Settings
Configure your HeyDonna editor preferences in Editor Settings. Open it from Tools → Editor Settings in the editor menu bar.
The Editor Settings window has seven tabs: Display, Autocorrect, Audio, AI, Shortcuts, Spellcheck, and Snippets. Click Update to save your changes, or Cancel to discard the ones that have not been saved yet. Settings are saved to your account and follow you across devices.
Some changes save immediately, even before you click Update, and Cancel cannot undo them: autocorrect entries, custom dictionary words, ignored words, snippets (add, edit and delete), and Reset to Defaults. Everything else (Display, Audio, AI and Shortcuts changes) saves only when you click Update.
Display tab
Inaudible Marker
Choose how the Insert → Inaudible command writes an inaudible marker, for example [inaudible]. Pick Custom to type your own Custom Text.
Line Numbers
Turn Line Numbers (also labelled Show Line Numbers) on to show line numbers in the left gutter. Starting Line (or Starting Number) sets the first number, which is useful for a continued transcript. Default: off for general projects; court templates set their own numbering.
A short “Line numbers may differ in Word.” note in the Export DOCX dialog explains unsupported mixed numbering and NY Standard Deposition Errata or following acknowledgement numbering, even with matching editor spacing. It does not prevent editing or export. See View Options → Line Numbers.
Track Changes
Show Track Changes highlights insertions and deletions in the transcript. Default: off. See Track Changes.
Whitespace Markers
Show Whitespace Markers shows spaces, tabs and paragraph marks. Display Mode picks Minimal (tabs and paragraph marks) or All (every space too). Default: off, Minimal.
Pagination
Pagination (also called Pagination Mode or Show Pagination) shows page breaks, headers and footers, so the editor looks like the printed page. Turn it off for one continuous scrolling document. Default: on.
Spellcheck
Spellcheck underlines misspelled words using HeyDonna's built-in dictionary. Spelling Variant chooses the dictionary, such as US or UK English. Default: on, US English.
The Spellcheck review panel groups repeated words and case variants into one row. Use the locations selector to visit each occurrence; the displayed spelling and suggestions belong to that selected occurrence. Choosing a suggestion replaces only that occurrence, not every matching word. Checks remain case-sensitive (for example, “Monday” and “monday” can have different results). Ignore and Add to Dictionary retain their existing behavior across case variants.
Legal projects using US English also recognize a small versioned supplement: dashcam, rearview, and videoconference. Names supplied in the file's structured jobsheet or case details are recognized with their exact spelling and capitalization. Similar misspellings and generated speaker or appearance names remain checked. Changing or removing the source names updates spellcheck for that file; opening another file or changing the spelling variant rebuilds its vocabulary. This never changes transcript text or adds names to your personal lists.
Auto-Capitalize
Auto-Capitalize capitalizes the first letter after a period, a question mark, or a speaker label as you type. Default: on.
To turn autocapitalization on or off: open Tools → Editor Settings, stay on the Display tab, switch Auto-Capitalize on or off, and click Update.
The change takes effect only after you click Update. Auto-Capitalize is on the Display tab, not the Autocorrect tab.
Measurement Units
Measurement Units sets the unit, Inches (in) or Centimeters (cm), used by indent fields and the ruler. Default: inches.
Transcript Layout
For general (non-template) projects, Transcript Layout controls how speaker segments are formatted, for example inline speaker labels with or without timestamps. Changing the layout keeps your edits.
Typography
Choose the Font, Font Size and Line Height used in the editor.
Page Size and Margins
Page Size picks a paper size (or Custom). Margins offers presets or custom Top, Bottom, Left and Right values.
Court-template projects use fixed formatting (for example 25 lines per page), so the template controls typography, page size and margins.
Autocorrect tab
Autocorrect fixes known typos as you type. Default: on.
- Switch Autocorrect off to stop all automatic corrections.
- To add your own correction, enter a Source word (what you type) and the Replacement text, then add it. Adding the same source word again updates its replacement.
- Your entries take priority over the built-in list of common typos.
Autocorrect changes apply immediately.
Sentence spacing in legal transcripts
For legal projects whose active template explicitly uses two-space sentence spacing, Autocorrect adds the missing second ordinary space when you type a sentence-ending ., ? or ! before an existing space and following word, or type the first space between a terminal and a following word. It also applies to newly changed sentence boundaries in Find & Replace.
