Donna Chat

Donna is your AI assistant inside the editor. Ask her to proofread your transcript, apply formatting, look up terminology, or answer questions about your workflow. She understands natural language — just describe what you need.

Opening and Closing Donna

• Open: Click the chat icon in the toolbar, or go to Tools → Donna
• Close: Click the X in the panel, or press Escape
• Keyboard shortcut: Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+K — focus the chat input from anywhere in the editor; press Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+1 to return focus to the document

The Donna panel appears on the right side of the editor. It stays open as you edit and updates in real time as AI operations progress.

What You Can Ask

Donna understands natural language. You don't need to memorize commands — just describe what you want:

Proofreading

All proofreading changes appear as Track Changes in the editor so you can review each one individually.

Formatting (Legal projects)

Ask Donna to change a setting

In the HeyDonna app, you can ask Donna to change an allowlisted editor setting conversationally—no buttons or chips are needed. For example, ask, "Turn on Auto-Capitalize." Donna will offer the change; reply yes to confirm it. Donna then confirms the new value and where to find it under Tools → Editor Settings → Display. Say "undo" or "change it back" to restore the previous value. If you prefer, change it yourself from the same Editor Settings location.

Questions and Lookups

Donna can also answer questions about your document and workflow:

• "What speaker labels are in this document?"
• "How do I format an objection?"
• "What's the shortcut for inserting a speaker label?"
• "Look up 'voir dire'" — searches the web for selected terms

Donna's answers are contextual — she knows your project type, template, and the current state of your transcript.

Donna on View-Only Files

You can open Donna, send messages, ask questions, look up terminology, and view template rules on a file you can read but cannot edit. Ordinary chat still uses credits as usual.

Editing requests—including proofreading, formatting, text replacement, alignment changes, template-rule edits, and Transcript Review—require edit access. Without it, Donna replies in the conversation: “This file is view-only. I can answer questions, but I can't edit it.” The denied editing work does not start or reserve editing credits. Ordinary chat used to understand your request remains metered.

If edit access changes during a review, new editing work stops. Work already performed still uses credits, and a paused review requires edit access before it can resume.

During Long Operations

When proofreading or formatting is running:

• Progress messages appear in the chat panel as the document is processed
• The chat input is disabled while AI is working
• You can still edit the document while AI processing runs in the background
• Donna will notify you (and play a sound, if enabled) when the operation finishes

Choosing a Review Model

Transcript Review uses your selected Donna chat model, but not every chat model can start a new review. GPT-6 Astra is unavailable for new Transcript Reviews; it remains available for ordinary chat. If Astra is selected when you send /review, Donna shows an error at the model selector. Choose another review-capable model and send again. Donna does not switch models for you.

Existing reviews keep their originally recorded model, including GPT-6 Astra, when continued or resumed. Astra has a historical web-search continuation failure under Zero Data Retention, so an existing Astra review may still encounter that provider error. Removing Astra from new-review eligibility does not repair existing runs or change their history.

Resuming a Review

If a review is interrupted, choose Resume to continue from the first unfinished phrase. Completed phrases are excluded; an unfinished phrase is retained until its review is complete.

Sound Notifications

Donna plays a sound when long operations complete. Configure this in Settings → Audio:

• Success chime (proofreading, formatting complete)
• Error tone (if an operation fails)
• Chat response (when Donna replies)

Tips

• Describe the task in plain language — Donna understands context. "Proofread my transcript" works just as well as a formal command.
• Use proofread before manual edits — it catches bulk issues and gives you a clean baseline
• Format section by section for Legal transcripts — ask Donna to format one examination at a time for more consistent results
• Ask about shortcuts — if you can't remember a keyboard shortcut, just ask Donna in the chat
• Check the panel after exporting — Donna logs any export warnings (missing placeholders, unfilled fields) in the chat history