Getting started
Keel takes you from an empty folder to a typeset book. This page is the whole path: one app, one login, one series to open, one rendered PDF — about three minutes.
What you need
- Nothing to host it — the helm is a native windowed
app,
keelhelm.exe: its own window, its own icon, its own font. No terminal involved. - An internet connection to sign in — the login points at keel.pub by default. The login screen's F2 local dev mode works fully offline.
Step 1 — open the app
Double-click keelhelm.exe (or pin it to the taskbar). It
opens maximized under the k. mark, finds your login and
your novels on its own, and everything from here on happens inside the
window. Building from source instead? start-keel.ps1 is a
one-line launcher that builds first when needed
(-Rebuild after an update).
Step 2 — the editor login
The first thing Keel shows is a centered login. Admins are editors too — the MVP ships one seeded account.
logout
in the in-app console brings it back. Offline? Press F2
for local dev mode.Step 3 — a series to open
The picker that follows lists your series — local ones under
novels\, and every hosted series you belong to, marked
(yard). Series are created in the yard
(keel.pub/yard → new); the picker opens them. The
sample series, The Salt Ledger, ships with the repo: a complete
little book — one arc, three canon scenes, 24 typeset pages — plus
chapters, a paid promise, and a recorded fact: every layer populated so you
can explore before you commit words of your own.
Step 4 — the screen
Keel's shell is called the C: a strip above, a strip below, a rail on the left, and the content pane they wrap around.
Step 5 — two modes, and ? whenever you are lost
The badge top right always names the mode. In INTERACTIVE
every key drives the app; i drops you into
EDITING, where every plain key belongs to your prose;
Esc taps back out. ? (or F1) opens the built-in
manual. The essentials:
| i / Esc | into the editor (typing immediately) / back out to the app |
| ←→ · Enter | toolbar focus and activate — or just click a chip |
| Tab / ⇧Tab | step the rail lens |
| j / k, Enter | walk the map; Enter opens the selected scene to write |
| p · F5 | render the book — PDF plus in-app page images (←→ browse); p enters preview from interactive mode, F5 works anywhere |
| F11 | fullscreen |
| ^p | command palette |
| ? or F1 | help · Esc closes overlays |
| q | quit, from interactive mode (guarded against unsaved work) |
The whole surface answers the mouse too: toolbar chips, lens tabs, rail rows, codex names, worldline marks — click to select, click again to open; the wheel scrolls lists, overlays, and preview pages.
Step 6 — your first book page
Press F5. Keel typesets the whole volume through Typst —
a novella-trim trade paperback (5×8″, printable), EB Garamond, justified,
35 lines to the page —
and shows the real typeset pages inside the app, full resolution;
←→ turns them. The PDF also lands in your viewer, which reloads
on every re-render.
Where everything lives
The yard lives at keel.pub/yard — series creation, spine planning, book design, and published previews (a local copy runs at localhost:8000 via docker compose for development).
Next
Learn the shape in Hierarchy & glossary, then take the Salt Ledger walkthrough — it touches every feature once.