Vellum Help
Text Conversations
Use the Text Conversation feature to show text messages sent by characters.
Create a conversation, format each message, then configure your Style to choose how you want messages to appear in your book.
- Adding a Text Conversation
- Configuring Content
- Styling
- Keep Lines on Same Page
- Emojis
- Sideloading on Kindle
Adding a Text Conversation
To add a Text Conversation to your book, select the paragraphs you wish to format and choose the Text Conversation item from the Text Feature menu.
✨ This feature was added in Vellum 3.4. Make sure you are up-to-date.
Configuring Content
A conversation consists of any number of messages sent between characters, as well as optional names for the sender of the message. To format the conversation, you can configure the type of content for each line of text:
You can make these assignments in the Text Editor:
Note: Any Contact Name will be automatically associated with the following message.
Styling
In your book, the conversation will be styled to resemble a series of text messages:
The appearance shown above is one of several options for how messages are displayed. You can find more options in the Text Conversation section of Styles:
Keep Lines on Same Page
It’s possible for a page break to occur within the middle of a conversation. If you’d prefer this not happen, you can make use of Keep Lines on Same Page, accessible from the gear menu:
With Keep Lines on Same Page enabled, the whole conversation will stay together on the same page of your book.
Note: Keep Lines on Same Page is not supported by Kobo or Google Play. Vellum’s Preview will reflect this.
Emojis
Emojis are a natural element to include in Text Conversations. You can insert emojis into a Text Conversation (or anywhere else in your book) using the Character Viewer accessible via Edit ▸ Emoji & Symbols.
In your print edition, emojis will be rendered using the Apple Color Emoji font on your Mac.
In your ebook, readers will only be able to see emojis on devices that support them, and unfortunately not every platform is capable of displaying these symbols:
| Kindle | ☹️ | · | · |
| Apple Books | · | · | 😃 |
| Google Play | · | · | 😃 |
| Kobo | · | 😐 | · |
| Nook | ☹️ | · | · |
| * | On Kobo, emojis will appear in mobile apps, but not on e-readers |
On platforms that can’t display emojis, readers will typically see a box (☐) in place of the proper symbol.
Sideloading on Kindle
While Text Conversations will appear correctly in books purchased from Amazon, readers on Kindle may experience issues with Text Conversations in ebooks that have been sideloaded.
On Kindle Fire, some readers have reported issues with how chapters containing Text Conversations are divided into pages. The Kindle Fire can miscalculate where each page begins, leading a reader to potentially see the same message twice, or miss some messages. This only happens in books that are sideloaded: pages are calculated correctly in books purchased from Amazon.
In the Kindle app for iOS, sideloaded ebooks are displayed with extremely simple formatting. Text messages in these ebooks will be shown in a monospace font, and only with left or right alignment. The full text message styling can only be seen in ebooks purchased from Amazon.