Release Notes
- Changes in version 1.7.6
- Released on April 20, 2020
- FIXED: Did not load locales with underscores
- FIXED: Compile failure due to missing header
- Translation updates: Slovenian, Swedish, Turkish
- Changes in version 1.7.5
- Released on February 24, 2020
- Updated Windows dictionaries
- Updated Windows deployment
- Translation updates: Ukrainian
- Changes in version 1.7.4
- Released on January 16, 2020
- FIXED: Broken emergency cache in Windows
- FIXED: Daily progress did not show star background with some themes
- Replaced deprecated code
- Translation updates: Catalan, Swedish
- Changes in version 1.7.3
- Released on August 7, 2019
- FIXED: Was not loading KDE icon theme
- FIXED: Headings menu was incorrectly shown in German
- Replaced deprecated code
- Translation updates: Friulian, German, Korean
- Changes in version 1.7.2
- Released on March 7, 2019
- FIXED: Minimum sizes for page counts were too high
- FIXED: Window icon didn't work in Wayland
- Require Qt 5.9
- Improved loading locales
- Translation updates: Friulian, Korean
- Changes in version 1.7.1
- Released on December 17, 2018
- FIXED: Did not launch when incorrect lock file was found
- Changes in version 1.7.0
- Released on December 11, 2018
- FIXED: Daily progress percentages were not locale aware
- FIXED: Scene list text was incorrect with Qt 5.12
- Show current streak for previous day
- Improved detection of running instance
- Updated included hunspell
- Updated dictionaries
- Translation updates: Czech, Dutch, Hungarian
- Changes in version 1.6.16
- Released on September 3, 2018
- FIXED: Could not always save to remote drives
- FIXED: Could not browse shortcuts in Windows file dialogs
- Changes in version 1.6.15
- Released on July 20, 2018
- FIXED: Automatic high DPI support
- Translation updates: Galician, Spanish
- Changes in version 1.6.14
- Released on July 6, 2018
- FIXED: Regression where emergency cache didn't run
- Renamed NEWS to ChangeLog
- Translation updates: Bosnian
- Changes in version 1.6.13
- Released on May 29, 2018
- Updated dictionaries
- Updated Unicode symbols database
- Replaced deprecated code
- Extra warnings only shown in debug build
- Improved Linux deployment
- Improved macOS deployment
- Improved Windows deployment
- Translation updates: Dutch, French, Portuguese
- Changes in version 1.6.12
- Released on April 12, 2018
- Ignore empty cache files
- Remove auto save
- Translation updates: Slovenian
- Changes in version 1.6.11
- Released on March 30, 2018
- FIXED: File monitoring prevented saving in Windows
- Translation updates: Danish, Slovenian
- Changes in version 1.6.10
- Released on February 21, 2018
- Default to Flat ODT for cache files
- Reduce time between cache writes to 5 minutes
- FIXED: Fade effect broke alerts
- FIXED: Fade effect hid text on load screen
- Translation updates: Greek
- Changes in version 1.6.9
- Released on February 7, 2018
- Updated dictionaries
- FIXED: Could not save to network devices
- Translation updates: Igbo, Slovenian
- Changes in version 1.6.8
- Released on December 26, 2017
- FIXED: Could not compile with Qt 5.10
- FIXED: Did not handle ODT line position with two values
- Translation updates: German, Indonesian
- Changes in version 1.6.7
- Released on August 25, 2017
- Updated dictionaries
- FIXED: HiDPI blurred text backgrounds were scaled
- FIXED: Window margin was always the size of the scrollbar
- FIXED: Always indented first line when printing
- Changes in version 1.6.6
- Released on July 30, 2017
- FIXED: Did not always install translations in Linux
- FIXED: Unneccessary compiler warning about switch fallthrough
- FIXED: Did not show headings when automatic spellchecking was disabled
- FIXED: Foreground incorrectly placed when load stretched themes
- Translation updates: Czech, Armenian
- Changes in version 1.6.5
- Released on May 30, 2017
- Updated included hunspell
- Updated dictionaries
- FIXED: Data loss when program crashed
- Translation updates: Greek, Swedish
- Changes in version 1.6.4
- Released on March 9, 2017
- Updated AppData installation directory
- FIXED: HiDPI blurred text backgrounds were offset and scaled
- FIXED: HiDPI backgrounds were not centered properly
- FIXED: HiDPI centered backgrounds were also scaled
- Translation updates: Chinese (Taiwan), Finnish, German, Indonesian
- Changes in version 1.6.3
- Released on December 11, 2016
- Updated included hunspell
- FIXED: Line spacing was ignored when pasting in new documents
- FIXED: Pasting text always made document rich text
- FIXED: Possible delay on start when creating non-native printer
- Translation updates: Chinese (China), Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian
- Changes in version 1.6.2
