Ulysses distinguishes between writing and formatting the text during export to provide a distraction-free environment. This means that you need to customize the export style to change the appearance of your exported file.

Here's how to customize an export style:

1. Go to the menu Ulysses and select Settings…
2. Switch to Styles and choose a style from the PDF/DOCX section, e.g., Swiss Knife
3. Right-click on the stylesheet and select Duplicate
4. Right-click the duplicated stylesheet and select Edit in
5. Select an editor of your choice, e.g., TextEdit or TextMate
6. From the list below, choose what you want to adjust in your export style to see the next step:  
   
   

   Insert Page Breaks

   There are two ways to achieve page breaks:

   Use Divider Tag

   To manually insert page breaks, you can use the Divider tag ----. Some export styles, like “Swiss Knife,” will then insert a page break when exporting. However, for styles like Papers, you’ll need to modify the style sheet for this to work. 
   
   To do this, locate paragraph-divider in the style sheet and adjust it as follows:

   paragraph-divider 
                   	page-break: after
                   }

   Use Automatic Rules

   You can also set up automatic rules so that, for example, every level 2 heading is preceded by a page break. To do this, find heading-2 in the style sheet and add the line page-break: before as shown here:

   heading-2 
                   	font-size:     24pt
                   	line-height:   28pt
                   	margin-top:    7mm
                   	margin-bottom: 5mm
                   	page-break:    before
                   }

    

    

   Add Margins

   A common style for novels is to start a new chapter in the lower half of the page. This can be done by adjusting the margins.

   Locate the heading where you want to add a margin and set margin-top to your desired size:

   heading-1 {
                   	font-size:				32pt
                   	font-weight:			bold
                   	line-height:			2em
                   	margin-top:				300pt
                   	margin-bottom:			30pt
                   }

   

    

    

   First Line Indent

   To indent the first line of the first paragraph, find or add the selector paragraph and adjust the first-line-indent. Here is an example:

   paragraph {
                   first-line-indent: 5pt
                   }

   

   
   You can also indent the first line of a paragraph, except for the first paragraph. To do so, find or add the selector paragraph + paragraph and adjust the first-line-indent. Here is an example:

   paragraph + paragraph {
                   first-line-indent: 5pt
                   }

   

    

    

   Typography

   To adjust the default typography, find the selector defaults and change the name of font-family. Here is an example:

   defaults {
                                   	font-family: "Optima"
                                   	font-size: 12pt
                                   	line-height: 24pt
                                   	text-alignment: justified
                                   	hyphenation: yes
                                   }

    

   

   You can also change the font family of other selectors such as headings or footnotes. In this case, find the specific selector (for example heading-1) and adjust the font to your liking.

    

    

    

   Font Size

   To adjust the default font size, find the selector defaults and adjust the value of font-size. Here is an example:

   defaults {
                                   font-family: "Avenir Next"
                                   font-size: 14pt
                                   line-height: 28pt
                                   text-alignment: justified
                                   hyphenation: yes
                                   }

    

   

   
   You can also change the font size of all selectors, such as headings or footnotes. In this case, find the specific selector (for example heading-1) and adjust it to your liking.

   You may also want to adjust the line height accordingly when you adjust the font size. This will make the result look proportional.

    

    

    

   Text Alignment

   Paragraph Text

   To define the horizontal alignment of a paragraph’s text, find the selector defaults and add or change text-alignment to left, right, center, justified or auto. Here is an example:

   defaults {
                                   font-family: "Avenir Next"
                                   font-size: 12pt
                                   line-height: 24pt
                                   text-alignment: left
                                   hyphenation: yes
                                   }

   

   
   Headings

   To adjust the text-alignment of your headings, please find the selector heading-all:

   heading-all {
                                   line-height: 100%
                                   keep-with-following: true
                                   text-alignment: center
                                   }

   

    

   Images & Equations

   In Ulysses, images and equations are categorized as figures. To adjust their text-alignment , navigate to the selector paragraph-figure (found under Paragraph styles) and modify the text-alignment  to left, center, or right. Here's an example:

   paragraph-figure {
                   margin-top: 20pt
                   margin-bottom: 10pt
                   text-alignment: left
                   }

   

   Please be aware that any adjustments made to the paragraph-figure setting will affect all images and equations throughout the document. Also, if you have captions, you'll need to set the text alignment for figure-caption accordingly.

    

    

    

   Footnote Placement

   To adjust the placement of your footnotes, find the selector document-settings and change the footnote-placement variable to end-of-document, end-of-section or end-of-page. Here is an example:

   document-settings {
                                   footnote-enumeration:  per-section
                                   footnote-placement:    end-of-document
                                   footnote-style:        decimal
                                   }

    

   

    

    

   Custom Header/Footer

   In Ulysses, you can only add the top-level heading or page number to your header or footer. However, a workaround allows you to display customized text in the header or footer of your document.

   Find the selector document-settings and add the following text:

   page-number-format: "Individual Text / %p";
                                   page-number-style: decimal;

   
   

   
   Replace the “Individual Text” placeholder with a text of your choice, e.g., the author's name and/or the book title. In case you don’t want your document to contain page numbers, delete %p.  
   
   Afterward, look for the selector area-footer or area-header (depending on where you want to place the custom text) and make sure that the value content is set to page-number. You can also adjust/add the value text-alignment to change the alignment. Here is an example:

   area-header {
                                   content: page-number
                                   text-alignment: center
                                   top-spacing: 10mm
                                   bottom-spacing: 3mm
                                   }

    

   

    

    

   Margins Between Paragraphs

   In Ulysses, excessive whitespace is disregarded or removed to comply with the Markdown specification. To increase the spacing between paragraphs, locate the selector paragraph + paragraph and include the lines margin-top and/or margin-bottom. By adjusting the value for margin-top and margin-bottom (here: 2em, you can also use 200% or 20mm), you can adjust the spacing as desired. Here is an example:

   paragraph + paragraph {
                   margin-top: 2em
                   margin-bottom: 2em
                   }

    

   

   If the paragraph + paragraph element doesn’t already exist in the export style you’re modifying, simply include all the all the lines mentioned above under Paragraph Styles.

    

    
7.  Save the stylesheet (optional: rename it)  

7. Select your customized export style in the export preview