Using Diary in lyrik.fm

Pick Diary on the Style step: your lyrics are handwritten into a notebook, stroke by stroke as you sing, with your cover taped onto the page.

What it looks like

• A notebook or sketchbook page, written on as you sing, in felt tip, biro, pencil or crayon.
• Lowercase suits it, like real handwriting. Diary starts on As typed, like every style, so choose lowercase under Capitals to get it.
• Your cover taped in as a photo print, a round sticker or a cut-out.
• Held words press harder, and get underlined or circled.
• The last chorus's hook gets a swipe of highlighter.
• A hand-held camera drifts over the page and moves to fresh paper for each stanza.
• Choruses move to coloured paper and crayon. Your chosen handwriting is kept, and the Original hand has its own crayon look for the chorus.

Best for

• Confessional pop, pop-punk, indie, folk, rock and ballads.
• Calm to fairly lively songs, roughly 60 to 165 BPM.
• Songs with a chorus: it scrawls the hook in crayon.
• Light covers suit it best, but any cover works.

How to make it

1. On the Style step ('Pick a style.'), find Diary. On a phone, tap the Style tab first.
2. Tap or click the card to see your clip (your first chorus, to start with) written out.
3. Choose a handwriting under Font, a colour under Colour · from your cover, and a Lyric size.
4. Open More ways to tweak it (the More tab on a phone) for the paper, Pen, Photo, Paper motion and Capitals.
5. Press Shuffle for new page layouts. Undo goes back.
6. Check both shapes, then press Download · from £4.99$5.99€5.99CA$8.99A$8.99.

Diary’s 'Original' hand is Shantell Sans. 'Marker' is the separate Permanent Marker hand. Older projects keep their original hand.

Available controls

Control	Choices
Font	Marker, Original, Neat, Quick hand, Cursive, Scrawl
Colour	Our pick, Main colour, Bold colour, Pop, Muted, Biro, Black ink, Your colour
Lyric size	Small, Medium, Large
Capitals	lowercase, As typed, ALL CAPS
Background	Ruled pad by default; Our pick, Notebook, Sketchbook, Cover colours, Brown paper, Coloured, Dark card, Punched graph, Crumpled notebook, Crinkled (stop-motion)
Pen	Marker, Pencil, Crayon
Photo	Our pick, B&W, Colour, None
Paper motion	Our pick, Stop-motion, Still
Energy	Calm, Normal, Hype
Ad-libs	Show, Hide

Font availability depends on your lyrics. Colour choices can depend on the cover, and the Ad-libs row needs marked ad-libs.

Diary lays out each page itself, so the panel says 'Diary chooses where the lyrics sit for you.'

Tips for great results

• Leave a blank line between stanzas in your lyrics. Diary turns to fresh paper for each stanza. See How should I paste my lyrics?
• Choose the underlined words. The big word on each line is the one that gets pressed, underlined or circled. Pick them under Big words in More ways to tweak it. See How do I choose which word stands out on each line?
• For a school-notebook feel, try Ruled pad with the Biro colour.
• Want it to look more hand-made? Choose Crinkled (stop-motion), or Stop-motion under Paper motion.

16:9 and 9:16

• 16:9 writes across a spread of paper, with your cover taped in beside the words.
• 9:16 writes one block at a time down a tall sheet for each part of the song, gliding from block to block. The top of the frame fades into the paper, and the writing stays in the area TikTok, Reels and Shorts leave clear.

Languages

• Marker, Cursive and Scrawl can't draw most accents beyond Western European ones, such as the dots under Yoruba letters. Quick hand can't draw some Yoruba and Igbo marks. None of the four can draw the hooked Hausa letters. For those songs, the chips that can't set your lyrics grey out and the song is written in Original, or Neat for Hausa.
• If your lyrics use the hooked Hausa letters (ɓ ɗ ƙ ƴ), Original switches to Neat.
• See Why is a style or font greyed out?

Good to know

• Colour, size, capitals, ad-libs and energy carry across if you switch style. Diary remembers its own font, paper and rows.
• Shuffle gives every style a new take, not just Diary.
• Previewing is free. Your first eligible clip is free too; other downloads use credits.

If something goes wrong

• 'Your lyrics use letters Cursive doesn’t have, so we’re showing a font that has them.' (or another hand's name) Your song is written in a hand that has every letter you need.
• The paper flickers. Set Paper motion to Still, or pick a paper other than Crinkled (stop-motion).
• Your cover gets in the way. Set Photo to None.

Hidden extras

• The last chorus's hook gets a highlighter swipe, so it pays to have your hook as a line's big word.
• On a computer, press S for new page layouts and F to switch shape.