My other favorite part of RoughDraft is the "Pad" feature (on the right in the image above). Every file you open in RoughDraft will have a text file of the same name to accompany it. If your file is named "storyX", you will have a Rich Text file (.rtf) and a text file (.txt), both named "storyX". This links the two and allows you to keep notes linked to the open file. It's like having a notebook next to your computer for jotting down thoughts and tidbits, but keeping those notes right there beside the text they're referencing. I like to keep a running list of the names of characters in a particular scene in my pad file. I also use it to jot down word counts and writing goals. It's also an invaluable tool for keeping ideas fresh.

How many times has this happened to you: You're plugging away on one scene, but you suddenly have a flash of inspiration for a completely different scene? Ordinarily, you'd have to either switch to the other scene and write the bit while the inspiration is fresh, or write it down in a notebook and hope you can get the inspiration back when it comes time to flesh it out. With RoughDraft, you can switch to the other scene's tab, jot down the idea in the pad section, then come back to your current scene and pick up where you left off. Since it all happens in the same window, you have a much better chance of keeping your concentration and writing momentum.

There are two other handy features related to tabs - the ability to save all at once, and the ability to check your word count across all open tabs. The purple arrow in the above image points to the double floppy disk icon. Clicking the single disk icon will save only the active tab, but clicking the double will save everything you have open. Handy if you've been skipping around and writing a little bit on several different tabs. Anyone who has ever lost work due to a computer malfunction knows how important it is to save your document frequently. But, if you're like me, you'll get on a roll with a scene and forget to save it regularly. If you go to Tools in the menu bar and select "options", the first option can save your story. This is where you can enable or disable the automatic save feature.



As you can see, I have mine set to save every three minutes. I figure that is frequent enough that I won't lose anything major, but not so frequent that it will become a nuissance (saves can lag a little if you're working with several open tabs, or very long documents). You can also save with a quick keyboard shortcut - Control-S to save your active file, and Shift-Control-A to save all open tabs. 
Another time saver is RoughDraft's option to open multiple tabs at once. When you go to open your file(s) (either by clicking the file folder icon or by going to File-> Open), you can select which files to open at that time. I like to open all active files for a story, so I hit Control-A on my keyboard (to select all the files) and click the "open" button. If you want to pick and choose files, you can hold down your control key and click on the files you want, then click the "open" button.

Individual files can be closed by going to File-> Close file, hitting Control-Q on your keyboard, or right-clicking with the mouse and selecting "close file".

The other feature I use regularly is the print options. When you go to File-> Print or click the printer icon, you'll open a window that looks like this.



You see a thumbnail of how your page will look in printed format, and have several options to the right. The first thing you can select is whether or not to use a header or footer on your pages. This is a line of text that will run in the margin of your pages. Most publishers require at least page numbers, so this is where you can enable that feature. RoughDraft lets you specify whether your information will run to the left, middle or right of the page, and whether it will show as a header or a footer. As you can see in the image above, it also allows you to include a print date and word count.

The second tab allows you to set those ever-important page margins, and the third gives you a simple way to generate a professional looking cover page. If you want to print multiple files, use the File-> Print Multiple Files option. This option lets you select which files to include in your print run.

Finally, as a word count obsessed NaNoWriMo author, my favorite RoughDraft feature is the word count button. The icon of the page with a pound (#) sign on it will give you a one-click count of your active document. You can also use Control-W for the same result. If you're working with multiple open tabs, Tools-> Word Count All or Shift-Control-W will count across all the tabs.

You can find RoughDraft online at http://www.salsbury.f2s.com/rd.htm. It's not the most elegant or feature-rich, but it has everything I need to be a happy, productive writer, and I hope some of you will find it useful as well.