At Substack, we’re focused on building for and with writers. In recent weeks, we’ve released some new tools and improvements to give writers even more control over what and how they publish, from new presentation options to version histories, editable comments and more. Read on for a rundown of what’s new.

Magazine layout

To give writers more ways to customize their Substacks, we’ve created a new layout option for a publication’s homepage that offers a more visual, magazine-like design.

Publications such as The Empire of the Tiny Onion, Examiner+, and The New Fatherhood are already trying out the layout (and we’re currently demoing it on our own publication, On Substack).

The Empire of the Tiny Onion is using the new magazine layout.

To preview and select the option, go to your publication dashboard and select Settings > Edit theme > Layout > Magazine.

Note that writers can pin up to four posts “above the fold.” Any un-pinned spots and the rest of the post list are filled in reverse chronological order.

Read more: How do I switch my publication's homepage to a different layout?

Full-width images

We now support the option for writers to add full-width images to their Substack posts.

To add an image that exceeds the column width, upload or drag the image into your posts, then click it and select "Toggle full width" from the formatting options in the corner of the image. Toggle again to return the image to column width.

Read more: How can I edit images on a Substack post?

Post traffic sources

To give writers more insight into where readers landing on a specific post are coming from, we’ve added a traffic sources module to writers’ publication dashboards. This module lists out the top sources of traffic for each post, aggregated by domain.

To view post traffic sources, go to your publication dashboard. On the “Posts” tab, you’ll see a list of published posts, and can view traffic sources for each by selecting the down caret (∨).

Read more about what each traffic source means: Where can I see how readers got to my Substack post?

Editable comments

Good news for hasty typers: Readers and writers can now edit comments they’ve made on posts and threads. To edit, click on the three dot menu under your comment, then select “Edit comment.”

Once you make your change, an edit status with a time stamp will appear next to your name on the comment.

Read more: Can I edit my comment on a post?

Version history

While crafting posts in the Substack editor, writers can now access past versions of their drafts.

As you write and edit your posts, the Substack post editor automatically saves your drafts. The draft history feature now shows your version history of a post and also lets you revert your draft to a previously saved version.

Click the new “Version history” button at the bottom of any Substack post draft to review or revert to past versions of that post.

Read more: How do I restore a post draft?

We hope you give these new tools a try. Feel free to leave feedback and ideas in the comments, and bring thoughts and questions about these updates to upcoming Writer Office Hours threads.

On Substack

New tools for writers: Image and layout…