FusionMD — Tutorials

1 Your First Document

What you'll learn: creating a document, writing in Markdown, and exporting to PDF.

Steps

1. Launch FusionMD. The document browser opens, showing Blank and Templates.
2. Click "Blank Document." A new untitled editor window opens. The toolbar shows the mode picker set to "Markdown" (the green default).
3. Write a heading. Type # My First Document. The heading appears large and bold in real time — syntax highlighting is live.
4. Write body text. Press Return twice and write a paragraph. Notice the word count in the status bar updates as you type, and the preview pane on the right renders your text.
5. Try some formatting. Select a word and click B in the format bar to make it bold. Or type **word** directly — both work.
6. Insert a list. Press Return twice, then click the bullet-list button in the format bar. Type three items, pressing Return between each.
7. Open the live preview. Click the eye icon in the toolbar to reveal the rendered Markdown preview alongside the editor.
8. Adjust the preview split. Drag the divider between the editor and preview left or right. Drag all the way right to go full-screen editor; all the way left to see only the preview.
9. Export to PDF. Press ⌘⇧E or go to File → Export → PDF. Choose a save location. The PDF renders using your active text theme.
10. Save. Press ⌘S. FusionMD saves as .fusiondoc by default.

2 Choosing & Customizing a Text Theme

What you'll learn: applying a built-in theme, customizing fonts and colors, and locking a theme to a document.

Steps

1. Open any document.
2. Open the Tools panel. Click the panel button in the toolbar (inner-left group), or press ⌘3.
3. Go to the Markdown Styles tab in the Tools panel. You'll see a list of built-in themes.
4. Click "Novel." The preview pane immediately updates — a warm serif body font, generous line height, and book-style heading sizes appear.
5. Try "Typewriter." The monospaced font and tighter spacing give the preview a classic typewritten look. The editor background stays clean while the preview and all exports reflect the theme.
6. Try "Technical." Clean sans-serif body with code-friendly proportions — good for documentation and reference material.
7. Create a custom theme. Click the + button. A sheet opens with controls for: body font, heading font, code font, colors (body text, headings, links, background), line height, and margins.
8. Set a distinctive heading color. Click the heading color swatch, choose a deep teal. The preview updates live.
9. Name your theme and click Save. It appears at the top of the list.
10. Lock it to this document. With your custom theme selected, click "Set as Document Theme." A ✦ symbol appears. This theme now travels with the .fusiondoc file and renders identically on any Mac running FusionMD.

3 AI Polish: Rewriting Selected Text

What you'll learn: using AI to rewrite, fix, shorten, or simplify a selected passage — and reviewing the result before applying it.

Prerequisite

You need either Apple Intelligence (macOS 26, Apple Silicon, enabled in System Settings) or an OpenRouter API key in Settings → AI.

Steps

1. Select a passage in the editor — a sentence, paragraph, or any range of text. AI Polish works on whatever you have highlighted.
2. Open the Writing Coach tab in the right panel (the checkmark icon). Click the Cleanup subtab (wand-and-sparkles icon), then select AI Polish in the segmented control at the top.
3. The panel shows a preview of your selected text and four rewrite modes:
   • Polish — full professional edit: improves clarity, flow, and style while fixing all errors
   • Fix Errors — proofreading only: corrects spelling and grammar with minimum changes
   • Shorten — reduces the passage to roughly half its length while keeping all meaning
   • Simplify — rewrites in plain language with shorter sentences
4. Select a mode and click Rewrite. A progress indicator appears while the AI works.
5. Review the result. The rewritten text appears in the panel. You haven't changed your document yet — read it carefully first.
6. Click Apply to replace your selection, Discard to keep your original, or Try Again to discard and rewrite in a different mode.

4 Using the AI Prompt Bar

What you'll learn: generating content with AI, understanding context-aware prompts, and inserting AI content at a specific cursor position.

Prerequisite

You need Apple Intelligence or an OpenRouter API key. Go to Settings → AI to configure.