- Released on October 13, 2016
- Generate binary translations at build time
- FIXED: Focused text did not handle first-line indent
- FIXED: Was not properly loading Qt translations
- Translation updates: Armenian, Dutch, Italian, Lithuanian, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Swedish, Ukrainian
- Changes in version 1.6.1
- Released on September 19, 2016
- FIXED: Incorrectly handled non-heading text in OOXML
- FIXED: Misspelled words did not follow heading style
- FIXED: Did not always close OOXML paragraph properties correctly
- FIXED: Did not correctly store RTL in OOXML
- FIXED: Reported conflicts for empty shortcuts
- FIXED: Switched to incorrect tab to show conflicting shortcuts
- Translation updates: German, Romanian
- Changes in version 1.6.0
- Released on August 27, 2016
- Added always showing interface
- Added headings
- Added new default themes
- Added removing user-installed dictionaries
- Added shortcut for typographical apostrophe
- Added support for ODT Flat XML files
- Added support for high DPI displays
- Switched to QSoundEffect
- Updated dictionaries
- FIXED: Daily progress did not reset when run longer than a day
- FIXED: Printer margins were too big
- FIXED: Was replacing session files with command-line files
- FIXED: Did not add new default symbol shortcuts
- Translation updates: Arabic, Armenian, Catalan, Chinese (China), Dutch, English (United Kingdom), French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Spanish (Mexico), Turkish, Vietnamese
- Changes in version 1.5.7
- Released on July 16, 2016
- Switched to cross-compiled builds for Windows
- FIXED: Did not play sounds for key presses with Alt modifier
- FIXED: Could not change shortcut to disable focused text
- Changes in version 1.5.6
- Released on June 22, 2016
- Updated included hunspell
- FIXED: Did not remember some default formats
- FIXED: Replace all did not update spellchecking
- FIXED: Themes still did not always forget changes
- Translation updates: Afrikaans (South Africa), Danish, Esperanto, Hebrew, Lithuanian, Spanish
- Changes in version 1.5.5
- Released on September 4, 2015
- Added support for pasting RTF in Windows
- Switched back to dynamic builds for Windows
- Updated dictionaries
- FIXED: Themes did not always forget changes
- FIXED: Treated every paragraph as a scene when divider is empty
- FIXED: Switched tabs during autosave
- FIXED: Allowed pasting and saving invalid null character
- Translation updates: Catalan, Esperanto, Lithuanian, Portuguese (Brazil)
- Changes in version 1.5.4
- Released on June 13, 2015
- Relax version check of ZIP to handle broken ZIP files
- Remove deprecated code for unsupported Mac OS X versions
- Switch to static builds for Windows
- FIXED: Broken shortcut for disabling focused text in Windows
- FIXED: Word count did not handle dashes correctly
- FIXED: Did not use correct line endings in Windows
- FIXED: Incorrectly sized icon for daily progress
- FIXED: Crash when importing themes
- Translation updates: Esperanto, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Turkish, Ukrainian
- Changes in version 1.5.3
- Released on August 17, 2014
- FIXED: Find did not take smart quotes into account
- FIXED: Style hierarchy was not always loaded in ODT
- FIXED: Ignored text sections in ODT files
- FIXED: Was not reading styles for OOXML files
- Translation updates: Hebrew, Portuguese (Brazil), Swedish
- Changes in version 1.5.2
- Released on July 20, 2014
- FIXED: Regression with RtfWriter encoding characters in Windows
- FIXED: Windows installer did not install shortcut for all users
- FIXED: Finnish spellchecking did not work in Windows
- FIXED: Incorrect handling of mimetypes in copy-paste
- FIXED: Keywords in .desktop file should be separated by semicolons
- Translation updates: French, Hebrew, Korean, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil)
- Changes in version 1.5.1
- Released on June 24, 2014
- Added keywords to .desktop file
- FIXED: Spelling underline was broken
- FIXED: Incorrect MIME type for Office Open XML
- FIXED: Incorrect version number string
- FIXED: Compile issues with Qt 4.6
- FIXED: Regression with sound effects on Windows
- FIXED: Regression with default cursor width on Windows
- FIXED: Regression where menubar was not shown in Ubuntu
- Translation updates: Spanish (Mexico), Korean, Swedish
- Changes in version 1.5.0
- Released on June 17, 2014
- Added daily progress dialog
- Added default themes
- Added blurring behind text area
- Added drop shadow behind text area
- Added duplicating themes
- Added keyboard shortcuts to move between paragraphs
- Added option to disable byte order mark
- Added basic support for Office Open XML files
- Added Windows installer
