Rowtine in 4 steps

Rowtine isn't a binder of PDFs. It's an interactive reader that walks you through your pattern: it shows only the numbers for your size and remembers every step you've done. You import your pattern once, then knit or crochet without ever reopening the PDF.

1. Import your pattern

From the library, pick a PDF. Rowtine reads it for you: sections, rows, sizes, abbreviations and charts. Everything happens on your device. See chapter 4.

2. Create a project and pick your size

On the pattern's page, "Create a project from this pattern". In the reader, pick your size: every "88 (96) 104" adapts to show only your number.

A pattern you've imported once can be used as many times as you like: a green cardigan in L for you, a red one in M for your sister. Each project keeps its own size, yarn and progress, and the pattern's price is only counted once. See chapter 2.

3. Knit or crochet with the reader

This is where it all happens. Tick off each step as you go: your progress moves forward, and "Back to my step" brings you right back where you left off. The chart follows your row, and tapping an underlined term in the text shows its definition. See chapter 3.

4. Keep track

The timer logs your sessions, the Photos tab keeps the pattern's images and your own photos, statistics sum up your activity on the project, and a badge is shared in one tap. See chapters 2 and 7.

1. Home: your dashboard

Opening the app, you'll find:

• Your last project, with a Resume button to pick up exactly where you left off. It really is the last project you actually knitted or crocheted on (your last session), not just the last one you edited, and it shows you the current row.
• A summary: how many projects you have in progress, and the time you've spent knitting or crocheting this week (with details in Statistics).
• Recent sessions: as soon as you've knitted or crocheted at least once, a tile lists your two most recent sessions: the project's name, the day ("Yesterday", "3 days ago"…) and the duration. Tapping it opens the Sessions screen (point 2), which brings together your whole history.
• All your projects, grouped by status (in progress, to do, on hold, finished, abandoned), with a button to show them all or collapse the list.
• On a project card, a vegan icon marks the projects whose yarns are all vegan (it stays shown on finished projects). It only appears if the project has at least one yarn and they all carry the Vegan label.
• On a Finished project, the card shows its end date right after the craft and size (« Knitting · M · Finished 07/15/2026 ») as soon as a date has been entered. It fills in on its own when you mark the project Finished (see point 2), and never appears on an Abandoned project.
• Quick access to the tools (stitch calculator, free counter, needle/hook helper, stitch techniques memo), the + Create a project button and the Import a PDF button, which opens your Pattern library straight on adding a pattern.
• At the very start, while the app only holds the examples, the home screen keeps to the essentials: an Import a PDF pattern card takes the place of the Resume tile and the summary. They come back as soon as you create your first project or import your first pattern.
• Finally, the menu at the top right takes you at any time to your yarn stash, your pattern library, the statistics, your sessions, the expenses, this guide, the settings and the About screen. It is on every screen: wherever you are in the app, you can head somewhere else without going back to the home screen.

2. Your projects, the heart of the app

Create, edit, delete

Creating a project takes a few seconds: name, craft (knitting or crochet), linked pattern (or "Free-form pattern" if you're not using one). Choose an existing pattern and the app pre-fills sizes, needles or hook, gauge and type for you: you just need to adjust from there. A deleted project is never lost right away: you can still undo it immediately after, or restore it later from the trash (Settings).

You can also note the pattern's price if you bought it, or tap Free if you downloaded it without paying. This price belongs to the pattern, not the project: if you knit the same design three times, it only counts once in your expenses. Leaving the field empty simply means not declaring anything. If your project uses the "Free-form pattern", this field doesn't even show up: it's shared by all your patternless projects, so it can never have a price of its own.

The project page, in tabs

• Sections: the stages of your piece (front, back, sleeve…), each with a status badge (to do / started / in progress / finished) and, when the pattern has a chart, a preview of the matching diagram.
• Details: all the project's information (craft, sizes, needles or hook, gauge, start/end dates, your star rating and a personal note). The end date fills itself in as soon as you set the project to Finished; and if you'd rather type it yourself, entering an end date finishes the project for you. The two always agree, neither ever overwrites the other. You also see the project cost: the price of the yarns you reserved for it or already knitted, and in brackets the pattern price, which you only pay once, even if you knit it three times. If a yarn has no price recorded, the app says so instead of pretending it was free. The linked pattern is shown there with its designer ("by ...") when one is filled in.
• Photos: your project photos, plus the pattern's original photos below them. You choose which one to use as the cover photo (by default, the pattern's first photo). Tap a photo to open it full screen: you can then zoom (pinch with two fingers or double-tap) to study a stitch detail, pan around the zoomed image, then close it with the × button.
• Sessions: the history of your knitting/crochet sessions, with the length of each one, and the option to add a session manually (for time you spent without the app open). A session in progress shows up there live, too.
• Stats: this project's own numbers (total time, number of sessions, skeins used, period, best streak of active days) and its calendar grid, then the Share button, which opens the badge composer described a little further down.

Working live: a session

Anywhere in the project, a timer floats at the bottom of the screen: the same pill on the project sheet, whichever tab you're on, and in the reader. A chevron on the pill opens a small menu whose "Hide timer" entry tucks it away; the Actions menu (vertical three-dot icon) on the project sheet or the "Show the timer" switch in the edit form brings it back.

