Longform Writer

Longform Writer is a Mac app for long documents, built for a thesis first. Citations format as you type, footnotes and maths sit on the page, and your supervisor gets a proper Word file — whose tracked changes come straight back into your text.

Coming soon In App Store review — the download link lands here once it's approved.

Write on a page, not in markup

A page, not a page of markup

Underneath it’s plain Markdown, but you write on a page: headings, emphasis, citations as (Okoye, 2019), footnote numbers and maths, set in New York. Markup shows only where your cursor is, and gets out of the way when you move on.

Your supervisor stays in Word

Send to Supervisor makes a Word document with real styles, footnotes, a table of contents and page numbers. When it comes back with tracked changes and comments, Margin lays out every one in its paragraph: accept, reject or defer each with a key, see it in your text, compare what you sent with what you have now, or undo a whole round.

Every tracked change and comment, back in your text

Citations that keep up

The Shelf holds your sources. Import BibTeX, RIS or CSL JSON, or look up a DOI or ISBN. Cite with a key, and pick a style: APA, Harvard, Chicago (author–date or notes), MLA, IEEE or Vancouver. Note styles number themselves across the whole book, and a citation that isn’t on the Shelf is flagged before you send anything.

See the whole shape

Board shows every section as a card under its chapter, with its status and its words against a target. Drag a card to move the section, or switch to the outline to change titles, synopses, status and targets row by row.

Every section as a card, chapter by chapter

Out in every form

Press makes the Word file for your supervisor, a PDF for reading, the PDF you submit, a project archive, Markdown and plain text — from the same text, without copying it anywhere.

Your words, your Mac

Plain files. A project is a .longform package of Markdown files, readable in any text editor.
No account, no analytics, no subscription.
Online only when you ask. Looking up a DOI or ISBN sends that identifier and nothing else. See the Privacy Policy.

Requirements

macOS 12 or later. Universal — Apple silicon and Intel.

Questions? Contact support.