Steps

1. Open a blank document.
2. Locate the AI prompt bar at the bottom of the editor window — a text field with a blue Generate button.
3. Write a prompt: "Write a 300-word introduction to a report on remote work productivity, including three key statistics as bullet points."
4. Press ⌘↩ or click Generate. The bar shows "Generating…" while the AI works, then "Added to editor" when content is inserted.
5. The content appears at your cursor position — not at the end of the document. Place your cursor anywhere before generating to control where content lands.
6. Edit the content. AI output is just Markdown — select, retype, or delete any part of it normally.
7. Try an inline expansion. Write a paragraph yourself, place your cursor at the end, and prompt: "Continue with a paragraph about asynchronous communication." The AI appends at the cursor.
8. Switch to Variables mode (click "Variables" in the mode picker). The prompt bar placeholder changes. Prompt: "A consulting proposal template for a software project." The AI generates a full proposal with {{client_name}}, {{budget}}, and other variables already declared and detected in the Variables panel.

5 Templates & Variables

What you'll learn: using the built-in templates, filling variables, creating your own template, and using conditions.

Using a Built-in Template

1. From the document browser, click the Templates section and select Proposal.
2. A configuration sheet lists all required variables: {{client_name}}, {{project_title}}, {{author}}, {{date}}, and more.
3. Fill in the fields and click "Create Document." A new document opens with all variables replaced by your values.

Authoring a Template

1. Open a blank document and switch to Variables mode (click "Variables" in the mode picker).
2. Write your document using {{variable_name}} wherever values should be filled in. Example: "Dear {{recipient_name}}, I am writing on behalf of {{company_name}}."
3. Open the Variables panel (left sidebar, Variables tab). FusionMD has already detected your variables.
4. Expand a variable. Click its disclosure arrow and set a label, type (Text, Date, Number, or List), required toggle, and placeholder text. Dates get a date picker; lists get a dropdown — this is enforced when the template is filled.
5. Add a condition. Click the Conditions tab and add a toggle condition, for example include_signature. Wrap an optional section in your document with a conditional block. One template can now cover both the full and short version of a document.
6. Save as template. Click "Save as Template…". The file saves as .fusiontemplate and can be shared with your team.
7. Open your template. Double-click the .fusiontemplate file. The variable configuration sheet appears. Required fields are enforced — you cannot create the document without completing them.

6 Proofreading & Style Analysis

What you'll learn: using the Proofreader, Style & Clarity, and the Language subtab inside the Writing Coach panel.

Steps

1. Open any document with several paragraphs of prose.
2. Open the right panel (⌘2) and click the Writing Coach tab (the checkmark icon).
3. Set document language. Click the Language subtab (globe icon). Select your document's language (e.g., English — United Kingdom). This drives spell checking, smart-quote style, and the dialogue checker simultaneously. Hover any subtab icon to see its name in the tooltip.
4. Switch to the Proofreader. Click the Proofread subtab (checkmark circle icon). It scans the document and lists issues grouped into categories: unfilled placeholders, repeated phrases, unmatched punctuation, long sentences (>40 words), capitalization errors, and word-usage mistakes ("alot", "could of").
5. Click an issue. FusionMD highlights the relevant text in the editor. If the issue is auto-correctable, a Fix button appears — click it to apply the correction.
6. Filter by category. Use the chips at the top of the list to show only one category at a time (e.g., "Long sentences").
7. Switch to Style & Clarity. Click the Style subtab. You'll see: Flesch-Kincaid reading ease score, estimated grade level, average sentence length, and highlight mode buttons — Adjectives (green), Adverbs (teal), Passive Voice (purple), Filler Words (amber).
8. Enable Adverbs highlight. All adverbs highlight teal. Decide which ones earn their place and which are padding.
9. Enable Passive Voice highlight. Purple highlights show sentences where the grammatical subject is not the actor. Revise toward active constructions where it improves clarity.

7 The Boilerplate Library

What you'll learn: saving reusable Markdown blocks, organizing them by category, and inserting them into any document.