- Include dictionaries on Windows
- Improved theme dialog
- Improved background color when loading theme
- Stopped clearing document cache across runs
- Synchronized location for open and save dialogs
- Switched to hunspell
- Switched to QtZip
- Refactored daily progress
- Refactored document cache
- Refactored spell checking code
- Translation updates: Armenian, Czech, Dutch, Greek, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Japanese, Romanian, Serbian, Turkish, Chinese (China)
- Changes in version 1.4.6
- Released on April 10, 2014
- FIXED: Smart quotes did not work in Windows
- FIXED: Formatting was lost when saving pasted text in new document
- FIXED: Could not change built-in Qt textedit shortcuts
- FIXED: Session names did not trim whitespace
- FIXED: Theme names did not trim whitespace
- FIXED: Did not respect default cursor width
- FIXED: Session names could not contain periods
- FIXED: Theme names could not contain periods
- FIXED: Long session names made session menu unworkable
- Translation updates: Armenian, Hebrew
- Changes in version 1.4.5
- Released on March 25, 2014
- FIXED: Infinite loop during replace all with regular expressions
- FIXED: Regular expression replaces did not ignore whole words option
- FIXED: Interpreted images in RTF files as text
- FIXED: Context menu key did not show spelling menu
- FIXED: Could delete all themes
- FIXED: Did not recreate default theme until program restart
- FIXED: Created a new tab for corrupted documents
- FIXED: Reloading a modified file did not reduce daily goal progress
- FIXED: Unable to overwrite current document
- FIXED: Discarding a modified file did not reduce daily goal progress
- FIXED: Locale dialog always prompted users of System Language to restart
- FIXED: Symbols dialog had help titlebar icon
- FIXED: Second instance would not open relative paths
- FIXED: Closing last empty document increased untitled count
- FIXED: Regular expression searches did not ignore whole words option
- FIXED: Paragraphs not always focused properly when merged
- FIXED: Selected session was incorrect when switching sessions was canceled
- FIXED: Could open unsupported multimedia files
- FIXED: Hyphenated lines were not focused properly
- Translation updates: Arabic, Chinese (China), Czech, English (United Kingdom), Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Korean, Indonesian, Serbian, Vietnamese
- Changes in version 1.4.4
- Released on May 31, 2013
- FIXED: Crashed when opening font dropdown in theme dialog
- FIXED: Did not always ignore changes made by program
- FIXED: Smart quotes were incorrect after opening punctuation
- Translation updates: German, Greek, Hebrew, Indonesian, Russian, Turkish
- Changes in version 1.4.3
- Released on April 6, 2013
- FIXED: Unsaved new files were not restored from cache
- Changes in version 1.4.2
- Released on March 27, 2013
- Added support for Qt 5
- FIXED: Did not play key press sound for non-Latin languages
- FIXED: Crash when ignoring words in spelling dialog
- FIXED: Could not end italics before smart quote
- Translation updates: Catalan, Hebrew, Italian, Turkish
- Changes in version 1.4.1
- Released on November 28, 2012
- FIXED: High CPU use in Ubuntu 10.04
- FIXED: Crashed when typing circumflex with focused text
- FIXED: Showing scene list moved cursor to start of document
- FIXED: Played sounds constantly in Ubuntu 10.04
- FIXED: Could drag scenes in Read-Only files
- FIXED: Could insert symbols in Read-Only files
- FIXED: Could paste unformatted in Read-Only files
- FIXED: Could check spelling of Read-Only files
- FIXED: Cleared keyboard shortcuts not saved
- FIXED: Cannot add new keyboard shortcuts with the Shift key
- Translation updates: Chinese (China), Czech, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Swedish, Spanish
- Changes in version 1.4.0
- Released on September 22, 2012
- Added scene list sidebar
- Added focusing text
- Added line spacing in themes
- Added symbols dialog
- Added monitoring files for changes
- Added editable keyboard shorcuts
- Allow changing formats in save dialogs
- Switched to enchant for spell checking
- Check spelling in background
- Removed included dictionaries
- FIXED: Could not save to WebDAV
- FIXED: Insert key did not switch to overwrite mode
- FIXED: Hiding toolbar did not shrink header
- FIXED: Regression - SDL_mixer was not loaded in Debian
- FIXED: Could save over files open on other tabs
- FIXED: Switching themes still wasn't properly focusing text
- FIXED: Theme previews did not scale tiled or centered images
- FIXED: Warned user twice about every malformed file
- FIXED: Could not interact with dialogs during load
- FIXED: Did not check spelling of pasted paragraphs
- FIXED: Regression - Windows did not load SDL
