Structure a Long Guide

A substep is a step with a parent. Nesting is what turns "forty things to do" into "six things to do, some with detail", which is the difference between a guide people skim and one they give up on.

1. Drag the step onto the one you want it under.
2. Or right-click it and choose Change parent step, then pick the new parent.The step moves under it, indented, and is renumbered within it.

A parent gets a small triangle beside it. Click that to fold its children away while you work on something else.

Exports render substeps as substeps, so the shape you make here is the shape the reader gets.

• Within the guide: Drag a step up or down the list. Its children come with it.
• To the top level: Right-click, Change parent step, and choose [ Root ]. That is how a substep is promoted back to a step.
• To a different guide: Right-click and choose Move step to. To copy rather than move, use Reuse steps from another guide from the other side instead.

Right-click a step and choose Skip step. It stays in the list, greyed under an eye icon, and is left out of every export. Choose it again to bring the step back.

This is the right tool for a step you are unsure about, and for the steps that only apply to one audience: skip them, export, unskip, export again.

Right-click and choose Delete step, and the step leaves the list. It is not gone. A Deleted Steps button appears at the foot of the list with a count on it.

Click it to open the trash bin, tick the steps, and choose.

• Restore: Puts the steps back where they were, screenshots and annotations intact.
• Delete forever: Removes them and their screenshots for good. This is the only step in this page you cannot undo.

• One level is usually enough: A parent and its children read well. Children of children start to read like a filing system.
• Nest the optional, not the sequential: If every reader does all four, they are four steps. If most readers skip three of them, those three belong underneath.
• Give the parent a real title: It is the line someone reads when the children are folded away, and often the only one they read.