Steps

1. Open a document containing text you reuse frequently — a legal disclaimer, a standard bio, an email sign-off.
2. Select that text in the editor.
3. Save as boilerplate. In the left sidebar, click the Boilerplate tab. Click "Save Selection as Block." Enter a name (e.g., "Privacy Policy Footer") and an optional category (e.g., "Legal"). Click Save.
4. See it in the library. Your block appears under the category you chose.
5. Insert it elsewhere. Open a different document. Open the Boilerplate panel, find your block, and click Insert. The Markdown is pasted at the cursor — exactly the text you saved.
6. Create a few more blocks in different categories. Blocks are organized alphabetically within category groups; "Other" is always last.
7. Edit a block. Control-click any block (or two-finger click on a trackpad) → Edit. The next insertion uses the updated version.

8 Exporting for Professional Layout (IDML)

What you'll learn: using Layout Styles to tag paragraphs and spans with named styles, and exporting to IDML for Affinity or Adobe InDesign.

Steps

1. Open a multi-section document (article, report, newsletter content) in Markdown, Variables, or Design mode. Layout Styles works best with structured writing.
2. Open the Layout Styles panel. Click the inner-right sidebar icon in the toolbar (⌘4). It shows two sections: Paragraph Styles and Character Styles.
3. Add paragraph styles. Click "Add Paragraph Style". Add: "Body Text", "Chapter Title", "Pull Quote", "Byline".
4. Tag a paragraph. Place your cursor in a paragraph. In the panel, click "Body Text". FusionMD inserts :::Body Text before and ::: after the paragraph — marking it with that style name. Toggle "Hide style markers" for a cleaner view.
5. Tag an inline span. Select a word in the editor. In the Character Styles section, click a style name to wrap it in the inline syntax.
6. Faster: let AI tag it for you. If you're pasting in AI-drafted content, see Tutorial 10: Text Transformations — the "Tags → Paragraph Styles" ruleset (and the automatic detection banner) convert bracket-tagged content like [PULLQUOTE]...[/PULLQUOTE] straight into these same fences, in bulk.
7. Export to IDML. Click File ▸ Export…, choose IDML (.idml) — Layout Styles, and save.
8. Open in Affinity or InDesign. Your content appears with its style names in the Paragraph Styles panel, pre-tagged, ready to assign visual appearance (font, size, color).

9 Writing a Screenplay

What you'll learn: switching to Script mode, using the Fountain format bar, navigating scenes, and exporting a screenplay PDF.

Steps

1. Create a new document. In the mode picker, click "Script." The editor transforms: Courier New 12pt appears, the left panel shows the Scene Navigator, and the format bar gains screenplay-specific buttons.
2. Insert a title page. In format bar Row 2, click "Title Page." A Fountain title block is inserted. Edit the title and author fields.
3. Add a scene heading. In Row 1, click "Scene." The snippet INT. LOCATION – DAY is inserted and highlighted purple — ready to edit.
4. Write an action line. Click "Action" and describe what happens in the scene.
5. Add a character cue. Click "Character" and type your character's name in ALL CAPS (Fountain standard).
6. Write dialogue. Click "Dialogue" and type the character's lines. The preview renders them in the screenplay-standard indented position.
7. Add a parenthetical. Click "Parenthetical" and insert a wryliner like (sarcastically) between the cue and dialogue.
8. Add a second scene. Click "Scene" again. Notice the Scene Navigator on the left — your new scene appears as a clickable entry for instant navigation.
9. Add a transition. Click "Transition" and insert CUT TO: between scenes.
10. Check statistics. Click the statistics button in the toolbar to see page count, scene count, and word count.
11. Export PDF. File → Export → PDF. The output is a properly formatted screenplay: correct margins, 12pt Courier, scene headings in caps, dialogue properly indented.

10 Text Transformations

What you'll learn: applying built-in transformation rulesets, converting AI-tagged content into Fusion styles, picking a tag convention without writing regex, and creating a fully custom ruleset.