• One timer per project, and it never starts on its own: you tap it to start it, and tap it again to pause for an interruption (the button then shows Resume with the time already counted).
• No Stop button: pausing is the only gesture along the way. The timer follows everything you do inside the project (sheet, reader, editing, correcting), and its time is written down as you go: every pause (the button, a trip into correcting, leaving the project) adds what has elapsed since the last write. Leaving the project or hiding the timer closes the session, with a "Time saved" note showing the total.
• Once started, it survives everything: screen off, another app opened, device restarted. It always picks the thread back up for you.
• In the reader, you check off rows one by one, with the instructions shown (up to 8 lines visible, automatically resuming right where you left off).
• Several counters per project (stitches, rows, repeats…), each with a + and − button and a way to correct a mistaken tap.
• The session lives in the Sessions tab of the project sheet: its line appears as soon as the timer starts, its time ticking along, frozen under a "paused" badge during an interruption. Resuming within two hours of the last write picks the same line back up, where time keeps adding up; any later, a new session begins.

All your sessions, in one place

A project sheet's Sessions tab tracks all the time spent on that project. To go back over your whole history, every project together, the app's menu opens the Sessions screen, between Statistics and Expenses. Each session shows up there, from the most recent to the oldest: the project's name, then the date and the duration. Tapping a line opens the page of the project it belongs to.

This screen is for viewing only: it's on the project sheet, in its Sessions tab, that a session gets corrected or erased. The screen is deliberately simple, with no filters and no grouping.

Share a badge of your project

From a project's Stats tab, the Share button (or the Share entry in the sheet's menu, at the top right, from any tab) composes an image to send to whoever you like: your piece, its numbers, in the colours of your choice. By default the screen shows the project's cover image and a settings drawer at the bottom.

The settings drawer has three tabs:

• Format: four templates. Vertical (the photo on top, the numbers below), Horizontal (the photo on the left, the numbers on the right), Text only (no photo, handy for a project that doesn't have one yet) and Two images (two photos side by side, a before and an after for instance). If your project has a cover photo, the badge opens in Vertical with it; otherwise in Text only.
• Color: a palette of hues, a + button to pick any other colour freely, and, above it, the last colours you actually used for a badge.
• Info: what the badge should contain. Each chip shows the project's real value (total time, start and end dates, yarns used with their colourway and skeins, progress while the project is still ongoing, best streak, number of sessions, crochet or knitting technique): tap it to include it or take it out. Each yarn is named there by its brand, its yarn name and its colourway: two colourways of the same yarn stay clearly apart. As soon as one of the project's yarns has a composition noted, one more chip lists the fibres of the piece ("Cotton · Wool"), without percentages. Ticked from the start, it adds a full-width band to the badge, between two thin rules, above the calendar map (below the figures if you leave the map out). The Calendar map chip adds the grid of the days you worked. The Pattern chip adds a line under the badge title, "Pattern name, by Designer" (just the name if no designer is filled in). This is also where you choose the Language of the badge's text, independent of the app's (handy for sending it to someone who doesn't speak yours: the fibres are translated with it), and a line of your own under Free text (optional), 80 characters at most.

To change a photo, tap it on the preview: an Edit button appears, offering a project photo or an image from your gallery, then the shape (square, horizontal or vertical), then the crop.

The Share button, at the top of the screen, generates the image, saves it in the project's Photos, then opens your phone's share menu. You can close that menu without sending anything: the badge stays in the photos. And if you change a setting then share again, the previous badge from that same visit to the composer is replaced, not duplicated.

3. The pattern that adapts to you: the interactive reader

This is Rowtine's flagship feature. Once a pattern has been put into "guided reading" format (the 3 sample patterns already are, as is any imported and checked pattern), it gives you:

• The size picker: pick your size once, and every number in the pattern filters itself automatically for you (stitches, rows, lengths). Every line shows the figures for your size, with no "104 (108) 112…" to decode.
• Step-by-step tracking: check off each step by tapping its box or anywhere in the left third of its card, with an overall and per-section progress bar, and built-in repeat counters ("− 3/12 +") that disappear on their own if they don't apply to your chosen size.
• Sections with several copies: a pair of socks, two sleeves or the ears or legs of an amigurumi don't have to be written twice. In the pattern editor, set the number of copies of a section; each copy keeps its own progress, and the section shows the total of all of them. Outside socks, a doubled section is worked one copy after the other, with a button to move on to the next copy. For a pair of socks, the working method is chosen in the project, with "Working method" at the top of the reader, above the rows, or in the project sheet: "One after the other" (the whole of sock 1, then sock 2 from its first part: ticking the last row of sock 1, all its parts included, takes you to sock 2, at its first part, with "Undo") or "Both at the same time" (each row then has one tick per sock, and the gap between them is shown). The same pattern can therefore be knitted differently in another project. Changing the working method after you have started asks for confirmation and sends the socks back to zero, rows and charts included; the rest of the pattern stays as it is. The current-row notification follows the active copy (or the one that is behind) and names it. A section to repeat that is not a sleeve, a sock part or an ear? Give it the "Generic repeatable" type, then set its number of copies.
• The interactive chart: the pattern's diagram (lifted straight from the original PDF) with a band that follows your current row, rows already done shown greyed out, and a "Row X of 52" counter. Reachable directly on the page or through a floating button, with its state shared across every section using the same chart.
• The cheat sheet: the pattern's abbreviations pop up as a tooltip as soon as you tap them, without leaving your current row; a full panel also groups the pattern's techniques (with a link to its video when the pattern gives one), materials and gauge, the size table, the list of abbreviations, and the tips and tricks given by the pattern. The Stitch techniques memo tile is always there too, even on a pattern with no cheat sheet of its own: it holds the cards for the stitches you choose (details right after this list).
• The contents: a row of dots, one per section, stays visible at the top of the reader's flow. Tapping one takes you straight to that section, and the dot of your active section marks itself: you always know where you are. A single-section pattern doesn't show it: there would be nothing to summarise.
• The pattern's cover and photos: at the very top of the reader, your PDF's cover appears just as the designer laid it out; a tap opens it full size. When the first page also carries instructions, the app keeps only its photo, title and description. The PDF's photos sit under the step that comes before them in the pattern, large and never cropped (a series of step-by-step photos is laid out in two columns). A tap opens each one full screen, where you can zoom in. For a pattern you created by hand, the cover is the photo you marked with a star.
• You can read a pattern (previewed from the library) or follow your real progress from a project. Both paths exist, and your progress is always saved. In the preview, nothing can be checked off yet, but each line carries a small marker announcing what it will become while you track. A legend at the top of the preview explains them: While tracking: "gets checked" for a step, "gets counted" for a repeat, "to read" for a note.

