bibisco Writing Software 5 | What’s New

Hello writers!

bibisco 5 is one of the most important evolutions in the history of bibisco.

With bibisco 5, bibisco has grown beyond the desktop.

It is now available for Linux, macOS, Windows, Android, iPhone, and iPad.

You can work on your novel from your desktop, keep your story with you on mobile, and, with bibisco Everywhere, synchronize your projects across desktop, smartphone, and tablet.

So you can pick up your story exactly where you left off, wherever you write.

As always, this evolution comes from an ongoing conversation with you: your questions, your suggestions, and the real difficulties you encounter while writing a novel.

bibisco wasn’t created to simplify writing or automate it. It was created to help writers find their way through the complexity of a story in progress.

So thank you for your emails, your feedback, and the stories you’ve shared about your writing process.

Please keep sharing your thoughts with me at andrea@bibisco.com. Your feedback is what keeps bibisco growing and evolving over time.

Let’s take a look at what’s new in bibisco 5.

bibisco on Mobile

Your novel, always with you

With bibisco 5, bibisco is no longer only a desktop writing environment.

bibisco is now available for Android, iPhone, and iPad, so you can keep your novel with you even when you are away from your computer.

The desktop app remains the place for the complete writing experience: planning, structuring, writing, revising, exporting, and managing your novel in depth.

The mobile app adds a new way to stay close to your story.

You can review a chapter from your phone, add a note when an idea arrives, check a scene from your tablet, or continue writing when you are not at your desk.

This does not replace the desktop experience. It extends it.

Your novel does not have to stay locked on your computer anymore.

bibisco Everywhere: Cloud Sync Across Your Devices

Cloud sync across desktop, smartphone, and tablet

Writing a novel often means moving between different moments, places, and devices.

You may work with full focus on your desktop, review something later from your tablet, or add an idea from your phone before it disappears.

With bibisco Everywhere, your projects stay synchronized across desktop, smartphone, and tablet, so you can pick up exactly where you left off.

No manual file transfers.

No need to wonder which version of your project is the latest one.

Your story stays updated across your devices.

bibisco Everywhere is a separate service from the Supporters Edition. The Supporters Edition gives you the full desktop experience with all advanced features, while bibisco Everywhere adds mobile access and cloud synchronization across your devices.

👉 See how bibisco Everywhere works

Alongside mobile and synchronization, bibisco 5 also introduced major improvements to the desktop writing experience.

Novel Outline

Building and revising the outline as the story takes shape

One of the most delicate moments in writing a novel is trying to give the story a shape: understanding how it is articulated, where it truly begins, where it shifts direction, and where it slows down.

Working on an outline isn’t about fixing every detail in advance. It’s about making the narrative structure visible: the relationship between parts, the progression of events, and the alternation between tension and release.

This makes it easier to tell whether a sequence works, whether a passage comes too early or too late, or whether a section of the story needs to be strengthened or lightened.

With the new Novel outline feature, bibisco allows you to create and organize parts, chapters, and scenes in a single view, without constantly moving between different sections. This makes it possible to work on the structure without breaking the flow of outlining.

You can create parts, chapters, and scenes either using the interface buttons or with the TAB and ENTER keys, allowing the structure to be built in a smooth, progressive way.

Elements can then be moved and reorganized using drag and drop, making it easy to test different structural arrangements.

Guides

Tools for understanding what’s happening in your story

bibisco 5 introduces a new Guides section, which replaces and significantly expands the previous Tips area.

Here you won’t find instructions on “how to write well” or ready-made solutions.

The Guides are designed to help you understand what is happening in your story while you’re writing it.

When a character doesn’t hold up, a plot starts to drift, or the pacing loses tension, the difficulty is often not finding a solution, but identifying what kind of problem you’re facing.

That’s what the Guides are for.

You can use them:

• as a path, if you’re starting a story from scratch and want to orient yourself around characters, conflict, and structure
• as a focused tool, by opening only the guide related to the specific issue you’re working on at that moment

The idea is that the Guides are always available during writing, as a reference you can return to whenever you need clarity.

In-depth Videos

Exploring a topic without leaving the writing process

As those who follow the newsletter know, over the past year, I’ve published many videos on the bibisco YouTube channel, covering narratology, creative writing, and the writing life.

With version 5, these videos become an integral part of bibisco.

The reason is simple: the need to clarify a concept or technique often arises while you’re writing, not before or after.

If you’re working on a flashback, a turning point, or a particularly delicate passage, the Video section already contains the relevant material, so you don’t have to leave bibisco to search for it on YouTube.

This way, you avoid distractions and can continue your writing session without breaking concentration.

Improved Mind Maps

In bibisco 5, mind maps have been improved both functionally and in terms of usability, making them an even more effective tool during the planning and development of a story.

Linking story elements

Map elements can now be directly linked to characters, locations, objects, and groups in your novel.

This helps maintain consistency between the map and the narrative elements: if you change a character’s name, for example, the update is automatically reflected in the map.

If a character (or a location, object, or group) has a profile image, that image is also shown in the mind map, making relationships easier to read at a glance.

Text notes in the map

In addition to visual connections, you can now add text notes directly within the mind map.

This makes it possible to jot down ideas, questions, or information that is still evolving, linking those notes to specific elements of your story.

Improved usability

Common actions, such as creating connections, moving elements, or zooming, have been made smoother and more natural.

New icons have also been added, allowing you to build richer and more readable maps.

You can now create multiple relationships between two elements, and naming a relationship is no longer mandatory.

Improved Main Menu

A more flexible workspace

The main menu is now collapsible, allowing you to adjust your workspace based on what you’re doing.

When you’re focused on writing, you can reduce navigation elements and give more space to the text.

When you need to move around the project, the menu is always available.

Commands have also been added to expand or collapse all menu items, making complex projects easier to manage.

Other Improvements in bibisco 5

This version also includes several refinements that come directly from everyday use of bibisco. The goal is to make your work more continuous and less fragmented, helping you stay focused on what matters most in the story.

Timeline

You can now edit an event’s date simply by clicking on it. This makes it easier to update the timeline when events move or scenes are reordered.

Labels

A new “copy from previous scene” option has been added, designed for writers working on consecutive scenes who want to maintain continuity without re-entering the same information each time.

Global search

Search and replace now works not only in the text, but also in the names of project elements such as characters, scenes, and chapters. If you decide to rename a character or a place, the entire project stays aligned without manual adjustments.

Window size and position

When you reopen bibisco, your workspace appears exactly as you left it, so you can resume writing without readjusting the window’s size or position.

Language improvements

As always, there are also updates for specific languages:

• improved handling of non-breaking spaces in French
• improved spell checker for German

Conclusion

These are the main improvements introduced with bibisco 5.

bibisco 5 brought together two important directions: a stronger desktop writing experience and a new way to keep your novel with you across devices.

On desktop, bibisco helps you structure your story, develop characters, organize scenes, work with timelines, and stay oriented while writing.

On mobile, bibisco helps you stay close to your novel when you are away from your computer. And with bibisco Everywhere, your projects can stay synchronized across desktop, smartphone, and tablet.

The goal has remained the same: helping you write your novel without losing the thread of your story.

Thank you again for your feedback, and happy writing with bibisco!

Want to use bibisco across desktop and mobile? 👉 See how bibisco Everywhere works