Steps

1. Open a document that was pasted in from another source, or drafted with an AI assistant — often these have smart/dumb quote inconsistencies, AI preamble text, or inline bracket tags.
2. Open Text Transformations. Go to Edit → Text Transformations (⌘⌥T).
3. Try "Clean Up Markdown" from the BUILT-IN list. Click "Apply to Document." It normalizes line endings, tabs, and repeated spaces, converts smart quotes to straight ones, and collapses stray blank lines. FusionMD reports how many changes were made.
4. Try "Clean AI Output" — strips common preambles a chatbot adds before the actual content ("Certainly! Here's...", "As an AI...", "Note that...") along with excess blank lines.
5. Convert AI-drafted tags into Fusion styles. If your document has bracket-tagged content like [PULLQUOTE]A memorable line.[/PULLQUOTE], select "Tags → Paragraph Styles" and apply — it becomes a :::PULLQUOTE fence, ready for the Layout Styles panel and IDML export (see Tutorial 8). For a single tag wrapping inline text rather than a whole paragraph, use "Tags → Character Styles" instead.
6. Or let FusionMD spot it for you. Type or paste bracket-tagged content directly into the editor and a banner appears above the text — "N AI tag(s) detected — Convert to Fusion styles" — with a one-click Convert button. Dismiss it with the × if you're intentionally using literal brackets in your prose; it won't nag again until the tag count actually changes.
7. Use a different tag convention. Not every AI or workflow uses square brackets. Click the "New Ruleset from Convention…" icon at the bottom of the ruleset list to open the shape picker: BBCode Brackets [NAME]...[/NAME], HTML Tag <NAME>...</NAME>, WordPress Shortcode, Mustache Section {{#NAME}}...{{/NAME}}, or Paragraph Marker — a single open marker with no closing tag needed, perfect for a quick caption like [PIC] Photo of the coastline at sunset, converted the moment it hits a blank line. Pick a shape and FusionMD generates working, fully editable rules — no regex required.
8. Or define your own shape. In the same picker, click "New Custom Shape…" and set your own open/close delimiters (or "no closing tag") and the pattern your tag names follow. It's saved alongside your other custom shapes for next time.
9. Create a fully custom ruleset from scratch. Click + in the ruleset list instead, name it, then click "Add Rule" and set Find: \bvery\b (regex), Replace: (leave empty) — a classic style edit that removes "very" from the document.

11 Parts of Speech Analyzer

What you'll learn: color-coding your text by grammatical category, using the panel to analyze prose patterns, and working across languages.

What it does

The Parts of Speech panel identifies every word by its grammatical role and highlights each category in a distinct color — live, non-destructively, in any language Apple's Natural Language framework supports. All analysis runs on-device; no internet connection required.

Steps

1. Open a document with at least a few paragraphs of prose.
2. Open the right panel (⌘2) and click the Parts of Speech tab (the tag icon).
3. Watch the highlights appear. All eight categories are on by default. Your document text is unchanged — highlights are a visual overlay only.
4. Toggle categories. Click any row to enable or disable that category. Try turning off everything except Adverbs (purple) for a focused editing pass.
5. Use "None" then selectively re-enable. Click None at the bottom to clear all highlights, then tap individual categories to switch them on one at a time.
6. Check the counts. Each row shows how many times that category appears. Total tagged-word count appears at the bottom.
7. Try a practical editing pass:
   • Enable only Adjectives (amber). Does each amber word add meaning, or does the noun carry it alone?
   • Enable only Adverbs (purple). Consider replacing verb-adverb pairs with a single stronger verb ("walked slowly" → "shuffled").
   • Enable Verbs and Nouns together. Well-written action prose is mostly green and blue.
8. Switch document language. Open the Grammar tab and change the language to French, then return to the Parts of Speech tab. The analysis updates using French grammar models.
9. Explain a word with AI. Select any single word. At the bottom of the panel, the Explain section appears. Click "Explain with AI" (sparkles button). In 2–3 sentences the AI explains why that word functions as that part of speech in this specific sentence. Requires Apple Intelligence or an OpenRouter API key.

12 Settings & Customizing Your Environment

What you'll learn: the six settings tabs and how to set up FusionMD the way you want it.

Quick Tour of Settings (⌘,)

Appearance

Choose from 19 interface color themes — from clean minimal options like Stone and Slate to vibrant accents like Ocean, Rust, and Sage. The selected theme applies to the app chrome: toolbar, sidebars, and panels. Enable Contrast Boost for enhanced text contrast throughout the interface.

