Chapter 10 · The Editor
The Keyboard
Skarvia's keyboard is built for people who came from Final Draft or Word and would rather not learn a new set of reflexes. Most of what you already know works. This chapter is the complete list, grouped by what you are doing, because the bindings change with the document format you are in.
The list on screen
The editor carries its own short list. Open the View tab and press Shortcuts, or press ⌘/ from anywhere in the editor. The dialog shows the essentials for the format you are in. This chapter is the long version.
Mac, Windows, and Linux
Shortcuts are printed with Mac symbols throughout Skarvia, including in that dialog. On Windows and Linux, read ⌘ as Ctrl and ⌥ as Alt. ⌘B is Ctrl+B, and ⌘⌥1 is Ctrl+Alt+1. The binding is the same key under both, so nothing is missing on a PC.
Every format
These work in a novel, a screenplay, a play, an audio drama, and a video script alike:
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Leave the manuscript, to the ribbon | Esc |
| Bold, italic, underline | ⌘B / ⌘I / ⌘U |
| Undo | ⌘Z |
| Redo | ⇧⌘Z, and ⌘Y for anyone arriving from Windows |
| Find and replace | ⌘F |
| The shortcut list | ⌘/ |
| Save now | ⌘S |
⌘F opens Skarvia's find bar rather than your browser's, which is the one you want: it searches the manuscript, counts matches, and can replace. Enter in the search box goes to the next match and ⇧Enter to the previous. Esc anywhere on that bar closes it, including from the replace box and the buttons.
⌘S is a reflex worth keeping. Autosave is already running, so the keystroke flushes the pending save, flashes Saved in the status bar, and stops your browser opening its own save-this-page dialog on top of your work. Chapter 3 covers what autosave actually writes and where.
Escape, and getting out
Inside a script, Tab sets the element type instead of moving focus. That is correct for a screenplay and it means the manuscript would otherwise be a room with no keyboard exit, so Esc is that exit. Pressing it moves focus to the ribbon tab you are on, and the arrow keys, Home and End then move along the tabs.
One Esc does one thing. The key is claimed in order by whatever is open in front of the manuscript, so you sometimes press it twice on purpose:
- An open dialog closes, and nothing else happens.
- The character-name suggestion list closes.
- The find bar closes.
- Focus mode ends and the manuscript stays focused.
- With none of those in the way, focus leaves the manuscript for the ribbon.
Screenplay
The six element shortcuts are pinned to the numbers printed beside them in the element menu, and they do not move when new elements are added to that menu:
| ⌘1 Scene Heading | ⌘2 Action | ⌘3 Character |
| ⌘4 Parenthetical | ⌘5 Dialogue | ⌘6 Transition |
Tab cycles the element type: Scene Heading to Action to Character to Transition and back to Scene Heading, with Dialogue and Parenthetical toggling between themselves. ⇧Tab walks the same ring backwards. From any of the structural elements (Shot, Cast List, New Act, Sequence, End of Act, Summary, Note) Tab returns you to Action rather than making you press it eleven times. The outline levels cycle among themselves.
Enter advances to the element that usually comes next: Character to Dialogue, Dialogue to Character, Parenthetical to Dialogue, Scene Heading to Action, Transition to Scene Heading, End of Act to New Act. Action stays on Action, and so does an outline level, because writing several beats in a row is the normal case.
Tab is always swallowed here, including inside a dual dialogue column where the next element in the ring is one that column forbids. Focus never leaves the page by accident.
When the caret is in a character cue, Skarvia offers up to five matching names from the ones already in the script. ↑ and ↓ move through them, Enter accepts the highlighted name, Esc dismisses the list, and Tab dismisses it and sets the element type as usual.
Novel
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Chapter heading | ⌘⌥1 |
| Body paragraph | ⌘⌥0 |
| Strikethrough | ⇧⌘X |
| Indent a list item, or move to the next table cell | Tab |
| Outdent, or move to the previous table cell | ⇧Tab |
Tab in a novel belongs to lists and tables. Skarvia does not put a tab character in your manuscript, and paragraph indents come from the format itself. Enter splits the current list item, or starts a new paragraph everywhere else.
Stage play and audio drama
Both formats use Tab to cycle elements and Enter to advance, in the same spirit as a screenplay. The numbers differ because the elements do:
| Stage play | Audio drama | |
|---|---|---|
| ⌘1 | Act | Scene / Episode |
| ⌘2 | Stage direction | Narration |
| ⌘3 | Character | Character |
| ⌘4 | Parenthetical | Dialogue |
| ⌘5 | Dialogue | SFX cue |
| ⌘6 | not used | Music cue |
In a play, Enter follows the running order at the head of a scene: Scene to Setting to At Rise to stage direction, then Character to Dialogue and Dialogue back to Character. In an audio drama it runs Character to Dialogue and back, and a cue hands you to Narration.
Video script
| Action | Keys |
|---|---|
| Section, Voiceover, Visual | ⌘⌥1 / ⌘⌥2 / ⌘⌥3 |
| Move across the row, or toggle VO and visual | Tab |
| Split the row where the picture changes | ⌘Enter |
| Merge this row into the one above | ⌘⌫, or ⌫ at the very start of a row |
| Merge the row below into this one | ⇧⌘⌫ |
| Move this row up or down | ⌘⇧↑ / ⌘⇧↓ |
Merging keeps the lanes honest: video joins video and audio joins audio, so the shot notes stay beside the words that cue them. Moving a row stops at a section heading rather than carrying the row into a different section.
The teleprompter has its own keys while it is open, and only while it is open: Space plays and pauses, ↑ and ↓ change speed, ← and → jump five seconds, and Esc closes it.
Shortcuts you type
Some of the fastest ones are not key combinations at all. In every format, typing
-- gives you an em dash, ... gives you an ellipsis, and straight quotes
become curly as you type.
In a screenplay, at the start of a line:
INT.,EXT.,INT/EXTorI/Emakes the line a Scene Heading and puts it in capitals for you.(inside a Dialogue line turns it into a Parenthetical.- A line in capitals ending
TO:, such asCUT TO:, becomes a Transition.
In a novel, at the start of a paragraph, - or * then a space starts a
bullet list, 1. then a space starts a numbered list, and > then a
space starts a block quote.
When your browser wants the key
A browser reserves a few combinations for itself and a web page cannot always take them back. The number shortcuts are the ones to watch: in some browsers ⌘1 through ⌘6 switch tabs. If that happens to you, nothing is broken and nothing is lost. Use Tab to cycle, or the element menu at the left of the Home tab, which lists every element with its number printed beside it.
The same applies to any extension that has claimed a combination globally. Skarvia takes the keys it is allowed to take and gives you a button for all of them, which is the general rule in Chapter 9: every shortcut in this chapter has a visible control somewhere in the ribbon.
What each element is actually for, and how a page of it is laid out and counted, belongs to Part IV, one format at a time.
Updated 2026-08-17 · Full contents · Something wrong or missing?