The library

The library is Anansi Studio's home screen. It shows every book you have added or made, and it's where you open, arrange and manage them.

What's on the library screen

From top to bottom:

• The banner for books being made, while any are being made from documents. See Following the making.
• Continue listening: the book you played most recently, with its cover, a progress bar and the time left. Tap it to carry on playing from where you stopped.
• Your books, in the view you have chosen.
• The mini player along the bottom, while a book is loaded. See The mini player.

On a wide window a sidebar runs down the left with search, the add actions, the view, grouping and sort settings, Settings and Help. On a narrow window these are in the bar at the top: the View menu, the Sort menu and the More menu (⋯). The + button adds books.

Above your books there may also be a short hint the first few times you use the library.

Hiding the sidebar

On a wide window, the small handle just right of the sidebar hides it completely (Hide sidebar), leaving only the handle. Click the handle again (Show sidebar) to bring it back. The library remembers your choice. The player has its own handle for its library pane, which works the same way but separately.

Choosing a view

There are three ways to see your books. Choose one under View in the sidebar, or from the View menu at the top on a narrow window.

Covers

A grid of cover tiles. Each tile shows the cover, the title, a progress bar and how much is left. On a wide window, the Tile size slider in the sidebar makes the tiles larger or smaller; it only appears for the covers view.

Spines

Your books stand on shelves, spine out, like a real bookcase.

• Each spine is coloured from its cover's main colour (or from its placeholder, if the book has no cover).
• The title runs down the spine, and the author too where the spine is thick enough. Long titles are cut short; point at a spine with the mouse to see the whole title.
• The cover is shown at the foot of the spine, unless you turn off Covers on spines.
• A spine's height is the book's own, and its thickness grows with the book's length.
• Progress is shown along the spine's bottom edge.

Spine height and Spine width in Settings → Appearance scale all the spines up or down. See Appearance.

List

One row per book: cover, title, progress and time left. Until you choose a view, the library uses covers where a grid fits and a list where it doesn't.

Grouping

Group by divides the library into sections, each with a heading and a count of its books:

On a wide window, Group by is in the sidebar. On a narrow window, it's in the View menu.

Sorting

Sort by sets the order of the books (within each group, if you group them):

• Recently played: the books you played most recently first, then the ones you haven't played yet, newest first.
• Title: alphabetical by title.
• Author: alphabetical by author.
• Custom: your own order (see below).

On a wide window, Sort by is in the sidebar; on a narrow window, use the Sort menu at the top.

Arranging books in your own order

Choose Custom and drag books into place, in any of the three views:

• With a mouse: drag a book and drop it where it should go.
• On a touch screen: press and hold a book first, then drag it. A quick swipe still scrolls. If you hold a book and let go without moving it, selection mode starts instead (see Selecting several books).

Dragging a book near the top or bottom of the list scrolls it. When the library is grouped, a book moves within its own group. The first time you choose Custom, it starts from the order you were already looking at, so nothing moves. Books you add later go at the end.

The view, grouping, sort order and your custom order are all remembered.

Searching

On a wide window, the search field at the top of the sidebar filters the library as you type. It looks in:

• the title, author and narrator
• the genre and the language (by its name, for example "Spanish")
• the names of the book's files
• the titles of its chapters and subchapters
• its lyrics

Clear the search with the × in the field. If nothing matches, the library says No matches.

A book's tile

Besides the cover, title and progress, a tile can show:

• Time left, or Finished for a book you have finished.
• Making… / Waiting / Paused for a book being made from a document, with how far it has got. See Making audiobooks from documents.
• Read aloud · N% for a book read by the system voice. See Books read aloud by the system voice.
• A soft glow around a book that was just made or received and that you haven't opened yet. It fades the first time you open the book.
• An upload icon when the book has edits that haven't been written into its audio file yet. See Writing changes into the audio file.
• A warning icon and File unavailable - add it again to restore when the book's audio can't be found. See Missing books.

Opening a book

Tap or click a book to open it in the player. It opens where you stopped. Continue listening opens the book and starts playing it straight away.

A book made with the system voice opens in its own read-aloud screen instead; see Books read aloud by the system voice.

A book's menu

Each tile has a ⋯ button; on a spine, right-click it. The menu offers what applies to that book:

Removing books

Choose Remove from a book's menu and confirm.

• For a book you added, the book leaves your library, but the audio file itself isn't deleted.
• For a book made from a document, the audio made for it is deleted too. The document it was made from is not.

Removing a book also forgets your place in it, its unwritten edits and its cover. If you add it again later, it starts afresh. (A book whose file has simply gone missing is different: it keeps all of these until you find the file. See Missing books.)

If you sync your devices, removing a book removes it from this device only. See Syncing your devices.

Selecting several books

Long-press a book (or press and hold with the mouse) to start selecting. The top bar then shows how many are selected, with:

• Select all / Deselect all
• Remove selected (the bin icon), which asks before removing them
• Done (×), which leaves selection mode

Tap other books to add them to the selection or take them out of it. In the Custom sort on a touch screen, holding a book picks it up to drag; let go without moving it to start selecting.

A picture behind your library

You can put a picture of your own behind the library and the player, in Settings → Appearance → Background image. The app keeps its own copy of the picture, so it stays even if the original is moved or deleted. A wash - dark in dark mode, grey in light mode - keeps your books readable over it, and the titles over a cover are white with a soft dark shadow. If the picture is busy, turn on Settings → Appearance → Blur background. See Appearance.

If your device is set to reduce transparency or to high contrast, the panels over the picture turn solid, unless you choose otherwise in Settings → Appearance → Transparency. See Keyboard shortcuts and accessibility.

Related pages

• Adding audiobooks
• The player
• Settings → Appearance