The stitch techniques memo

Forgotten a stitch halfway along a row, or lost the knack of a cast-on? The stitch techniques memo gathers some forty cards, for crochet as well as knitting: each one gives the stitch's name, its abbreviations, numbered steps and a tip. They live inside the app and can be read offline.

Choosing your stitches. In the reader's cheat sheet, tap the Stitch techniques memo tile. As long as no stitch is chosen, the tab explains what it is for: tap Choose stitches. The picker then opens:

• at the top, Suggested for this pattern offers the stitches whose abbreviations the app recognised in the pattern's glossary;
• the Search a stitch field finds a card by its name or its abbreviation;
• the Crochet and Knitting tabs sort every card by family (basic stitches, increases and decreases, cast-ons…), and the picker opens on the pattern's craft.

Tick the stitches you want to keep at hand: each box is saved straight away. Done takes you back to the memo tab, with one card per chosen stitch.

Kept with the pattern. Your selection belongs to the pattern, not to a project: you find it in the preview from the library as well as in every project that follows this pattern, and it travels with your backup. To change it later, the Edit stitches button, at the top of the tab, reopens the same picker: unticking a stitch removes its card.

Outside any pattern, the full memo can also be browsed from Home, through the Stitches tile among the tools (point 6).

The full-screen chart, and how to align it well

This is the most technical operation in the app, so here's the detail.

Tap a chart (or the "expand" button next to it) and it opens full screen: you can then zoom (pinch with two fingers, double-tap, or +/− buttons) and pan around to read every stitch, with the same row-tracking buttons as on the page.

The problem alignment solves: the original PDF often has margins (text, white space) around the chart's grid. Without a setting, the app doesn't know where the grid starts and ends on the image, and the band showing you "here's where you are" could land in the wrong spot.

How to align a chart, the first time you open it:

1. Full screen, in the top bar, tap the Align icon (two horizontal bars linked by a vertical arrow). It's the first icon after the title, right before the zoom and close buttons; this button carries no text, only that pictogram.
2. Two arrow handles appear on the image, each with a small label ("Top of the grid" / "Bottom of the grid"). Drag each one onto exactly the edge of the grid: the "Bottom of the grid" line onto the very first row of the chart, the "Top of the grid" one onto the very last. (Not onto the surrounding text or margins, nor onto the edge of the photo itself: onto the grid alone.)
3. While you adjust, a guide band stays visible on your current row: use it to check live that things line up, before you confirm.
4. Tap Save to finish. ("Cancel" abandons the adjustment in progress; "Reset" removes any existing alignment and you start over from the full image.)

Once aligned, row tracking stays accurate for the rest of your piece on that chart, within that project. Worth noting: the alignment is saved together with your progress on the project, not with the pattern itself. If you start a second project from the same pattern, you'll need to do it again once for the new project (the operation only takes a few seconds).

And round, square or hexagonal charts? Granny grids, round, square or hexagonal, don't get aligned with two lines: the same Align button opens a guided assistant there, because the chart's shape (its type, chosen during correcting, section 4) is what decides. It has you place, one after the other, the motif's two boundaries: the first, which marks the bottom of the first row, then the outside of the last row. Each one is declared Round, Square or Hexagon (for a hexagon, two more buttons set its orientation: Flat side on top or Point on top), moved and adjusted (Move and Resize buttons) while the picture scrolls and grows under a fixed loupe. When the two boundaries don't share the same shape, one extra step asks from which row the motif changes; a last screen lets you touch everything up before you Save. The result is remembered just like linear alignment: with the project's progress, chart by chart. And as long as a radial chart isn't aligned, a button in the reader's flow, "Set the motif's center and radii", offers to take you there.

Once saved, the granny chart carries the progression like the linear grids: the rounds already done are circled from the centre out, the current round stands out in a thicker ring, and the bar at the bottom moves along round by round.

Keeping track of your position on a long row.

On a very wide chart, once you've zoomed in, it's easy to lose track of which stitch you're on. Full screen, a small round handle appears on the current row, and on that row alone. Drag it left to right (or the other way) following your stitches: the portion of the row it leaves behind gets tinted, standing for what you've already knitted.

A button next to the row counter flips the tinted side (useful when the next row reads in the other direction). The handle returns to its own place at each new row, and its position is kept even after you leave the app. The first time you open a chart, a small message points out that it's there, so you don't miss it.

Correcting a line without leaving your tracking

You're following your pattern and a line is wrong: the import cut it badly, or you want to reword it. You don't have to leave the project to repair it.

Tap the card carrying the line. A veil settles over it, with two buttons: Fix and Close. The correction screen then opens straight on that line: you don't have to hunt for it through the whole pattern.

On a step you check off, tap in the middle or on the right of the card. Its left third, over its full height, is for checking: a tap there checks or unchecks the step, just like the box itself, without bringing up the veil. No need to aim for the little box while you knit. Notes, repeats, charts and section titles don't change: the veil settles on them wherever you tap.