General projects and templates without the two-space policy are unchanged. Turn Autocorrect off in Tools → Editor Settings → Autocorrect to opt out. Auto-Capitalize remains independent, so you can keep two-space correction while turning capitalization off.
Existing two or more spaces, quoted endings, abbreviations and initials, decimals, ellipses, tabs, nonbreaking spaces, and Q/A or speaker-label gaps are preserved. Opening, importing, pasting, saving or reloading a transcript does not normalize its sentence spacing; untouched text stays unchanged.
DOCX export sentence spacing applies the same opt-in to the exported copy only: a legal project, an active two-space template, loaded display settings and Autocorrect explicitly on are all required. Auto-Capitalize remains independent. The editor and stored transcript stay unchanged; loading or unset settings leave export spacing unchanged without blocking export.
Autocorrect also controls double-hyphen spacing when you save. In the middle of a paragraph, missing spaces are added (a--b becomes a -- b). At the start of a paragraph, including after indentation or a Q/A tab, your typed spacing stays unchanged (--x stays --x). Existing spaces on either side are preserved, including two spaces after a colon and spaces between adjacent double-hyphen pairs.
Audio tab
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Default Volume | Playback volume when you open a transcript | 80% |
| Default Playback Speed | Speed used when opening new transcripts (0.5x to 2x) | 1x |
| Word Highlighting | Highlights each word as the audio plays | On |
| Rewind on Resume | Rewinds the audio 1, 3 or 5 seconds when you resume after a pause | Off |
| When closing Find and Replace, return to | Where the cursor lands when the Find and Replace panel closes: your pre-search cursor or the current audio position | Pre-search cursor |
| Notification Sounds | Plays a sound when long operations finish | On |
Notification Sounds
When Notification Sounds is on, set the Notification Volume (independent of your system volume, default 50%) and pick which Sound Types play:
| Sound type | Plays when |
|---|---|
| Success (proofread, format) | Proofreading or formatting finishes |
| Errors | An operation fails |
| Chat responses | Donna replies in the chat panel |
| Transcript complete | Your audio finishes transcribing |
AI tab
The AI tab has a section for each AI feature: Proofreading, Formatting, Audit, and Donna (chat). Each section has:
- Model: which AI model the feature uses.
- Temperature: lower values give more consistent results; higher values are more varied.
- Reasoning (where available): Off, Low, Medium or High extended thinking for more thorough analysis.
- Custom Instructions (Proofreading, Formatting, Audit): extra instructions added to every run.
| Feature | Default temperature |
|---|---|
| Proofreading | 0.2 |
| Formatting | 0.0 |
| Donna chat | 0.5 |
See AI Tools → Temperature Settings.
Shortcuts tab
See and customize every keyboard shortcut. Click a shortcut to record a new key combination; customized shortcuts are highlighted and can be reset to their default. See Keyboard Shortcuts.
Spellcheck tab
- Custom Dictionary: words you added to your dictionary (for example from the spellcheck menu). They are always treated as correctly spelled.
- Ignored Words: words you chose to ignore. They are treated as correct but not added to the dictionary.
Remove a word from either list to have it checked again. These changes apply immediately and cannot be undone with Cancel.
Snippets tab
Snippets are personal plain-text shortcuts. Type / in the editor followed by a snippet shortcut (for example /wu) to insert its Expansion text. Add a snippet with a new shortcut and expansion, and edit or delete existing ones from the list. Snippet changes save immediately and are not undone by Cancel.
Resetting to defaults
- Open Tools → Editor Settings
- Click Reset to Defaults
Reset to Defaults saves immediately; you do not need to click Update, and Cancel cannot undo it.
Resetting settings cannot be undone. Your current preferences will be lost.
Page Border Inset
In the template editor's Settings tab, beside Page Borders, Border Inset (pt) sets the same gap on every side. Enter a whole number from 0 to 31 and click Apply. Typing alone does not save. The setting follows the template into the transcript editor and DOCX/PDF exports; it does not turn borders on.
A blank field labelled Default preserves existing spacing (10px in the editor and 1pt in generated DOCX borders). Once you save a number, enter another number to change it; clearing it does not reset to Default. Invalid input shows an error next to the field without saving.