Scriptorium 3.54Since 4 October Scriptorium has learnt to calculate like Excel and do algebra, to lay your writing out on real pages, to make newspapers, to leave out the table lines you don’t want, to print colours behind the writing, to send its tables to Excel and bring them back, to fill a table from one formula, as Excel 365 does, to show any document as a slide show that animates, rehearses and records, and to plan projects the way Microsoft Project does. Here is every new feature, with a picture where there is something to see.
All of it is in Scriptorium 3.54. The 14-day trial has everything switched on, and a licence gets every new version free.
Insert ▸ Project plan makes a plan the way Microsoft Project does: the tasks, how long each takes, what each waits for, who does it and how far it has got. Scriptorium works out every date, finds the critical path and draws the plan, in the report or the proposal it belongs to. Better than Project in the ways that matter here: there is nothing to learn, the plan reads as plain lines in any program, it prints with the words around it, and the assistant can write one for you.
A table of tasks like Project’s, with the Gantt chart beside it changing as you type. Indent a task under another and that one becomes a summary of it.
The Gantt chart with the critical path in red, a Summary, a Timeline, a Network diagram, a Board of to do, doing and done, and People, each person’s load.
Open a plan that Microsoft Project saved as XML, and save yours for Project: the tasks and their outline, the links with their lags, the calendar, the people, the progress and the baseline.
Ask for “a plan for the school concert on 12 March” and it writes one. It reads the dates the plan works out, so it can tell you when it finishes, set the baseline or level the people.
A plan prints with the report, goes into the PDF, the web page and the e-book as a drawing, into Word as a picture, and onto a slide. The Project plan template starts you with one.
The Slide show tab shows what you wrote as slides, the way PowerPoint does, but without making it again: each heading starts a slide, or put a slide break where you want one. Better than PowerPoint in one way above all: you never nudge a box, because the words are laid out for the slide and made smaller until they fit. Since 3.52 the slides animate, a rehearsal times them, and a recording of your voice lets the show give itself. Since 3.53 a computer voice can be the narrator, and slides can be banners and posts that play as animated GIFs.
Record slide show asks who speaks the narration: you into the microphone, a computer voice reading each slide’s notes, or The reading cast, a voice for each person who speaks in them. A voice takes moments, not the length of the talk.
Slides at any size in pixels, or one of twelve ready-made: a leaderboard banner, a skyscraper, a square post, a story, Full HD video. Animated GIF saves them as a picture that plays itself.
Put the cursor in a paragraph, list, picture or table and choose how it comes in. On the page an animation is a small tag over its block; in the Markdown, a comment that print leaves out.
Rehearse timings runs the show with a clock; keep the timings and it runs by itself. Record slide show keeps your voice too, a clip in each slide’s notes, played as the show goes.
Eight new looks with something of their own besides their colours, shown on every slide and written into the PowerPoint file.
Arrows, a slide’s number and Enter, B for a black screen and G for every slide at once. The buttons appear when the mouse moves and stay out of the way when it doesn’t.
Your screen has the slide, the next one, your notes in big letters, a timer and the clock; the projector has the slides, full screen, opened there by itself when a second screen is plugged in.
Every slide at once, as cards. Drag them into a new order, or move, duplicate, hide and delete them; Ctrl+Z puts things back.
The slide show is the document itself, saved as the same plain Markdown file: a slide break is a dotted line on the page and {slide} in the Markdown, and the notes are a violet box.
Not read aloud on the Review tab marks words to show and print but leave out when the page or the notes are read: “(see page 4)”, a stage direction, a reference. They have a dotted line under them on the page.
A banner or a post makes a PDF of the slides and a PowerPoint (.pptx) file at its own size too, its words laid out as on the slides.
Ask the assistant for a GIF, a PDF, a narration in a voice or a slide size and it does it, giving a button its value; it opens the Save box for you, and leaves your files, the clipboard and the settings to you.