The veil doesn't get in the way of your knitting: it withdraws on its own after three seconds, and a tap anywhere else sends it away. Tapping another card moves it there. And no tap on a control of the card puts it up: ticking a row or touching an abbreviation triggers the expected action.

Your timer doesn't count the time spent correcting. If it's running when you leave to correct, it pauses. On your return it starts again by itself. Time spent in the editor doesn't enter your knitting statistics.

On your return, the reader brings you back to the section you were correcting. The correction happens in the same screen as the one described in section 4 below, with all its tools.

On tablets

A tablet held sideways gives you far more width than a phone, and Rowtine puts it to use in two places: in the pattern reader, and on the statistics screen.

The reader, in two panes.

Knit on a tablet held sideways and the reader switches on its own to two columns, your instructions on the left and a chart displayed permanently on the right: you do not have to scroll back and forth between the two. You keep control:

• On any other chart in the pattern, the Show on the right button moves it into the side panel (handy when a pattern contains several).
• The Move back into the text button closes the panel and puts the chart back in its place in the flow, if you'd rather read everything in a single column.
• At the spot in the text where the chart used to sit, a note reminds you that it's shown on the right: nothing disappears without telling you.

This setting only lasts for your current session: reopening the pattern brings back the panel with the first chart. On a phone (or a tablet held upright), the reader shows a single column. A pattern with no chart has no side panel at all. The reader's contents stay, for their part, at the top of the instructions column, same dots, same gesture.

Statistics, full width.

The Statistics screen (point 7) makes use of the space too: its calendar grid and its number tiles spread out instead of squeezing together, and on the longest windows, Half-year or Year, you see far more weeks before you have to drag the grid sideways. There is nothing extra to set: it's the same screen, just more comfortable.

4. Your pattern library

• Import a PDF: drop your pattern's PDF, and the app reads it and automatically rebuilds the sizes, rows and sections for you, without an internet connection: nothing leaves your device. The pattern joins your library, and that's where your work begins: plan on spending real time on it. An import almost never comes out perfect the first time. That's normal: pattern PDFs are all laid out differently. You read it over, check it and fix it from the pattern's preview, as many times as you like, and that pass is what makes the difference between a roughly-right pattern and a project that shows the right figures and the right explanations. As soon as the import finishes, a "Your pattern is imported" summary counts what the app found (sections, steps to tick off, sizes, charts), reminds you to read the pattern through before you start, and the Preview the pattern button takes you straight there to browse it, section by section. The preview's markers help you with that read-through: a line marked "to read" that should be checked off, or the other way round, stands out at a glance, and you fix it in the editor. (The reading also recognises the round and square grids of granny patterns, never perfectly: the read-through remains essential.) A PDF that holds several patterns (a collection, or a pattern written out in several complete versions) is imported one pattern at a time. On the import screen, tap "Does the PDF hold several patterns? Choose the pages", pick your file, then tick on the thumbnails the pages of the pattern you want, without forgetting its shared pages (materials, abbreviations). When the app recognises a collection by itself, it offers you straight away to choose the pages.
• Import a Rowtine file: in "+ Add pattern", this option takes a .rowtine file, that is a pattern already prepared in the Rowtine format (its text and images). It goes into your library as is, without reading any PDF, and still offline. You create this file from a computer, with the converter on the website (rowtine.app/en/convertisseur): it reads your pattern's PDF and lets you correct it on a big screen. Then copy the file to your phone (cable, cloud, email…) and pick it here.
• Create a pattern by hand: in "+ Add pattern", the Create manually choice opens a dedicated screen (name, type, category, sizes, source, author…) with a single Photos section for its images. On the pattern's page, a star on each photo in "Pattern photos" sets it as the cover: that's the one that illustrates the pattern in the library. (An imported pattern keeps the cover taken from its PDF.) And as soon as it has a photo, the Preview the pattern button appears: you can then follow an image as a chart, exactly as for an imported pattern.
• Set the designer: when the reading did not find a pattern's designer, the Designer: add link on the pattern's page opens the pattern edit form directly on the Designer field. It then appears under the pattern in a project's Details tab, and on the badge.
• Find a pattern: category buttons at the top of the library show you how many patterns each one holds, for an instant sense of where to look.
• Correct a pattern: a full-screen editor lets you touch up an imported pattern (text, sizes, images). This is a step to plan for, not an exceptional rescue: automatic reading never understands everything perfectly, and an imported pattern needs working over in the app before it is really pleasant to follow. You can come back to it as often as you like, including long after the import. This is the app's other technical operation, detailed below.
• The pattern's price: a pattern's page also carries its price, which you can fill in without waiting to start a project: as soon as it is there, it shows on the pattern's own page ("Bought for £18.90 on 8/7/2026", or simply "Free") and it counts in the Expenses screen.
• Pattern view: simple reading for patterns without special formatting, or patterns you've typed in entirely by hand.
• 3 sample patterns ship with the app from the very first launch, so you can explore every feature without importing anything.

The correction editor, in detail

This is the most technical operation in the app alongside chart alignment (above): here's how it really works.

Pattern sizes, at the top of the screen. The first field of the correction screen is called Pattern sizes. It tells the app how many sizes your pattern offers: write them separated by commas, "S, M, L". That number sets the width of the size table. Without this field, a table the import cut badly stayed beyond repair. One consequence to know about: if you add a size, the app does not fill in that size's stitch counts. It does not invent them: the pattern doesn't carry them. A line with three sizes that you take to four therefore shows as "10 (12) 14 ()", the empty bracket being the size still waiting for its figures. Typing them in is up to you.

