Outline 4D is a tool that is aimed at the fictional writer who wants an electronic system to structure their ideas into a logical order so as to get a visual view of their projects. Outline 4D allows you to outline, plan, and present your story ideas into either a standard or a timeline-based format. Its goal is to give you a way to brainstorm, create, structure and organize your ideas into one of these two layouts.
Outline 4D has the traditional vertical Outline view which you probably learned in school, but it also has a horizontal Timeline view that will give you a stronger sense of your project especially in the area of time flow. There is even a tracking feature that lets you show connections between events and characters, objects or keywords all giving a more revealing look at your project.
Outline 4D is geared toward anyone who needs to plot or chart a story in a visual manner. It will let you create printouts to present your ideas to others and it is especially useful for the creation of complex projects or stories. It is ideal for everything from short stories, screenplays, commercials, and even business plans.
So how does it work? When you start up Outline 4D and create a new document, you are presented with a number of templates. These include ones for novels, commercials, screenplays, teleplays, and more. As you become more familiar with the program, you can adapt and create templates that work with your own style of working.
As I said before, there are two views that you can look at your story. The traditional Outline view and the Timeline view. Which you work with depends on how you work, what feels most comfortable, and what you are working on.
In both views, the pieces of your story are broken up into "events". These events have optional title and content areas. In the Timeline view, the amount of text that is visible depends on the scale you are viewing. The segment of the Timeline corresponds to the length of the event. On the other hand, in the Outline view, you can see all of your text from top to bottom. You can collapse the segments and view individual events.
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