Editor

Drag the font size slider (8–28pt) — the editor updates live. Adjust line height and paragraph spacing. Toggle Typewriter Mode, Focus Mode (line dimming), Show Invisibles, and Soft Wrap. Disable Spell Check for code-heavy documents where Apple's checker is intrusive.

Export

Set your default export format. See Pandoc status — if not installed, click the install guidance button. Set paper size for PDF export: Letter, A4, or Legal.

Accessibility

Reduce Motion disables animated transitions. Font Size Multiplier scales all UI text up. High Contrast Mode enforces higher contrast ratios throughout the UI.

AI

Paste your OpenRouter API key and select your preferred AI provider. Use Apple Intelligence for fully on-device generation (macOS 26, Apple Silicon required). The trial status and purchase link are also shown here.

About

App version, build, and license status. Links to the website, documentation, and the feedback issue tracker.

13 Writing Coach: Spelling, Grammar & Vocabulary

What you'll learn: using the Spelling panel to fix misspellings in one click, the Grammar panel to understand and resolve grammar issues, and the Vocabulary tab to look up synonyms, definitions, and spot overused words.

The Writing Coach is the collection of eight analysis tools inside the Writing Coach tab in the right panel: Spelling, Grammar, Proofread, Style, Vocabulary, Language, Dialogue, and Cleanup. This tutorial covers Spelling, Grammar, and Vocabulary.

Part 1 — Spell Check

1. Open any document (or paste a paragraph with a few deliberate misspellings).
2. Open the right panel (⌘2) and click the Writing Coach tab (checkmark icon). The eight subtab icons appear in a scrollable row. Hover any icon to see its name.
3. Click the Spelling subtab (cursor icon). FusionMD scans the document and lists every misspelled word.
4. Review the list. Each entry shows the word in context. Below each word, suggestion chips display up to five alternative spellings.
5. Click a suggestion chip. The misspelled word is replaced in the document instantly. The list updates and the corrected word disappears.
6. Repeat until the list is empty. If a word is correctly spelled but unfamiliar to the dictionary (a proper noun, technical term), simply ignore it — the list does not modify your text unless you click a chip.

Part 2 — Grammar Analysis

1. Still inside the Writing Coach tab, click the Grammar subtab (checkmark badge icon).
2. FusionMD lists grammar issues found by the macOS grammar engine. Each issue shows a plain-English description ("Agreement — verb does not agree with subject", "Fragment — consider revising") along with the surrounding text for context.
3. Where macOS suggests a correction, a clickable button shows the proposed fix. Click it to apply directly.
4. Where no automatic fix is available, the description helps you understand what to revise. Click the issue to scroll the editor to that location.
5. Edit yourself if the automatic correction isn't quite right — the grammar panel is advisory, not prescriptive.

Part 3 — Thesaurus, Dictionary & Overused Words

1. Click the Vocabulary subtab (books icon). Three sections appear: Thesaurus, Dictionary, and Overused Words.
2. Select a word in the editor. Both the Thesaurus and Dictionary sections populate automatically — no search button needed.
3. In the Thesaurus section, synonyms, antonyms, and related terms appear as chips. Click any chip to replace the selected word in the document immediately.
4. In the Dictionary section, the full entry loads: phonetic pronunciation, part of speech, definitions, and example sentences. The dictionary is language-aware — it uses your document's language setting.
5. Select a different word. Both sections update instantly.
6. Scroll to Overused Words. This analysis runs on the full document without requiring a selection. It shows content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) that appear three or more times. A word recurring frequently is not always a problem — "character" in a story is fine. The list highlights candidates for review. Select a listed word and the Thesaurus suggests alternatives.

The other two subtabs

• Dialogue (speech bubble icon) — analyses dialogue in fiction. Detects dialogue-heavy passages, checks for balanced attribution ("said" vs more colourful verbs), and flags long unbroken dialogue runs without action beats. Most useful in Script mode and in fiction documents.
• Cleanup (wand-and-sparkles icon) — runs configurable text-transformation rules across the document. Built-in rulesets include Whitespace Cleanup (normalises spacing), Smart Quotes (converts straight quotes to curly), and Em Dash Spacing. You can add custom find-and-replace rules. The AI Polish option rewrites selected text using the active AI model.