The principle. A pattern is made of lines of text, and each line carries a category that tells the app what it's for: a checkbox during knitting, a section title, or a plain reference note? Automatic import already assigns a category to every line as it comes in. The editor lets you correct the ones it guessed wrong, and fix the text if a sentence got cut awkwardly.

The possible categories:

The built-in help. The correction screen carries its own help, folded away at the top of the screen under the heading "How to correct the pattern": three steps, then the same information as the table above (the categories, and the eight reference sub-categories). You can unfold it at any moment without leaving your work, without having to come back to this guide in the middle of a correction. (This guide, for its part, is meant to be read before you open the screen, to decide whether you want to take it on.)

Changing a line's category:

1. Put your cursor on the line (or select several lines at once). The toolbar just above the editor highlights the category already applied. If it's a reference, its sub-category shows as well, in italics right beside the toolbar ("Yarn", "Gauge"…): that's what tells you which block of the pattern's page the line will land in.
2. Three compact buttons apply Step (a ticked box), Note (a sheet of paper) or Text (a "T") directly; each shows a short label under the icon. Three other buttons, wider, open a menu of sub-categories, their ellipsis says as much: Counter…, Section…, Reference…. Tap the one matching what you want the line to become.
3. The line's colour and rendering change right away to confirm.

Sending text into the cheat sheet. The Reference… menu does more than label the line: it moves the selected text into the chosen sub-category, and you find it again in the matching tab of the reader's cheat sheet. That is how you tidy away what the import left scattered through the pattern: a glossary, a list of materials, a table of measurements. The gesture moves only the selection you made, never the neighbouring lines; and you are the one who judges the sub-category: the app files things where you tell it to.

Categorising in several passes. If you send a second selection to a sub-category that already exists, it is added to the existing block instead of creating a second one. A glossary scattered over three pages of the pattern is categorised in three passes, with nothing to reorganise by hand.

What the app can split up on its own. As it lands in the sub-category, the text is laid out whenever its shape is recognisable. "st - stitch(es)" becomes a glossary entry, its abbreviation on one side and its definition on the other. "Bust 90 (100) 110" becomes a row of the size table, one column per size. When the app cannot split a line, it never throws it away: it lays down an empty template with the right columns, for you to fill in by hand.

Two ways to view the text. By default, the editor shows you a rich view: images appear as thumbnails, counters as pills, rows with their checkbox, a preview close to how it will actually look. The Edit text button switches to raw text (the markup becomes visible) and opens the keyboard: useful for fixing a wording, a typo, or a sentence that the import cut awkwardly in two lines.

Reordering without cut and paste. Two arrows (up/down) move the line where your cursor is, handy if the import placed a step or a section title in the wrong spot.

Turning a photo into a followable chart (or back again). Two ways to get there: tap an image in the text, or unfold the Diagrams banner at the bottom of the editor. That banner lists every section of the pattern that carries an image, charts already being followed as well as photos not converted yet. The number in brackets, for example "Diagrams (2)", counts all of those sections, photos included: it doesn't tell you how many charts are already being followed. For an image not converted yet, a Follow as a chart button opens a choice of type, each explained in plain language: standard rows, radial square, radial round, radial hexagon or path, to match the real shape of your motif (a granny square doesn't read like standard rows). For an image already followed as a chart, an Interactive chart tag states where it currently stands, next to a Change type button (the same choice, to fix a wrongly guessed type) and a Just an image button to go back to a plain photo, handy if the import missed a chart or if you'd rather a plain photo stayed a plain photo.

Adding images: three doors. In a pattern's photos, from its page or from the correction editor, the Add an image button offers three sources: Camera or gallery (a sheet lets you choose between taking a photo and picking one from your own images), Browse files (your device's picker, for an image stored elsewhere), and From the pattern's PDF when it exists: you pick the page there and the app has you crop it, the only source that goes through that cropping. Every image joins the pattern's photos, ready to be inserted or followed.

An image's menu. In the editor's text, tapping an image opens a small immediate menu: follow it as a chart if it isn't one yet, or change its type otherwise, bring it back down to a mere illustration (Just an image), or send it to the pattern's photos. In the "Pattern photos" band, at the very top of the correction screen, every image can be deleted, inserted into the text, or followed as a chart: the three gestures in the same place. To insert one, first place the cursor on a step of the text: the band then tells you which step the image will go under.

Saving. The Cancel / Save buttons are fixed at the bottom of the screen. Try to leave with unsaved changes and the app stops you and asks for confirmation: nothing gets lost by mistake here either.

