

novelWriter
novelWriter is a Markdown-like text editor designed for writing novels and larger projects of many smaller plain text documents. It uses its own flavor of Markdown that supports a meta data syntax for comments, synopsis and cross-referencing between files.
Cost / License
- Free
- Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Qt
Features
Properties
- Privacy focused
- Lightweight
- Distraction-free
- Support for Themes
Features
- Dark Mode
- No registration required
- No Tracking
- Spell Checking
- Tree structure
- Support for MarkDown
- Works Offline
- Ad-free
- Hierarchical Structure
- Full-Text Search
- Live Preview
- Task Time Tracking
- Subtasks
- Kanban Board
- File Versioning
- No Coding Required
- File Tagging
- Automatic Backup
- Plot visualisation
- Comments and metadata saving
- Outline organization
- Scene Management
Tags
- Productivity Tool
- Office & Productivity
- visual-overview
- Writing tool
novelWriter News & Activities
Recent activities
iamwho added novelWriter as alternative to Scribely- eluzja added novelWriter as alternative to Chronicler Pro
Sam-Futurelab added novelWriter as alternative to InkfluenceAI
protowords added novelWriter as alternative to Protowords
POX added novelWriter as alternative to Untold Novel
Dalieba added novelWriter as alternative to Markdown Shell Extensions and Editor- forum-poster-69 liked novelWriter
AuthWriter added novelWriter as alternative to AuthWriter
DeadPhoenix added novelWriter as alternative to Hammer Editor- POX added novelWriter as alternative to Scriptorium
novelWriter information
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What is novelWriter?
novelWriter is a Markdown-like text editor designed for writing novels and larger projects of many smaller plain text documents. It uses its own flavor of Markdown that supports a meta data syntax for comments, synopsis and cross-referencing between files. It's designed to be a simple text editor that allows for easy organization of text files and notes, built on plain text files for robustness.
The plain text storage is suitable for version control software, and also well suited for file synchronization tools. The core project structure is stored in a project XML file. Other meta data is primarily saved in JSON files.
novelWriter is not a full-feature Markdown editor. It allows for a minimal set of formatting needed for writing text documents for novels. These are currently limited to:
- Headings level 1 to 4 using the # syntax only.
- Emphasized and strong text. These are rendered as italicized and bold.
- Strikethrough text.
- Hard line breaks using two or more spaces at the end of a line.
Features not supported in the editor are also not exported when using the export tool.
The core export format of novelWriter is HTML5. You can also export the entire project as a single novelWriter Markdown-flavor document. In addition, other exports to Open Document, PDF, and plain text is offered through the Qt library, although with limitations to formatting.
Other features include:
- Syntax highlighting for the editor and syntax highlight themes
- User interface themes including dark theme
- Auto save documents and project files on a set timer
- Document stats including word count
- Easily organize files in root folders and sub folders
- Assign tags to notes
More information can be found on the Github page.









Comments and Reviews
has just the right amount of structure to help with your writing, without getting in your way
It cleanly separates content from metadata, allowing you to leave in-line comments and headings in your writing, without polluting the finished product
as well as being open source, novelWriter is actively maintained
Doesn't work on Win7 - "api-ms-win-core-path-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer" which is apparently due to Python withdrawing support upstream