Layout adds a slide ready to type over: a comparison, a quotation, a big number, an agenda, a thank-you. Under File ▸ New, a Presentation, a Pitch, a Lesson and a Project update, with notes and animations in place.
The masters’ shapes, the transitions, each slide’s rehearsed time and a show that loops go into the PowerPoint (.pptx) file too.
Transparent background in the Diagram box draws a diagram straight onto a dark slide, its lines and words in the slide’s colours.
PDF of the slides, Handouts with two, three (with lines for notes) or six slides a page, notes pages, and PowerPoint (.pptx): real slides whose words, lists, tables, pictures and notes can still be changed.
Formulas worked out, equations, diagrams, shapes and music show on the slides exactly as they do on the page, in every look.
Every button, the keys’ list and two new help pages are in all of Scriptorium’s 60 languages, and the notes are read aloud in any of the voices on your computer, offline.
Tables work out their own totals with Excel’s formulas, fill themselves from one formula, keep Excel’s number formats and names, go to Excel and back, a sentence can calculate, and maths is written the way a textbook writes it.
As in Excel 365, a formula whose answer is a block of values fills the empty cells to its right and below it: the rows in order, the rows that meet a condition, each value once, or a whole table added up by its groups, with totals.
Scriptorium=SUM(B2#) adds the whole block, however big it grows
GROUPBY adds a list up by the values of a column, and PIVOTBY by two at once, down and across, with totals and subtotals. Put the formula in the corner of an empty table and its answer makes the table.
Write a calculation once, with places for its values, and name it in Names: WithVat: =LAMBDA(price, ROUND(price*(1+VAT), 2)). Then =WithVat(B2) works in every table of the document.
![An invoice table with the Number format menu open on the Table tab, Currency ticked, and the formula bar showing =[@Qty]*[@[Unit price]] for Order!D3](/img/scriptorium/numformat@2x.webp)
A cell keeps its own number format, as in Excel: currency in your country’s money, accounting, percentages, fractions, dates, or any of Excel’s codes. A formula can name a column by its heading, and the corner of the cells fills a series down or across.
=[@Qty]*[@Price] in each row, Order[Amount] from anywhere, and a Totals row the column stops above=SUM(B2:B9) {fmt:#,##0.00}
Name a value or some cells once, such as VAT for 15%, and use the name in any formula of the document: when the rate changes you change it in one place. And File ▸ Export ▸ Excel workbook makes a workbook of your tables, each a sheet, with its formulas still working.
Type =SUM(D2:D6) in a cell and the cell shows the total. Change a figure and every total that uses it follows. The Markdown keeps the formula, so the file still reads sensibly in any other program, and print, PDF, Word and every other export get the answers.
B2:B9, $B$2, Budget!B4, #DIV/0!{=Budget!B4}
With Excel’s own names in every language, so a formula means the same everywhere and goes to Excel unchanged: maths, statistics, text, dates, lookups such as XLOOKUP, money and engineering; since 3.47 the distributions and tests, bonds and securities, the database functions and CONVERT; and in 3.49 another 38 from Excel 365, such as FILTER, SORT, GROUPBY and LAMBDA.
Type =√(3² + 4²) and get 5. Powers, roots, π, degrees and factorials are understood, the multiplication sign can be left out where maths leaves it out, and where gives letters their values: =πr² where r = 2.
A letter with no value stays a letter, and the answer is a formula set as maths: =FACTOR(x⁴ − 1) is (x − 1)(x + 1)(x² + 1), and =SOLVE(x² − 5x + 3 = 0, x) is (5 ± √13)/2 rather than two decimals.
29 templates in six groups, and eighteen of them work things out: an invoice with its VAT, due date and balance, a quotation with discounts, budgets, timesheets, loan repayments, mark sheets, league tables, and a recipe whose amounts follow the servings.
Type the quantities and prices, and every line, the subtotal, the VAT, the total and the balance due follow. The invoice and the quotation are on the Home page, ready to type over.