5. Your yarn stash

• Add a skein: brand, weight (with help understanding the weight categories), fibre content (picked from a list; if your fibre isn't listed, "Other" lets you type it in, and it's then offered like any other), colour (picked from a palette, with a custom shade picker if you need one), quantity, price, length and weight per skein, plus the purchase date and dye lot number. As soon as you save it, the app immediately records the matching purchase, and the total in the Expenses screen goes up by the amount you entered. The date it suggests is today's: if you bought the yarn earlier, you can correct it directly in the form. (These two fields only appear when you create the entry. On an already-saved yarn page, the Purchases and gifts block takes over, with one line per acquisition.)
• Where it's stored, what you think of it: two free fields, Stored in ("e.g. Shelf 2, blue basket") and Notes, then show up on the yarn's page.
• Yarn that isn't a single colour: a Colour type field (solid, gradient, self-striping, speckled, hand-dyed) and a Colourway description field ("blue, green, yellow speckled with black") complete the colour swatch: a single shade isn't enough to describe a multicoloured yarn. Colour type shows up in search and in the spreadsheet export.
• Your yarn's characteristics: eight labels to tick, in two groups that don't mean the same thing. A commitment is what you know about your yarn yourself; a certification is a label awarded by an outside body.
  • Commitments: Vegan · Recycled · Ethical · Mulesing-free.
  • Certifications: No harmful substances (OEKO-TEX) · Organic fibres (GOTS) · Sheep welfare (RWS) · Certified recycled (GRS).
  • The origin works itself out from the fibre content, with nothing to tick: "Animal fibre", "Plant fibre", "Synthetic fibre", "Animal and plant blend". When the app can't conclude for every fibre you entered, it says so ("Incomplete origin") instead of guessing: that's deliberate.
  • The vegan warning: tick Vegan on a yarn that contains an animal fibre and the app points it out ("This yarn contains … (animal fibre). The vegan label looks contradictory: check the composition.") without stopping you from saving: it warns you, it doesn't decide for you.
  • Finding your yarn again: these labels turn up again in the stash filter (the "Label" criterion) and in the text search.
  • These characteristics also come out in the spreadsheet export.

• The summary at the top of the screen: number of skeins, total length and weight (switching on their own to km and kg once your totals get large), and your stash's total value.
• The cards: each one gives the number of skeins, then the length and weight of the whole lot: 4 skeins of 165 yd show 660 yd. The length of a single skein is on the yarn's page.
• Search, filter, sort: a search field and the Filter and Sort buttons at the top of the stash. Filter opens a two-level window: the list of seven criteria (Brand, Label, Weight, Skein weight, Colour, Composition, Status: free, reserved or used), then, for the criterion you tapped, its values. One choice per criterion, but criteria combine; a badge on the Filter button counts the active filters, and Reset clears them in one gesture. Sort offers Brand (the default), Weight or Purchase date. None of this is remembered: every return to the stash starts again with no filter, sorted by brand.
• Edit, duplicate or delete a yarn from the Actions menu (vertical three-dot icon) at the top of its page. "Duplicate" is handy for the same yarn in a different colourway: everything carries over, you just need to change the colour.
• The skein pool: for each yarn, you can see at a glance how many skeins are reserved for a project and how many are free. You can't lower the quantity below what's already reserved (the app tells you how many skeins are held back); and it warns you if restoring a project from the trash puts your yarn reservations at risk. The project comes back regardless, with a reduced reservation and a message explaining it to you.
• Partly used skeins count too: wherever you count skeins, you can enter a decimal number, 2.5 for two and a half skeins, 0.5 for a partly used leftover. That goes for the quantity in your stash, a purchase or gift line, the skeins you reserve for a project, and the window that opens when you set a project with reserved yarn to Finished ("How many skeins did you actually use?"): the rest goes back into your stash. Same for an Abandoned project, where you enter the skeins that were lost. The app keeps two decimal places (a quarter skein is 0.25) and shows these numbers everywhere with your language's decimal separator.
• A yarn's page: tapping its card opens it full screen. It gathers everything you noted (brand, colourway, storage, length, quantity, price, purchases, composition, notes), its characteristics, its status (free, reserved, used) and its photos: you can add several and choose, with a tap on the star, the one used as the cover.
• Purchases and gifts: in a yarn's Edit screen, this block keeps a record of every acquisition for you:
  • Each line carries a quantity, a price, a date and a dye lot, and states whether it was a purchase or a gift (a gift never counts towards your expenses). A Bought at field also keeps the name of the shop. The three most recent lines are visible right away, the rest unfolds with a tap.
  • You can add, edit or delete a line at any time.
  • Increase the quantity of a yarn by editing it and the app offers to record the matching purchase, dated today: you can accept it, mark it as a gift, or ignore it if you don't want to keep it. Decreasing a quantity, however, never touches your expenses: only an increase can create a purchase.
  • If the number of skeins on the page doesn't match what the history recorded (for example after you manually corrected the stash), an alert points it out and a Fix button offers you two solutions: add the missing purchase, or adjust the displayed quantity.
  • A purchase keeps its label even after you permanently delete the yarn's page: no yarn purchase disappears, it stays visible in the Expenses screen.

Import your stash from Ravelry

If you already keep your stash on Ravelry, there's no need to type it all in again: the Import from Ravelry button, at the top of the stash, creates the pages for the yarn you already have there, all at once.

1. On Ravelry, open "my notebook", then the "Stash" tab.
2. Click "Export" at the top right of the list: an .xls file downloads.
3. Come back to Rowtine, pick that file, then Analyse the file.

Before creating anything at all, the app shows you a summary: how many rows it read, how many yarns it will create, how many are already in your stock (they're skipped: running an import again doesn't create duplicates) and how many are no longer in stock on Ravelry ("Used Up", "Will Trade Or Sell", "Traded/Sold/Gifted"), skipped as well. Nothing is written until you tap the "Import … yarn(s)" button.

The brand, the name, the colour, the weight, the length and skein weight, the number of skeins, where it's stored, the notes, as well as the price, date and shop of the purchase come from the file; the colour swatch is picked from the colour family Ravelry gives. The photo, though, is still yours to add by hand. Everything happens on your device: Rowtine reads the file you give it, it never connects to Ravelry.

