Wroughts

User Manual

Wroughts runs on iPad, in portrait, with Apple Pencil. The writing page is fixed on purpose: it does not scroll, it does not rubber-band, and it does not move under your hand. Everything below describes what the app actually does today.

The library

Notes are grouped into categories you name. Tap a thumbnail to open a note, or the name underneath it to rename. New note at the end of a row creates one in that category and opens it straight away.

Tap a category heading to rename it, or the chevron to fold it away. Add category creates one and asks for its name immediately.

The library, showing two categories of notes with a thumbnail of each note's first page.

Writing

The Pencil writes

On iPad only Apple Pencil makes ink. A finger resting on the page never leaves a mark, and a Pencil touch always takes priority over one already in progress.

Ink and paper

The header starts with four controls: back, undo, redo, and Ink and paper. That fourth one opens the instruments and the page counter, and closes them again. It changes nothing else, and it never opens or closes on its own.

Width

The width button cycles 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75 mm and prints the current one underneath. These are physical millimetres, not pixels, so a line keeps its weight when you zoom, export or print.

Colour

Three ink slots sit in the header. Change what they hold from the Ink palette along the bottom of the library; the change applies to new strokes and leaves everything already written alone.

Erasing

The eraser removes whole strokes and shapes, not parts of them, and it follows the Pencil between events so a fast sweep does not skip anything. By default it works while you hold the button down and returns to the pen when you let go.

Apple Pencil Pro

A squeeze erases the same way the button does — held by default, or as a switch if you turn on Pencil Toggle. On Pencils that support it, a double tap switches between pen and eraser. Pencil Toggle appears in Settings once Wroughts has seen a squeeze.

Undo and redo

Undo and redo cover the strokes and edits on the page you are looking at. They are per page, and they are not the Trash: pages, strokes and objects come back through undo, whole notes come back through Settings.

Saving

There is no save button. Writing is committed continuously, and leaving a note, switching apps or locking the iPad writes immediately. If a save ever needs attention the app says so and offers to retry rather than losing the work.

Shapes and selection

Hold to make a shape

Draw a line, rectangle, square, circle or ellipse and hold the Pencil still at the end. The stroke settles into the shape, keeping the angle you drew it at, and a light tap of feedback confirms it. Carry on moving before it settles and it stays freehand.

Lines keep their end

When a line settles, its first point stays anchored and the far end follows the Pencil until you lift. Keep dragging to place it exactly; it snaps to horizontal, vertical and the diagonals as it passes them.

Selecting

Turn on Select and drag a box around what you want, or tap a single stroke. The box selects anything it actually touches, so partly enclosed strokes come along whole.

Moving and resizing

Drag inside the frame to move; edges and centres line up with the rest of the page as you go. Corner handles resize — evenly for handwriting and photos, freely for rectangles, squares, circles and ellipses — and the knob above the frame rotates, catching at each right angle.

Fingers on shapes

A finger cannot write, but it can work with what is already there: touch a shape to pick it up, drag its body to move it, or drag a corner to resize. Small shapes keep a draggable middle between their handles.

Selection actions

Tapping a selection opens Duplicate, Copy, Cut and Delete. If handwriting is in the selection you also get its width and the three inks, so you can restyle after the fact.

Copy and paste

Copying puts both editable Wroughts content and a plain image on the clipboard, so it pastes into other apps as a picture and back into Wroughts as strokes. With Select on, press and hold empty paper to paste at that spot.

Photos

The + button inserts a photo. Wroughts offers your five most recent if you allow photo access, and the system picker works without granting it. An inserted photo is copied into the note and behaves like any other object.

The page

Turning pages

The arrows either side of the counter are the only way to change page — there is no swipe and no scroll. A fresh blank page always waits at the end of a note, which is why the counter reads one higher than the pages you have written. That waiting page is not exported.

Gesture

The lock button gates every two-finger gesture. With it off, the page is fitted to the screen and held there. With it on and nothing selected, pinch to zoom in to 4× and drag with two fingers to move around within the page.

Gesture with a selection

When something is selected, the same two-finger pinch and rotation transform that content instead of the page. Turning Gesture off again restores the whole page and locks it.

Read mode

The hand button puts the note down. Nothing can be written, erased, selected or moved until you turn it off. Zooming still works if Gesture is on, so it is the safe way to read a page closely.

Paper

The template button cycles blank, ruled, grid and dot for the whole note. Ruled and grid lines are laid out in millimetres, so they are the same size on the page as they would be on paper.

Dark or light paper

The half-filled circle switches the paper between dark and light, independently of the app's own appearance. Ink you have already written is kept as authored and shifted only for display, so it stays legible on either.

Moving the controls

Press and hold the Eraser or Select button in the header and drag it onto the page. It becomes a floating control that docks to the nearest edge and stays there, in that place, next time you open a note.

Putting them back

Each floating control has a grip on its left. Drag the grip to move it, or double tap the grip to send the control back into the header.

PDFs, exporting and organising

Importing a PDF

Import PDF in the library turns a document into a note, one writable page per PDF page, each at its own size. The original file is left untouched; your writing sits on top of it. Locked or unreadable PDFs are declined rather than partly imported.

Opening from Files

Wroughts also opens PDFs and its own .wroughts files straight from the Files app or a share sheet. They arrive as a new note, ready to write on.

Reading a PDF in the dark

On a PDF page the appearance button switches between the document as published and a dark reading rendering that reverses the paper while keeping coloured marks in their own hues. It affects the display only; the PDF's own bytes are never altered.

Exporting

Touch and hold a note in the library and choose Export PDF. The share sheet takes it from there — Files, Mail, AirDrop, print. Handwriting is exported as vectors, so it stays sharp at any size.

Renaming and moving

Touch and hold a note for Rename, Export PDF, Move to and Delete. Move to lists your other categories. Tapping a note's name in the library renames it too.

Deleting

Deleting a note, or a category, moves it to Trash at once — nothing is destroyed and nothing asks you to confirm. Deleting a category takes the notes inside it along.

Settings

Eraser Toggle

Off, the eraser button erases while you hold it and returns to the pen when you release. On, it becomes a switch you tap. The same choice governs the Pencil Pro squeeze through Pencil Toggle.

Dark mode UI

Sets the appearance of the library, settings and header. It is deliberately separate from the paper: a light interface with a dark page, or the reverse, are both normal.

Trash

Deleted notes and categories are listed here, notes nested under the category they came from. Tap to select any number of them, then Restore Selected to put them back where they were.

Deleting for good

Delete Selected is the only irreversible action in Wroughts, so it tells you how many notes and categories are involved and asks first. Selecting a category includes every trashed note inside it.

Wroughts is a one-time purchase with no subscription and no in-app purchases. iCloud sync is not part of this release; notes are stored on the iPad they were written on. For what is kept and where, see the Wroughts Privacy Policy.