Folio WriterThe research web: wikilinks,
web capture & the name index
A manuscript is the visible tenth of a project. Under it: figures, PDFs, datasets, half-thoughts, and the names of everything — minerals, methods, characters, colleagues. Folio Writer gives that nine-tenths a home that's linked to the text instead of scattered around it.
Research: the junk drawer, in the best sense
The Research folder holds what supports the writing but never compiles: drag in images, PDFs, and data files; they sync with the project like everything else. Right-click an image ▸ Copy Markdown Link and paste it into any document — it's a figure now. Web capture (Premium) saves a page for offline reading via File ▸ Import ▸ Web Page — the quote you'll need in revision, kept where the manuscript lives, not in a browser tab you'll never find again.
Wikilinks: notes and manuscript, cross-connected
Type [[ and autocomplete offers every title in the
binder; a link to a note that doesn't exist yet creates it (the iA
Writer convention). Links work in both directions — backlinks
show every place a note is referenced — so the methods note, the three
sections that rely on it, and the PDF it summarizes form a small web
you can traverse instead of a folder you excavate. Wikilinks and
backlinks are free-tier.
The figure browser
Every figure in the manuscript, in one panel (Pro) — what's placed where, referenced by what. When a reviewer says "combine Figs. 3 and 4," this is where you see what that touches.
The name index: who and what, counted
Compile ▸ Name Index scans the project for names — people, places, samples, species, characters — and counts every mention per document, one click from any of them. Its sharpest trick is spelling drift: "Marra Voss" in chapter 7 when every other chapter says "Mara Voss" gets flagged, because the misspelling is a near-match that appears once. Add names by hand to pin them, hide false positives, done. Scientists: it works just as well on sample IDs and mineral names as on characters.