- FIXED: Regression - fallback icons were not used
- FIXED: File rename did not change formats
- FIXED: Default shortcuts conflicted on the Mac
- FIXED: Restoring from cache treated all files as plain text
- FIXED: Filenames were incorrect after undo and redo
- FIXED: Formatting of first paragraph was lost on reload
- FIXED: Switching themes wasn't properly focusing text
- FIXED: Text brought onto current line was not focused
- FIXED: Replace all could not be reverted with a single undo
- Translation updates: Chinese (China), Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Spanish (Mexico), Swedish, Ukrainian
- Changes in version 1.3.6
- Released on June 12, 2012
- FIXED: Saved cache files more frequently than necessary
- FIXED: Displayed paths did not use native separators
- FIXED: Crashed when loading empty RTF files
- FIXED: Emergency cache files could have broken names
- FIXED: Was not loading data from emergency cache files
- FIXED: Emergency cache was not working for rich text
- FIXED: Data was not always written to disk
- FIXED: Was adding spaces before pasted rich text
- FIXED: Inserting text resets alignment
- Translation updates: Danish, Spanish
- Changes in version 1.3.5.2
- Released on January 16, 2012
- FIXED: Did not handle loading menu icons correctly
- Translation updates: Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Spanish
- Changes in version 1.3.5.1
- Released on December 4, 2011
- Added scalable icon
- FIXED: Did not correctly handle multi-byte characters in RTF
- FIXED: Interface was incorrectly hidden while fullscreen
- Translation updates: Dutch, German
- Changes in version 1.3.5
- Released on November 9, 2011
- Compress exported themes
- FIXED: ODT block settings were not respected
- FIXED: RTF block settings were not respected
- FIXED: Sometimes did not display opened documents immediately
- Translation updates: Czech, German, Italian, Polish
- Changes in version 1.3.4.1
- Released on October 17, 2011
- FIXED: Missing Qt translations on the Mac
- Changes in version 1.3.4
- Released on October 16, 2011
- Added support for copying RTF
- Added basic ODT support
- FIXED: Regression - changing dictionary required restart
- FIXED: Always vertically center did not work with new documents
- FIXED: Printed spellchecking highlights
- FIXED: Did not load file stats when loading file
- FIXED: Font names were sometimes inserted at head of document
- FIXED: Crashed when typing after alert for no sound effects
- Translation updates: Czech, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Italian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Spanish (Mexico), Swedish, Ukrainian
- Changes in version 1.3.3
- Released on June 27, 2011
- Added emergency file cache
- Replaced icon and load image
- Improved Mac integration
- Switched to SDL_mixer instead of libao
- FIXED: Timers action didn't always use theme icon
- FIXED: Did not follow toolbar style by default
- FIXED: Did not raise to front in GNOME2
- FIXED: Cancelling adding a theme did not work
- FIXED: Font size always show decimal
- FIXED: Incorrectly handled paragraph end in RTF
- FIXED: Played sound effects when text was removed
- FIXED: Could not type in timer time edit
- FIXED: Incorrect background color for preferences tabs
- FIXED: Document details were visible through load screen
- FIXED: Load screen text was not always monospaced
- FIXED: Replacing quotes with LaTex quotes did not update all quotes
- FIXED: Could not scroll over background in Qt/Cocoa
- FIXED: Regression where text did not fill text area
- FIXED: Scrollbar did not disappear when mousing into header
- FIXED: Could not interact with tabs in Qt/Cocoa
- FIXED: Masked scrollbars still showed a pixel
- FIXED: SDL_mixer was not loaded in most Linux distros
- FIXED: Documents were visible when resizing window
- FIXED: No sound on characters inserted with 'compose' key
- FIXED: Large documents were not centered
- FIXED: Documents were sometimes displayed truncated
- FIXED: Could not access menubar while fullscreen in Unity
- FIXED: Could not leave fullscreen in Unity
- FIXED: Closing the color picker does not return focus to theme dialogs
- FIXED: Wasn't switching to already opened document
- FIXED: Dropping files on main window pasted URLs in KDE
- FIXED: Qt translations were not deployed on the Mac
- FIXED: Word count issue with Persian/Farsi
- FIXED: Forgot new documents saved when closed
- Translation updates: Czech, French, German, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Spanish (Mexico)
- Changes in version 1.3.2.1
- Released on December 29, 2010
- FIXED: Crashed when typing
- Translation updates: Spanish (Mexico)
- Changes in version 1.3.2
- Released on December 28, 2010