14 Document Metadata & Cover Image

What you'll learn: setting your document's title, author, description, language, and cover image in the Metadata panel — the fields ePub3 export and distributors need.

Steps

1. Open a document. Open the left panel (⌘1) and click the Metadata tab — it's the default tab on a brand-new document.
2. Set the Title. By default this matches the document title FusionMD uses in the browser. Edit it here to set the published title independently of the filename.
3. Set the Author. Type your name exactly as you want it to appear in the ePub file and in Apple Books.
4. Add a Description. Write one to three sentences that describe the book. This appears in the ePub's metadata and in ebook store listings when you upload the file.
5. Set the Language. The language picker here mirrors the document language setting. Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian set the reading direction to right-to-left automatically in every export.
6. Attach a Cover Image. Click "Choose Cover Image…" and select a JPEG or PNG. FusionMD stores it with the document and embeds it in every ePub3 export. The recommended size is 1600 × 2560 px.
7. Verify. All fields are optional individually, but a complete set — title, author, description, language, and cover — is required by most ebook distributors before they will accept an upload.

15 Building & Aligning Tables

What you'll learn: inserting a Markdown table with the Tables panel, keeping raw column padding tidy, and setting per-column alignment.

Inserting a Table

1. Open the Tools panel (⌘3, inner-left) — it opens to the Tables tab by default.
2. Set Columns and Rows with the steppers (1–10 columns, 1–30 rows).
3. Set Cell Width (3–30, default 10) — this only controls how many blank characters pad each empty cell in the raw Markdown, so wider cells hold more typed text before a row visually outgrows the others in the source. It has no effect on the rendered table either way.
4. Choose header alignment — Left, Centre, or Right — for the table you're about to insert.
5. Toggle column labels if you want the header row pre-filled with "Column 1," "Column 2," etc. instead of blank cells.
6. Check the live preview at the bottom of the panel, then click "Insert Table." A GFM pipe table is inserted at your cursor.

Keeping a Table Tidy

Typing into a table's raw Markdown cells doesn't automatically re-pad the surrounding pipes — column padding is cosmetic only (GFM trims whitespace when rendering regardless), so FusionMD never realigns automatically while you type, which would otherwise fight your cursor position.

1. Place your cursor inside a table that's grown ragged from editing.
2. Click "Tidy Table" in the Tools panel to realign just that table's column padding.
3. Click "Tidy All Tables" instead to realign every table in the document in one pass.

Aligning a Column

1. Place your cursor in any cell of the column you want to align — header, separator, or body row all work.
2. Click Left, Centre, or Right under "Align Current Column." FusionMD updates that column's separator-row markup immediately.
3. These buttons only work on an already-inserted table your cursor is inside — they're greyed out otherwise, and they're independent of the Insert Table alignment picker, which only sets the default for the next new table.

16 Exporting an ePub3 Ebook

What you'll learn: preparing a document for ePub export, choosing the right text theme, and producing a distribution-ready ePub3 file.

Before you export

A well-structured Markdown document exports a well-structured ebook. Use heading levels consistently — # Chapter One, ## Section — because FusionMD turns each heading into a chapter entry in the ePub's table of contents.

Steps

1. Complete the Metadata panel. See Tutorial 14. At minimum set Title, Author, and Language. Attach a cover image if you have one — it is embedded automatically.
2. Choose a text theme. Open the Markdown Styles tab in the Tools panel (left, ⌘3). For fiction and narrative prose, select the ePub Book theme — it applies serif body type, first-line paragraph indents, and generous line height. For technical writing, Technical works well. The theme controls how the ebook renders in Apple Books and other readers.
3. Preview the output. The live web preview panel (drag the divider left to widen it) shows a close approximation of what the ebook will look like.
4. Export. Go to File → Export… → ePub3, or press ⌘⇧E and choose ePub3 from the format picker. Choose a save location.
5. Open in Apple Books. Double-click the .epub file. Apple Books opens it. Check the cover, chapter list, text rendering, and any embedded images.
6. Check for large files. If the document contains many embedded images or video, FusionMD warns you before export if the combined file size exceeds 50 MB — Apple Books and most distributors have practical limits on file size.
7. Distribute. Upload the .epub file to Apple Books Connect, Draft2Digital, Kobo, Smashwords, or any ePub-accepting retailer.

