Best Writing Software for Mac
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What is Writing Software for Mac?
Writing software helps individuals and teams craft, edit, and organize written content, whether for creative projects, professional documents, or academic papers. These platforms typically offer features like spell check, grammar correction, style suggestions, and plagiarism detection to improve the quality of writing. Writing software often includes tools for structuring documents, managing outlines, and organizing ideas, making it easier for writers to maintain focus and coherence. Some advanced writing tools also provide distraction-free modes, collaboration features, and export options for different formats, ensuring a streamlined writing process. By using writing software, writers can enhance productivity, ensure consistency, and produce high-quality content more efficiently. Compare and read user reviews of the best Writing software for Mac currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.
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1
Plottr
Plottr
Plottr lets you easily arrange (and rearrange) your scenes, plots, and character arcs so you can quickly find your way to the end of your tale — no corkboard required. Plottr automatically generates a clean outline of your story for you to review, edit, and export as the basis of your manuscript. You don’t have to start from scratch. Plottr comes with over a dozen templates (and counting) based on proven storytelling structures to help move your story from idea to execution. The fun is just beginning. Once you've finished outlining your story, Plottr makes it easy to start writing — just export your files and let your creative muscles get to work!Starting Price: $15 -
2
SSuite WordGraph Editor
SSuite Office Software
SSuite WordGraph is a free and very useful alternative to Microsoft's Word, OpenOffice's Writer, or anything else out there claiming to be the latest and greatest. You don't even have a need for .NET or even JAVA to be installed. This will save you a lot of hard drive space and precious computer resources. Use WordGraph for anything from writing a quick letter to producing an entire book with embedded illustrations, tables of contents, indexes, and bibliographies. WordGraph is a complete and powerful software solution for creating, editing and viewing various types of documents. You can create simple or highly structured documents include graphics, tables, charts, and insert spreadsheets you created. A number of available features give you a fine degree of control over the formatting of text, pages, sections of documents, and also entire documents. Desktop, Portable, and Online Editions Available. Read the "Read Me" document first! Requires: 1024x768 Display SizeStarting Price: Free -
3
Canva
Canva
Design anything. Publish anywhere. Use Canva’s drag-and-drop feature and professional layouts to design consistently stunning graphics. Design presentations, social media graphics with thousands of beautiful forms, over 100 million stock photos, video & audio, and all the tools you need. Design with millions of stock photos, vectors, and illustrations or upload your own. Edit your photos using preset filters or get advanced with photo editing tools; you’ll never be stuck for choice. Use icons, shapes, and elements with ease. Choose from thousands of parts for your designs, or upload your own. Access everything you need to make a great design for your creative needs. Use Canva Teams to support your company and foster collaboration on projects without having to switch apps. Canva integrates into all major CRM, social media, and management platforms. Magic Write in Canva Docs is your very own AI text generator for social media captions, blog ideas, product descriptions, lyrics, & more.Starting Price: $10 per month -
4
Microsoft Word
Microsoft
Collaborate with others without ever leaving your document or jot down an idea with your digital pen. Need to publish a newsletter or document for others to see? Easily transform your Word document into a webpage. Collaborate with others across the globe. Translate documents in your non-native language with just a click. Get creative by inserting 3D models directly in your document. Have your content read back to you with Learning Tools and easily catch any mistakes. Finding great sources just got simpler. Use Researcher to read articles in the task pane so you can stay focused on your writing. When you’re brushing up your document, it’s good to see the big picture. The Editor Overview Pane helps you find and fix any proofing issues.Starting Price: $9.99 per month -
5
Zoho Writer
Zoho
Zoho Writer is an online word processor that allows you to write, edit, and collaborate on documents, as well as publish them on multiple platforms. With powerful editing tools, an AI-powered, multilingual writing assistant, and a multi-stage approval workflow, Writer is just the right tool for all your content-writing needs. Writer is a powerful, cloud-based word processor that allows you to easily and efficiently create online documents. With Writer you can: Collaborate with your team in real-time and leverage their collective knowledge to build informative and engaging documents Receive writing and style suggestions from the smart writing assistant Instantly check for plagiarized and duplicated content in your document Automate document creation and simplify business processes with mail merge, fillable forms, and e-signature collection Confidently finalize all documents with multi-stage document approval workflows Publish and distribute documents in multiple channelsStarting Price: Free -