The Expenses screen

Reached from the app menu, this screen summarises everything you've paid for your knitting, yarn and patterns alike:

• The total spent, by currency if you've used more than one (the app never mixes them, since it has no exchange rate to rely on). This total never goes down by itself: using up a skein or finishing a project doesn't lower it. It is different from your stash value, at the top of the Yarn stash screen, which tracks what you have left and drops when you use a skein. As long as you haven't noted any pattern price, this total stays exactly as you know it; as soon as a pattern shows up in it, it breaks down into two sub-lines: what went to yarn, what went to patterns.
• Two menus at the top: Year shows only the year you choose (or "All years"), Type shows only one category (or all). Totals recalculate accordingly. Purchases you haven't dated end up under "Unknown date", which is added to the Year menu whenever there are any.
• A breakdown by year then by month, yarn and patterns mixed in calendar order: you see at a glance what a given month cost you.
• As soon as a pattern shows up in the list, each line also carries its label, Yarn or Pattern. A pattern you've declared free shows up with the Free tag: that's proof you checked, not an oversight.
• The full list of every purchase and gift, including those whose yarn page you've since deleted (marked "Deleted yarn").
• The option to delete a yarn line directly from this screen, with a chance to undo right after in case of a mistake. A pattern line, on the other hand, is edited from the pattern's page: tapping it takes you there.

> Good to know: a yarn purchase survives the deletion of its page and > stays visible here. A pattern's price, though, belongs to the > pattern: if you delete the pattern, its expense goes with it.

6. Standalone tools

These tools work without being tied to a specific project, reachable from Home:

• Stitch calculator: it answers both ways round. Either you give it a number of rows and it tells you how to spread your increases or decreases over them; or you give it your rate ("every 4 rows") and it tells you how many rows you need to reach your target stitch count, and which row the last change falls on. One field says how many stitches you add or remove each time: usually 1, or 2 for a sleeve where you increase one stitch on each side. When your target can't be reached exactly, it offers the two options either side of it rather than rounding silently. Flat it talks in rows, in the round in rounds.
• Free counter: one or more independent counters (+/−, a target to reach, reset), for anything that isn't part of a saved project.
• Find my needle (or hook) size: enter what's written on your skein label (recommended needle size and stitch count for 10 × 10 cm, or 4 × 4 inches) then the gauge your pattern asks for, and the app tells you which size to start with: one size up, one down, or the same. It also warns you when the gap is too large to make up (this yarn won't work with this pattern), and always reminds you that a swatch still needs knitting to check: it's a starting point, not a guarantee. The rows field is optional.
• Stitch techniques memo: the Stitches tile opens every card in the memo, for reading only: the basic stitches and the most common ones, in crochet and in knitting. Search for a stitch by its name or abbreviation, switch between the Crochet and Knitting tabs, and tap a card to unfold its steps. To keep some stitches at hand while you work on a piece, choose them from the reader's cheat sheet (point 3).

7. Statistics

The selector at the top of the screen does not just pick a display span: it picks an observation window (Month, Quarter, Half-year or Year). Everything below follows it, from the total time to the nine number tiles. Just below it, an All / Knitting / Crochet filter restricts the whole screen to a single technique; it isn't remembered and goes back to "All" every time you come back to this screen, just like the reader's side panel. This filter only shows up if your projects cover both techniques: if they're all knitting (or all crochet), it wouldn't add anything, so it doesn't take up space.

One subtlety while a filter is on: the Average per active day tile shows a dash. The days being counted may include days when you moved forward in the other technique (the log only keeps the date, not what you did that day), and dividing a time by those days would give a figure that is exact but misleading.

The rest of the screen splits into two tabs, switched by tapping (never by swiping: the grid itself scrolls horizontally in Half-year and Year, so the two gestures don't get confused):

• Calendar (shown by default, the one in the screenshot above): the grid and the nine number tiles.
• Rhythm: the bars by period, then seven bars, one per day of the week, and a sentence naming your most consistent day across your whole history.

The grid shows one square per day, from the first day of your week (top) to the last (bottom), across the whole window you picked; that first day is Monday by default, or Sunday if you picked it in Settings (§8). Its colour follows the accent shade chosen in Settings (§8), and its intensity depends on how long you knitted or crocheted that day, on five levels: nothing, less than 30 minutes, 30 minutes to 1 hour, 1 to 2 hours, 2 hours or more. The thresholds are fixed: a dark square always means the same thing, month after month, even in a quieter quarter than usual. A bolder outline frames the columns that belong to the same month, so you can spot them at a glance.

Tapping a square marks it (it stays visibly selected) and shows, below the grid, its date, its duration and, when more than one project moved forward that day, a list of each one with the time it got. Tapping the same square again clears it.

What the streak counts is the days on which you logged at least one action: a session, timed or added by hand, a row checked off, a project counter moved forward. And opening the app without doing anything in it doesn't count: it takes a logged action.