17 Translating a Document

What you'll learn: translating an entire document into another language and opening the result in a new window, and translating a selected passage in-place.

Prerequisite

Translation requires macOS 15 Sequoia or later. Language packs are downloaded once from Apple on first use; subsequent translations run entirely on-device with no internet connection required.

Part 1 — Translate a full document to a new window

1. Open a document you want to translate — the original will not be changed.
2. Open the right panel (⌘2) and click the Translation tab (the translate icon).
3. Set the target language. The "From" language is detected from your document's language setting. Click the "To" picker and choose your target — for example, Français (France).
4. Click "Translate to New Document." If the required language pack is not yet downloaded, macOS shows a one-time download prompt. After accepting, translation begins automatically.
5. FusionMD translates the document paragraph by paragraph, preserving all paragraph breaks and Markdown structure. YAML front matter (title, author, date) is passed through untranslated.
6. Review the result. A new document window opens with the translated text. The original document is untouched. Both windows are independent — save, export, or discard the translation as needed.
7. Set the new document's language. The translated document's language is automatically set to the target language, so spell checking and smart quotes update accordingly.

Part 2 — Translate a selection in-place

1. Select any passage in the editor — a sentence, a paragraph, or a heading.
2. Open the Translation panel and confirm the target language.
3. Click "Translate Selection." The selected text is replaced with the translation immediately. Use ⌘Z to undo if needed.

18 Publishing on Apple Books & Amazon KDP

What you'll learn: preparing a professional ebook in FusionMD, meeting the exact technical requirements for Apple Books and Amazon Kindle, publishing on both platforms, and using FusionMD's translation feature to publish foreign-language editions.

This is a complete follow-along walkthrough. By the end you will have a finished ebook live on both Apple Books and Amazon KDP. Work through each part in order — they build on each other.

Part 1 — Structure your manuscript

1. Use # Chapter Title for main chapters — each becomes a top-level table-of-contents entry. Use ## Section for subsections. Do not skip heading levels.
2. Add a title page as your very first content:
   # Your Book Title
## Subtitle
*by Your Name*
3. Body images: JPEG for photos, PNG for diagrams. Maximum 1200 px wide, under 1 MB each, keep total embedded media under 40 MB. Drag images directly into the editor to embed them.

Part 2 — Cover image specifications

Use a single file for both: 1600 × 2560 px JPEG, RGB, under 4 MB. Create it in Canva (search "Kindle ebook cover" for a pre-sized template), Apple Keynote, or commission a designer with that brief.

Part 3 — Metadata panel in FusionMD

1. Open the left panel (⌘1) → Metadata tab.
2. Title — exactly as it should appear in stores, in title case.
3. Author — your full name or pen name.
4. Description — 150–300 words of store listing copy. Hook in the first sentence; end with a call to action. Amazon allows HTML formatting in descriptions; you can add that later in KDP's dashboard.
5. Language — match the manuscript language. This sets the correct ePub reading direction (right-to-left for Arabic, Hebrew, etc.).
6. Cover image — click "Choose Cover Image…" and select your 1600 × 2560 px JPEG. It embeds automatically in every ePub3 export.

Part 4 — Export and test

1. In the Tools panel (left, ⌘3) → Markdown Styles, select the ePub Book theme (serif body, first-line indents, generous line height).
2. File → Export… → ePub3 (or ⌘⇧E). Name the file: your-book-title.epub.
3. Test in Apple Books: double-click the .epub file. Check the cover, table of contents, body text, and all images. Fix anything in FusionMD and re-export before uploading.

