Categories are organizational units that contain articles and make up your worlds Table of Contents (displayed in the homepage). But they're also powerful worldbuilding tools in their own right!
Contents
Managing Categories on World Anvil
How to create a category
You can create a category from anywhere on World Anvil:
- Open the Articles & World Manager from the left sidebar.
- Click "+ Category" in the bottom left.
- Give the category a name and create it.
A newly created category does not appear in the table of contents because the category needs at least one subcategory or article to be visible.
Adding articles to categories
You can add articles to categories from the Articles & World Manager, like this:
- Open the Articles & World Manager from the left sidebar.
- The left panel has the list of categories and articles in your world:
- Click and hold on an article, then drag and drop it into a category.
You can follow the same process to add categories inside other categories. Note that an article (or category) can only be inside one category
While editing an article
While editing an article, you can change its category like this:
- Click on "Set Parent" above the article title:
- Select or search for the category.
- Click the "Move" button.
An article can only be in a single category, but categories can be inside other categories. By clicking on the name of a category, you'll be able to edit the category itself.
Unsure about which categories should you have? Check our tips for creating a great category tree!
Keep your categories small!
We recommend keeping categories at 30 articles or less, and the Articles & World Categories will not render more than 50 articles per category. If a category is getting very big, we recommend using subcategories by topic, common traits, or even alphabetical categories.
Article Management
When editing a category, you'll see an Article Management tab at the top. Click it to manage the articles within the category:
Use the + Article button at the top to quickly create a new article in this category, and the "Order by" button on the right to select the sorting method used in this category (learn more about automatic ordering).
Underneath, you'll see a list of all articles added to the category. Use the drag handles on the left to order them manually and click on the article title to edit it. Additionally, each article card also shows some useful quick data:
- Article icon: Next to the article title, click on the icon to change it.
- Visibility settings: Click on the lock or the circle to toggle between private and public and draft and published. Learn more about visibility settings.
- Tags: See the article's tags and click on it to edit them.
- Quick stats: Each article shows the number of likes, the word count, the view count, the number of comments, and the last time you edited it.
- Delete article: In the far right area of the article card there's a delete icon. Remember that deletion is final! Deleted articles can't be recovered.
Category options
When editing a category, click the gear icon in the bottom toolbar to edit category settings. Settings are divided into three sections:
- Content display: Show or hide various sections of the category page, including the custom content panels. This lets you create unique layouts to showcase your worldbuilding exactly how you want to.
- Visibility: You can edit the following four options here:
- Excerpt: This short description will be displayed when you mouse over a category link if it's displayed as a book cover.
- Display on homepage as a book-style cover: If this is enabled, the category will be prominently displayed in the homepage with the image you set as the cover. The book cover can be set by editing the category and dropping an image into the panel to the right of the page.
- Display category title on cover image: If enabled, when the category is displayed as a book cover, the category title will be displayed on the cover image.
- Grandmaster Redirect category to article: Set up a category redirect; learn more about redirects.
- Covers: Upload the book-style cover (which will be used when the category is embedded in this style) and the default article cover (which will be used by default in all articles under this category).
Finally, to make the category private or public, click the padlock icon next to its title:
Custom content & layout customization
Available to the Grandmaster subscription tier and above. Upgrade here.
The custom containers are text areas that you can move around. These areas can have any text and content you want, so they're a great place to introduce and elaborate on what people can find in that category!
Each panel in the category has a number of icons to change their position:
- and move the panel to the left or right column.
- and move the panel to the next row of panel.
- and move the panel up and down within the same row.
Delete a category
Be careful: deleting a category is irreversible—once it’s done, there’s no way to get it back.
You can also permanently delete a category on this page. Check how to delete a category for details.
Other Options for Categories
World Configuration
There are some additional options in world configuration that affect how categories are displayed in your world's homepage. To access them, click on the world name at the top of the category list and then click on the gear icon.
- Display Table of Contents: If this is enabled, the table of contents will be visible in the world homepage.
- Display Uncategorized Articles under the Table of Contents: Toggle this on to view your uncategorized articles under the table of contents.
- Table of Contents Placement: Use the right or left chevrons in the homepage edit interface to move its position.