6
Write! App
Write! App
Write! is an elegant workspace to create notes, to-do lists, writing projects and texts of any kind. It has all features of a good word processor packed into a clutter-free interface. Writing tools like configurable autocomplete, intelligent spellchecker, unlimited Ctrl+Z and productivity counters will improve your productivity. Your work will flow smoothly with the help of minimalist writing interface. Your documents will never ever be lost again. You can use Write! on any computer and continue writing from the point you left. You can store unlimited number of documents at no additional cost. Easily manage any writing project structuring it in tabs, Sessions and folders. Switching between writing sessions changes the group of tabs you are working on, allowing you to quickly change the context. Publish documents to the web with a unique URL and share a link to it via email or to social media. When you make changes to a shared document, they are immediately updated online.Starting Price: $24.95 -
7
Vellum
Vellum
Classic touches like custom drop caps and ornamental flourishes are included in both print and ebook editions. So whether your readers prefer a paperback or a Paperwhite, they will see a beautiful, professionally-formatted book. Use Vellum to get the most out of ebooks. Assemble box sets of a series. Produce advance copies for early feedback. Connect with links to Facebook and Twitter. Add store links and help readers buy your next book. Generate ebooks for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and more. And with Vellum’s instant turnaround, you can do it all on your schedule. Page numbers. Margins. Headers. Font. Line spacing. All of the setup that can take hours elsewhere happens automatically with every book you create. And Vellum goes beyond the basics to prevent widows, balance page spreads, and avoid short pages — all automatically. You’ll have a book that looks like it took days to create …in minutes.Starting Price: $199.99 -
8
Bear
Shiny Frog
Bear is a beautiful, flexible writing app for crafting notes and prose. Bear works on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, so you can write wherever inspiration strikes. Use todos to stay on task across every device. Link notes to each other to build a body of work. Add hashtags to organize the way you think. Use Face/Touch ID to protect sensitive notes. Bear is perfect for everything from quick notes to in-depth essays. A focus mode helps you concentrate, and advanced markup options are an online writer's best friend. Full in-line image support brings your writing to life.Starting Price: $1.49 per month -
9
Mark Text
Mark Text
Mark Text is an MIT licensed open source project, you will always be able to download the latest version from GitHub release page. Mark Text is still in development, and its development is inseparable from all sponsors. Support GFM table block, you can remove/add rows and columns. Support flowchart, sequence diagram, gantt diagram, vega chart. Support CommonMark and GitHub Flavored Markdown Spec. Realtime preview (WYSIWYG) and a clean and simple interface to get a distraction-free writing experience. Markdown extensions such as math expressions (KaTeX), front matter and emojis. Support paragraphs and inline style shortcuts to improve your writing efficiency. Paste images directly from clipboard. -
10
Pages
Apple
Pages is a powerful word processor that lets you create stunning documents, and comes included with most Apple devices. And with real-time collaboration, your team can work together from anywhere, whether they’re on Mac, iPad, iPhone, or using a PC. From the start, Pages places you in the perfect creative environment. It puts all the right tools in all the right places, so it’s easy to choose a look, customize fonts, personalize text styles, and add beautiful graphics. And everyone collaborating on a document has access to the same powerful features. Choose from over 70 beautiful Apple‑designed templates, and customize your reports, letters, and other documents any way you like. And, if you’ve ever dreamed of writing a book or fairy tale, it’s easy to create interactive stories right inside Pages. Track changes, add highlights, and have threaded conversations with your team. Your edits are saved automatically. -
11
Etherpad
Etherpad
Etherpad allows you to edit documents collaboratively in real-time, much like a live multi-player editor that runs in your browser. Write articles, press releases, to-do lists, etc. together with your friends, fellow students or colleagues, all working on the same document at the same time. All instances provide access to all data through a well-documented API and support import/export to many major data exchange formats. And if the built-in feature set isn't enough for you, there's tons of plugins that allow you to customize your instance to suit your needs. You don't need to set up a server and install Etherpad in order to use it. Just pick one of the publicly available instances that friendly people from everywhere around the world have set up. Etherpad is an open source project. -
12
OmmWriter
herraizsoto&co.
