Docs › Writing Studio › What a world map file is (.geomap)

What a world map file is (.geomap)

Last updated September 9, 2026 · 6 min read

In one line: what a .geomap file is, what you get the moment you create one, and how it divides the work with the relationship map and the timeline.

The Chengwen Coast, the world map of Ink Tide, open in the editor: parchment rendering with the brush rail down the left

What this is for

Around chapter eight the annoying questions start. How many days is it from the New Capital to Linze Harbor? Which bank of the Luo is Salt Bridge on? Can you see the lighthouse from the Nine Isles? Those answers currently live scattered across your chapters, and when two of them disagree your readers notice before you do.

A world map keeps the answers in one place, and keeps them lookable instead of readable. It is also not just an illustration. It is a file: it goes into full-text search and into version history, and you can leave comments on the places in it.

Creating a map hands you a whole world

Right-click a folder in the file tree. The first level of that menu holds only manuscripts, scripts, references and folders — open More and New Map is in there.

Making a world map

Right-click a folder Open More Pick New Map Name it

The new file drops straight into rename mode, so settle on a name before you start drawing.

Slima draws a random seed and grows an entire world on the spot. You do not get a blank canvas:

  • coastline, mountains, rivers, forests
  • up to eight settlements. The first is a capital, the next three are towns, the rest are villages
  • roads between settlements that are close enough and have a passable route
  • a few ships out at sea
  • names for the sea, the mountain range, the region and the river, plus a title for the map itself

So your first move is usually not drawing. It is editing: swap the generated names for the ones in your world, delete what you do not need, then add the handful of places that actually matter.

The file tree hides the .geomap extension, so you see "The Chengwen Coast" with a map icon. Keep as many maps per book as you like — one for the mainland, one for the outskirts of a single city.

Chapters/
  Chapter 01 - The Copyist Girl
Map/
  The Chengwen Coast
Timeline/
  Main Timeline
Worldbuilding/
  Relationship Map

The layers a map is built from

Layer What is in it Who decides
Terrain Every cell is Water, Land or Mountains — one only You paint it
Vegetation Forest, sitting on top without touching the terrain underneath You paint it
Places 37 symbols in eight groups: Settlements, Military, Faith & Mystery, Nature, Plants, Transport, At Sea, Monsters & Hazards You place and name them
Text labels Large, Medium, Small You place them and type
Lines Rivers, roads, borders You draw them by hand
Big lettering and frames Sea, mountain, region and river names, the map title, the scale bar The engine positions them; you can retype and drag them

The grid is 520 × 364 cells. Big lettering like "Chengwen Sea" or "North Hills" cannot be deleted, but double-click and you can retype it. Drag one once and its position is pinned — recomputing the terrain will not move it again.

There is one look, and that is it

The map is drawn on parchment, in the editor and on the public share page alike. There is no theme menu, so there is nothing to pick and nothing to pick wrong.

How it splits the work with the other structure files

File The question it answers
World map .geomap Where, how far, what is in between
Relationship map .map Who, and how they are tied to each other
Timeline .timeline When, and in what order
Location .md file What the place looks like and what happened there

Place names on the map are text, not links: they do not wire themselves to your location files. So spell them the same way in both (Linze Harbor here, Linze Harbor there) and one search finds both.

How it reaches the chapter you are writing

  • It is searchable. The map title, place names, text labels, the big sea and mountain names and the scale-bar label all go into full-text search. Search "Linze Harbor" and you hit the manuscript and the map together.
  • You can comment on it. With the Select tool, click a place and the floating bar offers Add Comment. The argument about whether the harbor sits in the right spot is pinned to that harbor.
  • It does not count words. A map is structured data, not manuscript, so it never leaks into your daily word count.
  • You can keep it open beside the draft. Zen Mode's Quick Ref window will show the map read-only.
  • The AI can edit it. The world map has its own field-level tools: add a place, rename it, move it, draw a river or a border, paint a patch of terrain. What the AI sends is a proposal — a review banner appears above the canvas and nothing lands in the file until you accept it. Its coordinates are grid cells, not pixels.

Watch out for

On a phone the map is view-only. Open a world map in the mobile layout and you can look but not edit. To edit, use a tablet, a desktop browser or the desktop app. The timeline is different — that one you can edit on a phone.

Regenerate in the top-right corner takes a new seed and redraws the whole map, and it clears the undo history. Before you go looking for a different world, be sure you are done with this one.

Related

Try it in Slima

Open the app and do this with your own book. Free to start, no credit card.

Open Slima
Was this helpful?