Write on pages of the paper you choose, in a colour that prints, make a newspaper with a button for every part, send long tables to paper the way they should go, and print the Markdown itself.
A colour behind every page, edge to edge, margins and all, or behind a heading, a paragraph or the cells of a table. It comes out of the printer and goes into the PDF, as on the screen.
From the Markdown view, Print, the print preview and Save as PDF give the Markdown line by line, in its colours, its headings in their sizes and its lines numbered, on the paper and margins of Page setup.
Sheets of the paper you chose, A0 to A5, Letter, Legal, Tabloid or a size of your own, one under the other, with the margins round the writing and every page ending exactly where the printed page ends. Type, select, undo and find on them as on the long sheet.
Two, three or four columns, a line between them, a headline across them, a table or a picture in a column, pull quotes and teaser boxes, each a button with its own picture. Words go on the pictures, with a credit and alt text.
A table longer than a page starts where it stands and runs on to the next, with its heading row at the top of each page and no row cut in half: in the print preview, on paper, in the PDF and in Word.
Table ▸ Split table (Ctrl+Shift+Enter), as in Word: the rows from the cursor down become a table of their own, with the same heading row.
An equation on a line of its own goes left, centre or right, and can be indented, with the paragraph buttons or in the Equation window. Word files and PDFs keep its place.
Order forms, signature blocks and price lists look the way you mean them to, on the page and on paper.
All lines, outside lines only, inside lines only, lines between rows only, or none; and for the cells you select, no line above, below, on the left or on the right. A line left out shows faint and dashed while you type, so you can still find the cells; on paper it is simply gone.
Give every table square, rounded or cut-off corners, small, medium, large or a size of your own, with the heading row’s fill cut to the corner: on the page, in the print preview, on paper, and in PDFs, web pages and e-books.
A Home page to begin from, AI answers that arrive tidy, and a Markdown view that shows the shape of the document in colour, numbers its lines and folds them away.
Scriptorium opens on a Home page, as Word does: a blank page, templates drawn as small pictures of their pages, your projects as covers, and the documents you opened lately, with when you opened and changed them.
Every line of the Markdown has its number, and a minus beside a heading, a table, a list, a code block or the document’s details folds it to one line, with a mark saying how many lines it holds.
Paste from ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, DeepSeek or Grok and the chat window’s colours, Copy buttons, site icons and citation marks stay behind. Code stays code, formulas become equations you can change, and lists keep their numbers.
The Markdown view draws a # heading biggest, then ##, ### and the rest, as the page does, so the shape of a document shows in its code as well. The file itself stays plain text.
Headings, bold, links, code, tables, formulas and Scriptorium’s own commands each have a colour in the Markdown view: 32 kinds, four sets of colours, or colours of your own. The code in a code block is coloured as a programmer’s editor colours it.
One page for how documents look, with a preview beside it: the fonts for writing, headings, code and formulas, the size and spacing of the text, and the colours of headings, links, code, quotations, formulas and tables.
New, Open, Save, Close, Undo and Redo beside the document’s name, whatever tab is open, and File ▸ Close (Ctrl+W), which leaves Scriptorium open on a blank page.
Code in a line has a thin border as well as its fill, so it shows on a white page, and the Code style, code blocks and quotations take a fill and a border of your choosing.
At 1280 pixels and less every group keeps its size: rows of small buttons wrap, big buttons put their names on two lines, and whatever still doesn’t fit scrolls sideways.
For people who know CAD or Acrobat: the wheel, the hand and a zoom box, on the page, in Pages, Side by side and Reading view, and in the print preview.
Ctrl and the wheel zoom about the pointer, or the wheel alone if you prefer, as in CAD. Drag with the wheel pressed to slide the page, double-click the wheel to fit it again, and in the print preview and Reading view the pointer is a hand.
The assistant writes into the page, reads Scriptorium’s own help, and works out sums with the formulas rather than in its head.
Ask how to do something and the assistant looks it up in Scriptorium’s own help and answers from it, with a button under the answer that opens the page. Every button and menu item is explained in the help.