OmmWriter is a tool which makes it easier for you to concentrate. Based on a natural setting, it effectively insulates your mind from distractions and sets up a direct line between your thoughts and your words. As if you were alone, you'll hear your inner voice clearer than ever and you'll be able to delve deeper into your creative process. OmmWriter opens up in full-screen mode, so nothing disrupts your creative process. An ideal setting for focusing solely on your words, thanks to its minimalist design and its having only the basic functions required for your writing. It feels as though each word flows from you naturally. Enjoying the plenitude of the structure when inspiration and creativity have come knocking at your door. Each and every element in OmmWriter is designed to stimulate your creativity. Create the ideal setting for you by selecting from among the different environments, music and typefaces. To maintain your concentration and inspire your state of mind.Starting Price: $6.11 -
13
Scrivener
Literature & Latte
Typewriter. Ring-binder. Scrapbook. Scrivener combines all the tools you need to craft your first draft, from nascent notion to final full stop. Scrivener is the go-to app for writers of all kinds, used every day by best-selling novelists, screenwriters, non-fiction writers, students, academics, lawyers, journalists, translators and more. Scrivener won't tell you how to write—it simply provides everything you need to start writing and keep writing. Tailor-made for long writing projects, Scrivener banishes page fright by allowing you to compose your text in any order, in sections as large or small as you like. Got a great idea but don't know where it fits? Write when inspiration strikes and find its place later. Grow your manuscript organically, idea by idea. Whether you plan or plunge, Scrivener works your way: hammer out every last detail before typing a word, or carve out a draft and restructure later. Or mix your methods and do a bit of both.Starting Price: $49 one-time fee -
14
Calmly Writer
Calmly Writer
Traditional word processors include dozens of options for formatting text, distracting you from what really matters, writing. Calmly Writer is an editor designed to focus on what you want to tell, with a simple, unobtrusive, and easy-to-use user interface. Calmly Writer has been designed to help you focus on writing. As you start typing, all the distracting options disappear from the user interface. The "focus mode" option highlights only the paragraph you are editing at the time. Format your text simply by selecting and clicking on the desired style. If you prefer, you can also do it with keyboard shortcuts or markdown. As long as you do not close a document tab, that document will be opened every time you start the application. If the document was not saved, its backup will be loaded. Calmly Writer displays the number of words and characters written, and allows you to set a target. You can choose between light, dark, dark blue, dune and old-school mode.Starting Price: $11.45 one-time payment -
15
WhiteSmoke
WhiteSmoke
WhiteSmoke Writing Solution. We produce an all-in-one English writing tool that provides grammar, spelling, punctuation and style checks. Our software is activated in a single click from any text application and browser, pointing out potential errors for consideration and offering suggestions for improvement. We believe that users that have little or no experience with WhiteSmoke software can use our solution to quickly begin writing, editing, translating and enhancing their English documents. WhiteSmoke renders you with the highest quality proofreading abilities available, correcting not only simple spelling mistakes like old-fashioned word processors but everything from grammar, word choices and even style mistakes, all without breaking a sweat. Grammar plays an important role in what kind of impression you give.Starting Price: $6.59/month/user -
16
LivingWriter
LivingWriter
Start your book, plot your book, write your book, organize your book, and export it for publishing all in one place. Simple drag and drop organization for all your chapters, subchapter, and elements. LivingWriter stores your story elements and suggests them as you type. Organize your story with time-tested outlines used by best-selling authors. Spend less time organizing and planning. Spend more time growing your ideas into books. Order and reorder your chapters and story elements without the hassle of copying and pasting. Jot down your chapter notes quickly on the sidebar. Everything on one screen means never leaving your story. We don't believe in reinventing the wheel, but we're fans of greasing it a bit. You can now use the same outlines used in world-famous stories and movies right in LivingWriter. We'll lead you through each step with detailed guidance. No other writing app out there will do that for you.Starting Price: $8.99 per month -
17
iA Writer
iA
Get focused. The simple, award-winning design of iA Writer delivers the essential writing experience. Used by half a million people worldwide, its minimal interface is crafted to cut out noise. It’s just you, your thoughts, and the words on the page. No rulers, no formatting bars. iA Writer provides the crisp, uncluttered environment you need to write well, supported by discrete, powerful features, from content blocks, to syntax highlighting. Focus is the key to good writing, and the guiding principle behind iA Writer. With shortcuts and simplified settings, you can keep your hands on the keyboard and your mind in the text. We think every craftsperson should own their own tools, so when you download iA Writer, you own it. No forced subscriptions, microtransactions, or compatibility concerns. Your work, your files, your app.Starting Price: $29.99 per license -
18
Author
The Augmented Text Company
Powerful writing tool for outstanding college papers, with integrated Concept Map, Quick Citations, & Export to Augmented Academic PDF. Integrated Concept Map allows you to map and write in the same workflow. Powerful Views for powerful insights through advanced folding, finding, focus & more. Quick Citations from any book, academic paper or website. Export Augmented University Papers to make reading your work more interactive.Starting Price: $19.99 -
19
Effie
7S2P Inc.