8. Settings

• Profile: your first name (used for the Home greeting) and your default craft (knitting or crochet).
• Appearance: light theme, dark theme, or matching your device's own setting.
• Ambience color: ten shades offered in one tap, or any at all on the continuous slider. As long as you haven't chosen anything, the colour follows your theme and changes on its own with light or dark mode; as soon as you choose, your choice wins out and stays the same in both modes. That shade colours the buttons, the selections, the progress bars and the statistics grid (§7).
• First day of the week: Monday (default) or Sunday. This choice governs the calendar grid and the seven weekday bars on the Statistics screen, as well as the weekly reset of the "this week" total on Home.
• Language: French, English, German or Spanish. Each language is written in its own language in the list ("Deutsch", "Español"), so you find your own language easily.
• Units and currency:
  • Metric (metres, grams) or imperial (yards, ounces, pounds); everything follows: entering your skeins, stash totals, gauge (10 × 10 cm or 4 × 4 inches). Switching systems doesn't change any of your saved numbers, it just redisplays them in the other unit.
  • Currency among five (€, $, £, CHF, CA$). Note that it's a plain label: prices you've already entered aren't converted and appear with the other symbol; the app warns you about this before confirming.
  • Both settings are offered to you right from the first screen when you open the app, pre-filled from your device's language; you can change them here at any time.
• Data:
  • Export your stash, projects or patterns to a spreadsheet (CSV), to view or back them up elsewhere. Columns follow your current settings: lengths and weights in your chosen unit system, prices with your chosen currency symbol.
  • A universal Trash: any project, yarn or pattern you delete ends up there and can be restored at any time (until you empty it on purpose).
• Rowtine folder: everything you knit or crochet only exists inside this app, on your device, nowhere else. The backup folder keeps a copy of it, written continuously (there is never anything for you to trigger or think about), so you can get it back if you lose your device, if it breaks, or if you reinstall the app. You designate it once, at the very first launch; it can be changed later in Settings, with the Change folder button.
  • A backup folder serves one device only. Putting it in a synced folder so you have a copy elsewhere is a good idea; using it from a phone and a tablet is not: each would wipe out the other's work. A second device needs a folder of its own.
• While following a pattern: the screen stays on by default, and the current-row notification turns on when you ask for it.
  • Current row in notifications: you turn it on in Settings. While a project's reader is open, a notification shows your current step and the next one, and lets you move on without reopening the app: "Check off row" for a step, a minus button and a plus button around "Repeat 4 / 8" for a counter, "Chart done" for a chart reminder. When you turn it on, a pop-up explains the one setting that makes the button reliable, and Android asks you for permission to show notifications (only once), then for permission to let Rowtine run in the background. Without it, Android closes Rowtine after a while and the button stops responding. If you refuse, the notification stays off; you can turn it back on whenever you like in Settings, where a line also flags a permission withdrawn later. If Android closes or freezes Rowtine in the background anyway, which happens quickly on some phones, a tap on a notification button is not lost: the notification keeps it and tells you "Tap saved"; the reader applies it the next time you open the project, if the targeted step is still the current one. On some brands, an extra setting may be needed; exact names vary by brand and Android version: Google Pixel and stock Android, Settings > Apps > Rowtine > Battery > Unrestricted; Samsung, Settings > Apps > Rowtine > Battery > Not optimized; Xiaomi, Settings > Apps > Manage apps > Rowtine, Autostart on, Battery saver set to No restrictions, and Rowtine pinned in Recents; Oppo, Realme and OnePlus, Settings > Apps > App management > Rowtine, Launch permission with Auto-launch and Secondary launch, then Battery > Allow background activity; Huawei, Settings > Apps > Apps > Rowtine > Battery > App launch > Manage manually, with all three switches.
  • Keep the screen on while tracking: the screen doesn't go to sleep while a project's reader is open, even if you don't touch your device for long minutes, needles in hand. It goes back to its usual sleep timer as soon as you leave the reader. This is the default setting; you turn it off in Settings, or without leaving the tracking, in the reader's memo panel, which carries the same switch.
• Help: "Replay the guided tour" reopens the sample hat in the reader with its explanation bubbles, and recreates it if you've deleted it.
• Contribute: a link to the source code (the app is open source), and two other links in the same settings block:
  • Support Rowtine leads to a donations page, freely: nothing is unlocked in exchange, no feature is reserved for those who give.
  • Suggest an improvement opens a way for you to send a remark.

What happens at the very first launch

In order, the first time you open Rowtine: the welcome screen asks for your first name, your craft, your language, your theme, your units and your currency; on Android, the backup folder screen follows, described just above. After that, a few small things greet you, each once: you won't see them again (except the guided tour, which you can replay whenever you like).

• A word of welcome, set in the middle of Home: it tells you everything is ready and invites you to open the sample projects and patterns to get your bearings. Two buttons close it: "Explore the reader" starts the guided tour below right away, "Later" closes it without the tour. Either way, it doesn't come back.
• If you picked "Explore the reader", a guided tour of the reader opens right away on the sample hat, with three explanation bubbles: your size, ticking off a step, and the chart following your row. You can replay it any time: the "Replay the guided tour" button in the Help block of Settings restarts it and recreates the sample hat if you've deleted it.
• A warning about imported patterns, the first time you open your pattern library: it reminds you that the app reads your PDF on its own and gets things wrong sometimes (a skipped row, two sizes mixed up, a badly split table), and that an imported pattern needs a read-through before you follow it. Its "Got it" button closes it; "How to fix it" opens the section of this guide about your pattern library.
• A navigation tip, the first time you open a project, visit your pattern library, or visit your yarn stash, whichever of the three comes first: it explains that you can swipe right to go back, and drag a row of tabs or categories that is too wide for the screen. It appears only once in total, not once per screen; the "Got it" button closes it.

9. Under the hood: what Rowtine guarantees you

• Offline by default: none of your data ever leaves your device.
• No account, no paywall: every feature above is free, with no core feature locked away.
• Nothing is lost by mistake: every deletion can be undone instantly, and ends up in the trash regardless.
• Designed to be readable by everyone: sufficient contrast, buttons large enough to tap easily, compatible with screen readers.
• Comfortable on every screen: on a small phone, nothing overflows or gets cut off; on a tablet, the app makes use of the extra space: your lists of projects and patterns spread across several columns instead of one long stack, and the reader can keep the chart next to the text. The app accounts for your screen's reserved areas (status bar, notch, navigation bar): content does not slide underneath them.
• A privacy policy in plain words: from the About screen, it tells you where your data lives, what may leave your phone and in which cases, what happens if you uninstall the app, and who answers for it: the person responsible and the contact address are named there. It is written in your language.
• In four languages: French, English, German and Spanish.