The assistant works out any formula against the document instead of in its head, and writes formulas rather than typed totals, so the answers follow when the figures change.
It knows how to make a newspaper with stories in columns, an invoice with VAT, a table that other formulas use by name, and algebra with letters.
Read aloud says an answer the way a teacher would: “the fraction 5 plus or minus the square root of 13 over 2”, and a sum as “the sum from i equals 1 to n of”.
The Android app prints, makes PDFs and saves Word files where you choose, and it carries Scriptorium’s own book and quill.
Print and PDF go to Android’s own printing, the same page the desktop prints, on the paper the document is set up for. Android’s printers include Save as PDF.
Word files, web pages, e-books, OpenDocument, RTF and plain text are saved through Android’s own Save box: you choose the folder, Downloads or a drive.
The book and the quill on the home screen, the app’s real version on its About page, and a trial that carries on with the days it had left when the app is put on again.
A licence is for one computer, and when you change computers it goes with you, from Scriptorium itself. And a page with a colour of its own now shows through its drawings.
On the old computer, File ▸ Licence ▸ Move to another computer… and the new computer’s code; on the new one, I have paid — fetch my licence. The same licence, the same serial, and every update still free.
Enter your licence key on the new computer and Scriptorium offers to Move it to this computer; the old one becomes a reader the next time it is online. Or write to us, and we move it.
On a page with a colour of its own, shapes and diagrams let the colour through instead of sitting on a white card: on screen, on paper, in PDFs and in Word.
Each one free for everyone with a licence; the newest has all of them.
Project plans: the tasks, their durations and links, scheduled with the critical path and drawn as a Gantt chart, a summary, a timeline, a network diagram, a board and each person’s load; a baseline, levelling, and Microsoft Project files in and out.
Slide show narration in a computer voice or the reading cast; slides of any size for banners, adverts and posts, saved as animated GIFs; words that are not read aloud; and an assistant that can press every button.
Slide shows that animate block by block, rehearse their timings and record your narration; next slide when the narration ends; eight more slide masters, layouts and four slide show templates; diagrams with no background.
Slide shows from any document: a Presenter view, a pen, a highlighter and a laser pointer, PowerPoint’s keys, eight looks and seven transitions, speaker notes read aloud, the Slide sorter, PDF handouts and PowerPoint files.
Your licence moves with you to a new computer, from Scriptorium itself; shapes and diagrams let a page’s colour through; an app left open hears that its trial was ended.
Answers that spill into the cells around them, as in Excel 365: FILTER, SORT, UNIQUE, GROUPBY, PIVOTBY and 33 more of Excel’s functions; LAMBDA and functions of your own; Excel workbooks that keep them.
Colours behind the pages, paragraphs and cells that print; Excel’s number formats, names, columns by name and totals rows, fill, and Excel workbooks out and in; the Markdown printed as it is, and its lines numbered and folded.
Lines left out of tables; 88 more of Excel’s functions (110 with their older names) for statistics, bonds, databases and units; headings in their sizes in the Markdown; printing, PDF and Word on Android, and a trial that survives a reinstall.
Algebra with letters, answered as maths; a ribbon that fits its window; Scriptorium’s own icon on Android, and a Home page that fits a phone.
The Pages view; newspapers with the Columns tab and words on pictures; the Markdown in colour; rounded and chamfered tables.
Formulas as in Excel, in tables and in sentences; any maths; 28 templates, eighteen of which calculate; the Markdown and the page scrolling together; an assistant that calculates.
Zoom and pan like CAD and Acrobat; projects on the Home page; an assistant that reads the help; every button explained in the help.
Repairs: the Paste buttons, Match style, page breaks in Word files, Typewriter mode, and Check spelling’s list of languages.
The Home page; AI answers pasted clean; File ▸ Appearance; equations placed where you put them; Split table, and long tables on paper.
Fourteen days with everything switched on, no account and no card. Then USD 100 (R1,799) once, or a free Markdown reader.