Signing In

The first step to using Inkwell is to sign in. Go to inkwell.net and click Get Started — or, if you are already on a page with the sign-in box, use the box directly. There is no separate "create an account" step: signing in for the first time creates your account.

Two ways to sign in

With Google. Click Get Started or Sign In with Google to use an existing Google account. Nothing else is needed — you are signed in immediately.

With an email address. Type your address into the box and click Get Started or Sign In. Inkwell does not use passwords; instead it emails you a one-time sign-in link.

Open the email and click Sign In. If the button does not work in your mail client, the same link is printed underneath so you can copy and paste it.

Each link can only be used once. If you sign in again, or on a different computer, just enter your address again to get a fresh link. Re-using an old link shows a message asking you to request a new one.

Either one reaches the same account. The two methods are interchangeable so long as the address is the same — sign in with Google one day and the email link the next, and you land in the same place with the same projects.

What matters is the address itself. Inkwell has no way to know that two different addresses belong to the same person, so signing in with a second one gives you a second, empty account rather than your projects. If your projects are not where you expect them, that is almost always the reason: sign out and sign back in with the address you first used.

The first time you sign in, Inkwell asks for your name and whether you would like the newsletter, then takes you to your projects.

Finding your way around

Once you are signed in you land on your list of projects. Two things are worth knowing straight away:

• A short guided tour starts automatically the first time you see the projects list, again the first time you open the editor, and once more the first time you open the Users panel. You can leave any of them at any point with Skip. To replay them, use Take the tour in the account menu — it appears there while you are on your projects list or inside a project, replays whichever tour belongs to the page you are on, and arms the Users one again for the next time you open that panel.
• The left rail inside a project has a Tutorial button, which opens this tutorial in a new tab, and a Provide Feedback button for reporting problems.

Light and dark

The sun/moon button in the header switches between the light and dark themes. It works on every page of the site, including this tutorial, and your choice is remembered on that browser — pages you open later come up in the theme you picked rather than flashing white first. If you have never touched the button, Inkwell follows whatever your operating system is set to.