can have an unlimited number of groups. You can also nest your groups as deep as you want. Here is how to create a new one:
On Mac, click the Add… button at the top of the library. Alternatively, you can select this option in the File menu.
To add a subgroup, right-click the parent group and select New Group… from the context menu. You can also move and nest groups via Drag & Drop.
On iPhone or iPad, tap the Add… button in the library and select New Group. Name your group and tap Continue. Now, you can choose an icon, add a goal or change the sorting.
If you want it to be a subgroup, touch and hold the parent group and select Add Group from the context menu.
Currently, it is only possible to open up to 50 sheets simultaneously. Even if you select more, the editor only displays the first 50 sheets, and the dashboard only shows statistics and the outline for those sheets. This limitation is in place to prevent performance issues, such as slowdowns or freezes, that can occur when multiple processes are running simultaneously.
Customize a Group
When you create a group, you can also customize its appearance using icons and colors. Not only is it visually appealing, but it can also improve orientation in your library. Of course, you can also customize the look later on.
On Mac, right-click the group and select Edit. You can then pick a color to change the group name and its icon. If you click the circled ellipsis next to the default icons, you can choose from around 200 group icons.
On iPhone or iPad, touch and hold the group in the library, tap Get Info, then tap Icon. Now, you can choose your favorite group icon. To select a color for the icon, tap the color picker in the top-right corner.
Rearrange Your Groups and Sheets
Sometimes, you’ll want to rearrange your groups, subgroups or sheets. Here is how to do that:
On Mac, simply drag and drop the group, subgroup or sheet from the current position to the desired position.
On iPhone and iPad, tap and hold the group, subgroup, or sheet, and then move it to the desired position. Alternatively, you can long-tap it, select Move from the context menu, and choose the desired position.
Please note that you can only rearrange the sheets within a group if the sort setting is set to Manually.
Sorting Options
Depending on the text type, you might want to order the sheets inside a group in a certain way. In Ulysses, you can set the sorting for each group individually. If you work in the iCloud section, the sorting will be synced seamlessly across all your devices.
On Mac, hover your mouse over the group in the sheet list and click the sorting arrows.
You’ll then see the options for this group. You can sort the sheets of a group as follows:
- Manually
- By Title
- By Modification Date
- By Creation Date
You can also reverse the order for all sorting options except for manual sorting.
If you sort the sheets by Modification Date or Creation Date, they will be ordered accordingly; however, the actual dates will not be displayed in the list by default. To display these dates in the sheet list, go to View › Sheet List and select Show Dates. On iPhone or iPad, open the sheet list, tap the circled ellipsis, select Customize Sheet List and enable Show Dates.
For more details, see this FAQ article: How Can I Display the Creation or Modification Date?
Please note that this approach only changes the sorting of the selected group. If you want to change the sorting of a group and its subgroups, right-click the group in the library and select an option from the menu item Sort instead.
On iPhone, open the sheet list and tap the sorting icon at the bottom to select your preferred sorting.
On iPad, open the sheet list menu by tapping the circled ellipsis, then select Sort By and choose the appropriate option. This will affect all groups shown in the sheet list.
Deleting Sheets & Groups
To delete a sheet or group on Mac, right-click it in the sheet list and select Move to Trash. The sheet will be moved to your trash folder, where it will remain until you manually empty the folder.
Alternatively, you can delete a sheet directly by holding the Option key (⌥) and selecting Erase… from the context menu. Please note that using Erase… will permanently delete the sheet without moving it to the trash. If you think you might want to recover it later, we recommend creating a manual backup before erasing the sheet.
On iOS, press and hold the sheet or group, then select Move to Trash. To permanently delete everything in it, press and hold the Trash and select Empty Trash.
Further Options
Now you know the basics about working with sheets and groups, but that’s not everything you can do:
- You can also embed images in your text and add comments, annotations, and notes.
- To find specific sheets easily, you can tag them with keywords.
- Filters let you sort your sheets according to certain criteria, such as text occurrences or creation/modification dates.
- Ulysses’ text statistics give an overview of how much you've written in a sheet or group. And on top of that, you can set specific writing goals to keep track of your writing progress.
- Once you’re done writing, you can export either single sheets or entire groups as PDF documents or DOCX files. If you are a blogger, you can also directly publish the texts to your blog.