Part 5 — Publish on Apple Books Connect

1. Go to authors.apple.com and sign in with your Apple ID.
2. Click "Add a New Book." Enter title, author, description, category (up to two), and language.
3. Upload the cover (1600 × 2560 px JPEG) as the store thumbnail.
4. Upload the ePub file. Apple validates it automatically — errors include reference numbers. Fix in FusionMD and re-upload if needed.
5. Set territories and pricing. Apple uses price tiers; set your tier and it prices in each currency automatically. Free books are allowed.
6. Submit. Apple reviews within 24–72 hours and emails you when it's live.
7. Full guidelines: support.apple.com/en-us/101662

Part 6 — Publish on Amazon KDP

1. Go to kdp.amazon.com and sign in with your Amazon account.
2. Click "+ Kindle eBook."
3. Page 1 — Details: language, title, author, description, keywords (up to 7), and categories (up to 2 BISAC categories).
4. Page 2 — Content: skip the ISBN (Amazon assigns a free ASIN). Upload your .epub file. Upload your cover JPEG separately. Click "Preview on Kindle" — verify chapter navigation and images on a Kindle screen.
5. Page 3 — Pricing: skip KDP Select for now (it requires 90-day Amazon exclusivity, preventing Apple Books sales). Choose "Worldwide rights." For 70% royalty, price between $2.99 and $9.99. Amazon calculates international prices automatically.
6. Publish. Amazon reviews within 24–72 hours.
7. ePub submission guide: kdp.amazon.com — ePub guidelines

Part 7 — Translate and publish foreign-language editions

Each translated edition is a separate, independent book listing that earns alongside the original. The five highest-value ebook markets after English are Spanish, German, French, Portuguese (Brazil), and Japanese.

1. In FusionMD, open the Translation panel → set target language → click "Translate to New Document." The original is untouched. Requires macOS 15+.
2. Review the translation — check proper nouns, idiomatic expressions, and dialogue tone. Machine translation handles narrative prose well; idioms and character voice may need adjustment.
3. Update the Metadata panel in the new document: confirm the language is set correctly, translate the description, and optionally create a cover with the title in the target language.
4. Export as your-book-title-es.epub (or whatever language code fits).
5. Create a new book listing on both Apple Books Connect and Amazon KDP. It is a separate book. Set the Language field to match — Amazon uses this to direct the listing to the correct regional stores.

19 Automating FusionMD with AppleScript

What you'll learn: reading FusionMD's scripting dictionary in Script Editor, and writing a script that sets a document's editor mode and contents and saves it.

Open the dictionary

1. Open Script Editor (Applications → Utilities → Script Editor).
2. File → Open Dictionary… and choose FusionMD from the list of running or installed applications.
3. The dictionary window shows two suites: Standard Suite (open, close, save, quit, get, set — the commands every scriptable Mac app shares) and FusionMD Suite, which adds one FusionMD-specific term: a document's editor mode.

A first script

This script requires at least one document already open in FusionMD. Open one first, then run the script below from Script Editor (▶ button, or ⌘R):

tell application "FusionMD"
	activate
	if (count of documents) is 0 then
		display dialog "Open a document in FusionMD first, then run this script."
		return
	end if
	tell document 1
		set editor mode to "variables"
		set contents to "# Weekly Report" & return & return & "Generated by AppleScript on " & (current date as string)
		save
	end tell
end tell

This switches the front document to Variables mode, replaces its Markdown source with a generated heading and timestamp, and saves it — all without touching the keyboard once the script runs.

Reading a document back out

contents is readable as well as writable, so a script can pull a document's Markdown source into another workflow instead of writing into it:

tell application "FusionMD"
	set docText to contents of document 1
	set docMode to editor mode of document 1
end tell

The editor mode property

editor mode accepts four values, matching the mode picker in the toolbar: markdown, variables, design, and script. Setting it switches the document's mode exactly as if you'd clicked the picker yourself — useful for a script that, say, drops a document into Script mode before pulling out Fountain-formatted scene text.

Beyond Script Editor

• Automator — add a "Run AppleScript" action to any workflow and paste the script body inside the provided on run handler.
• Shortcuts — the "Run AppleScript" action runs the same code from a Shortcut, so FusionMD automation can sit in a larger Shortcuts pipeline or run from Siri.
• Terminal — a single line works for quick checks, for example:

osascript -e 'tell application "FusionMD" to get contents of document 1'