Effie, a light, clean yet powerful mind mapping and writing software for Mac, iOS, Windows. Features: All your work is in one place and within reach. So there’s no confusing file management. Autosave and sync all your work in the cloud, so you can access anything from anywhere. An immersive writing environment to keep you away from distractions. One tap to convert an unordered list into a mind map, and vice versa. Edits on the unordered list will be synced with a mind map, saving you from jumping the hoops from one app to another. Flexible export to a PDF, DOCX, Markdown, EffieSheet, and JPEG file. Simplified markup language allows you to finish your writing without lifting your fingers away from the keyboard. Markup Insight panel woken by a “/” makes it much easier to use the markup language. You can choose to write in the dark or light theme, whichever drives your creativity and productivity. Different styles are available for your mind maps. Built with native code.Starting Price: $4.99/month -
20
Ulysses
Ulysses
The Ultimate Writing App for Mac, iPad and iPhone. A pleasant, focused writing experience combined with effective document management, fast syncing and flexible export options make Ulysses the first choice for writers of all kinds. Many writers praise the way Ulysses encourages immersion with the text, and testify how using it has considerably increased their productivity. Although it’s a fully-fledged writing tool, Ulysses manages to stay completely out of your way – and can therefore rival any distraction-free writing app. Ulysses’ unified library holds everything you’ll ever write, and is equipped for managing writing projects of all sizes and ambitions. Be it love letters, simple notes, daily blog posts or the Great American Novel – with Ulysses, your writing is in the best of hands. Thus, you can focus on getting the words down. On the sofa, at a coffee shop, or while waiting for the bus: Work wherever you are, and whenever inspiration hits. -
21
Typora
Typora
Typora gives you a seamless experience as both a reader and a writer. It removes the preview window, mode switcher, syntax symbols of markdown source code, and all other unnecessary distractions. Instead, it provides a real live preview feature to help you concentrate on the content itself. Typora allows you to manage your files easily, providing both file tree panel and articles (file list) side panel, allows you to manage your files easily. Organize your files your way, including putting in sync services, like Dropbox or iCloud. Automatically see the Outline structure of your documents in outline panel, which allows you to quickly go through the document and jump to any section with one click. Export to PDF with bookmarks. Go further and export or import. More formats, including docx, OpenOffice, LaTeX, MediaWiki, Epub, etc, can be exported or imported. See how large your document is in words, characters, lines, or reading minutes. -
22
Dabble
Dabble
Dabble is an easy-to-use online writing tool, packed with helpful features that allows beginning novelists and published authors to create amazing stories. Dabble organizes your manuscript, story notes, and plot. Dabble simplifies story, leaving more room in your brain to create, which is what being a writer is really about. If you’re sick of using sticky notes, plotting on a piece of paper, and using elementary word processors, then you’re going to love Dabble. Dabble was created for two reasons - Simplicity and organization. Other tools are either way too complicated and require a course to teach you how to use them...or too elementary lacking basic tools and organization. That's where Dabble shines! Shape your story with Dabble’s unique plotting tool. Plot like J.K. Rowling. Dabble provides a plot grid, plot lines (subplots), and plot points (the events in your subplots) to supercharge your plotting.Starting Price: $5 per month -
23
Storyist
Storyist
A powerful writing environment for novelists and screenwriters. Do you have a story to tell? Unlike conventional word processors, Storyist helps you track your plot, characters, and settings, and keeps all of your writing organized and accessible— so you can focus on telling your story. Storyist provides a rich text editor with support for comments, images, headers, footers, and style sheets so you can create properly formatted manuscripts and screenplays. And Storyist comes with manuscript and screenplay templates so you can focus on the writing, not the formatting. Storyist lets you sketch out a story using index cards and then refine it with customizable plot, character, and setting sheets. When you're ready to put words on the page, Storyist can even display your index cards next to your manuscript as you write. Storyist organizes your novel manuscripts, screenplays, research, and other project-related writing and can store them in the cloud so you can access them quickly.Starting Price: $19 -
24
Drafts
Drafts
Drafts opens to a new page with the keyboard ready so you can type immediately. Go hands-free with dictation. Drafts lets you get things down before you forget without fiddling folders, naming, etc. Drafts is a launching-off point for text – use the actions to copy it, share it, or deep link into other apps and services. Compose a tweet or message, create a file in Dropbox, send a task off to reminders – there are hooks into tons of your favorite apps. New entries go into the Inbox. Once there, you can tag them for organization, Flag them for importance, or archive them for long-term storage. Set up a text editing experience that’s perfect for you, with tons of interface adjustments like custom fonts and control over spacing, line height, and margins. Drafts gives you a new approach to using your iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Watch, letting you write first and think about what to do with it later. Try it in your dock for a week, you’ll find you can’t live without it. -
