The cover designer at a glance

The cover designer is a layer-based editor built into OutaStory. You
build a cover out of a background, text, shapes and images instead of
uploading one finished picture.

Where to open it

Covers belong to step 2 Cover of the publish wizard. The wizard
runs 1 Details → 2 Cover → 3 Audio, and on the Cover step there is
a card that opens the designer at
/write/{id}/publish/cover/designer.

The designer runs on the web and in every OutaStory app. There is
nothing extra to install and nothing to enable.

If you have not published anything yet, start with
Writing your first story —
the cover step comes up on the way.

It works on drafts only

The designer opens drafts. If you ask for it on a story that is
already published, the server refuses to open it.

That is not a dead end. Editing a published story creates the next
version rather than overwriting the live one, and that next version
is a draft — so its Cover step carries the designer card like any
other draft:

1. Open /my-stories and choose Edit on the
   published story. The tooltip says "Edit (creates next version)".
2. Work through to the publish wizard and stop on Cover.
3. Open the designer, build the cover, then publish that version.

Your live story keeps the cover it has until the new version is
published.

The layer model, in plain language

Think of a cover as a stack of sheets seen from above.

• At the bottom sits the background — a colour, a gradient, an
  image you upload, or one you generate. See
  Cover backgrounds.
• On top of it sit layers: text, shapes and images, each one
  movable, resizable and rotatable on its own. See
  Text on your cover and
  Shapes and image layers.
• Layers higher in the stack cover the ones below them. Reordering
  the stack is how you decide what sits in front.

Nothing is flattened while you work, so you can come back to any
single layer later and change just that one.

Saving and coming back later

Save your design and leave whenever you like — it stays with the
draft, and reopening the designer picks up where you left off. The
designer also keeps a short history of saved versions you can
restore. Those limits, and one important thing about restoring, are
covered in
Cover limits, versions and the OutaStory mark.

Not the same as the AI cover suggestions

The Cover step also offers AI cover suggestions, which are a
separate feature from the designer. The wording on screen is
"Generate up to 3 cover suggestions per round. You have round(s)
left."

• You get 3 rounds per draft, and each round produces up to three
  suggestions.
• Suggestions cost no credits — rounds are their own quota and
  have nothing to do with your wallet balance.

Use whichever suits you. A suggestion is a finished picture you
accept or discard; the designer is where you build a cover yourself,
layer by layer.