25
bibisco
bibisco
bibisco is a novel writing software that helps you to write your novel, in a simple way. Organize chapters and scenes, manage revisions, export novel in pdf, docx, epub. Write with a fully-featured text editor also in distraction free mode. Create a novel structure, define premise, fabula, narrative strands and settings: geographic, temporal and social context. Design characters, locations, objects useful for the development of the story. Attach their images and keep an eye on them while writing. Analyze chapters' length, time and locations in which characters appear, their distribution across chapters, see your entire novel in a timeline. Characters that are completely good or completely evil are stereotypes and therefore are not believable. bibisco is the novel writing software that helps you to know everything about your characters, in an unusual and funny way: an interview! -
26
WritePro
WritePro
The New WritePro® is an updated and improved version of the original highly acclaimed WritePro® which has over 100,000 users in 38 countries. It contains changes that another 20 years of experience brought to the program's author, Sol Stein, along with technological improvements that have become possible with newer programming languages like Java®. Java has allowed us to keep the program small so that it is highly transportable and easily delivered via the internet, and it makes our program compatible with every modern PC. We have kept WritePro simple so anyone can use it and benefit from its unparalleled expertise. WritePro® contains the guidance that you need to become your own best editor and to truly gain an understanding of the craft of writing. The original WritePro® is being used successfully by many tens of thousands of writers in all 50 states and in 38 countries. -
27
Focused
Codebots
We think Focused is the new benchmark for markdown writing apps that will enable you to really focus on your work. Building on the amazing Typed app from Realmac Software, Codebots is proud to bring you Focused for Mac. Focused is not just a distraction-free writing app, it’s the first writing app that actually aids your focus. Markdown was created by John Gruber as an easy to read plain text format that allows you to create web based content with no HTML knowledge. The syntax that is used when writing markdown allows you to define the intent of different elements in the markdown document e.g. a # in front of a word indicates that the word is to be formatted and displayed as a Title. Markdown removes the need to memorize complex HTML tags, and an ever growing number of blogging platforms allow markdown to be used for content creation. No clutter, no distractions. Just a perfectly crafted set of tools to help you write and stay focused on the task at hand.Starting Price: $19.99 one-time payment -
28
Essayist
Essayist Software
Upon starting a new essay it sets up the title section/page, margins, font, line spacing, alignment, page headers/footers, etc. It formats your references, in-text citations, footnotes/endnotes, figures, tables, table of contents and more. Add in-text citations and footnotes/endnotes with ease. Simply click the insert citation button and select the reference you wish to cite. An in-text citation/footnote/endnote is automatically created for you. Add references quickly and easily using Google Scholar, Essayist’s built-in search, by pasting a URL or manual entry forms. Once added, references are automatically formatted and added to your essay’s references/works cited list.Starting Price: Free -
29
Zettlr
Zettlr
Writing is an essential part of our everyday life. Why make it complicated? Zettlr redefines what writing means. It is slim, fast, and versatile. Focus on what matters to you. Publish, not perish. In modern times, getting a hold of the flood of information is almost as hard as inserting a USB drive the right way on the first attempt. Zettlr allows you to connect pieces of information using state of the art Zettelkasten methodology. And the best is: Unlike many competitors, Zettlr never locks you in. Zettlr supports almost every conceivable way to create links and identify your files. In other words: No matter where you come from — all Zettelkästen are beautiful and supported by Zettlr. Out of the box. Due to its designing flexibility, Zettlr supports dark mode out of the box, as well as many different themes, suited to your needs. Switching is as easy as pressing a button. -
30
yWriter
Spacejock Software
yWriter is a word processor which breaks your novel into chapters and scenes, helping you keep track of your work while leaving your mind free to create. It will not write your novel for you, suggest plot ideas or perform creative tasks of any kind. yWriter was designed by an author, not a salesman! yWriter7 is free to download and use, but you're encouraged to register your copy if you find it useful. If you're just embarking on your first novel a program like yWriter may seem like overkill. I mean, all you have to do is type everything into a word processor! Sure, but wait until you hit 20,000 words, with missing scenes and chapters, notes all over your desk, characters and locations and plot points you've just added and which need to be referenced earlier ... it becomes a real struggle. Now imagine that same novel at 40,000 or 80,000 words! No wonder most first-time writers give up.