- Added rounded corners to themes
- FIXED: Ubuntu panels appeared when find dialog was shown
- FIXED: Jumped while selecting text and scrolling
- FIXED: Statistics and centering were broken for large documents
- FIXED: Was recentering when backspacing at end of document
- FIXED: Header stayed visible when menus closed
- FIXED: Could not select text where header is shown
- FIXED: Header wasn't shown when menus were shown by keyboard shortcuts
- FIXED: Toolbar outline stayed visible when it was expanded
- FIXED: Automatic spellchecking highlighted current word
- FIXED: Did not inform user when archives have no dictionaries
- FIXED: Brazilian Portuguese translation could not open all files
- FIXED: Portuguese translation had incorrect file extension
- FIXED: Could not scroll over padding
- FIXED: Could not add words with smart quotes to personal dictionary
- FIXED: Could add word to personal dictionary multiple times
- FIXED: Played typewriter sounds for non-printing keys
- FIXED: Did not center for themes with padding
- Translation updates: Czech, French, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish
- Changes in version 1.3.1
- Released on October 28, 2010
- Added typewriter sound effects
- FIXED: Sometimes segfaulted when scrolling
- FIXED: The C locale was assumed to be UTF-8
- FIXED: New documents were always centered
- FIXED: Replace required clicking twice
- FIXED: Text indents were different sizes
- FIXED: Did not handle opening Read-Only files
- FIXED: Did not prompt when there was an error saving files
- FIXED: Closed even when unable to save files
- FIXED: Preferences dialog was too big for small screens
- FIXED: Save As completed even if saving failed
- FIXED: Crashed if preview image was not created
- FIXED: Font size was not always listed
- FIXED: Panels were visible when mouse was over padding
- FIXED: Informed user of Read-Only status of already open files
- FIXED: Could not switch to rich text
- FIXED: Could not update smart quotes for plain text files
- Translation updates: French, Polish, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish
- Changes in version 1.3.0
- Released on September 23, 2010
- Added text formatting
- Added smart quotes
- Added session management
- Added timers and alarms
- Added importing and exporting themes
- Added selected text statistics
- Added dictionaries for supported languages
- FIXED: Tab focus incorrect in some dialogs
- FIXED: Text direction broken with Qt 4.7
- FIXED: Default theme font incorrect
- FIXED: Created empty tabs for unreadable files
- FIXED: Warned about losing formatting of empty files
- FIXED: Could not open symlinked files
- FIXED: Could always change background image
- FIXED: Could open empty recent timers menu
- FIXED: Window background visible during resize
- FIXED: Window could be made smaller than theme
- FIXED: Default session was ignored
- FIXED: File name not updated in interface when changed
- FIXED: Allowed opening the same document twice
- FIXED: Save dialog permanently stealing mouse focus
- Translation updates: French, Portuguese
- Changes in version 1.2.2
- Released on July 1, 2010
- Added portability support
- Switched to native file dialogs
- Updated keyboard shortcuts
- Updated included libraries
- Translation updates: French, Portuguese
- Changes in version 1.2.1
- Released on January 22, 2010
- Added changing text area's horizontal position
- Added disabling antialiasing
- FIXED: Scrolling to top didn't work properly in Linux
- FIXED: Scrollbar wasn't tracking properly
- FIXED: Highlight was removed when right-clicking
- FIXED: Only focused document was centered on launch
- FIXED: Program would crash if dictionary couldn't be found
- FIXED: Prompted user about replacing a removed dictionary
- FIXED: Dictionary added most recently was not selected
- FIXED: Dictionaries couldn't be used immediately
- FIXED: Dictionary was assumed to use UTF-8 encoding
- FIXED: Mouse cursor sometimes disappeared when opening files
- FIXED: Interface was not hidden when mouse left window
- FIXED: Margins were not correct when using Qt 4.6.0
- FIXED: Clock did not respect user's locale
- FIXED: Time daily goal increased when preferences changed
- Translation updates: French, Portuguese
- Changes in version 1.2.0
- Released on July 12, 2009
- Added spell checking
- Added document tabs
- Added menubar
- Added toolbar customization
- Added document statistics
- Added second wordcount algorithm
- Added option to use block cursor
- Improved file saving
- FIXED: Infinite loop when replacing all instances of a word
- FIXED: Changing all misspelled words didn't start at beginning
- FIXED: Changing themes increased progress on daily goals
- FIXED: Newly created themes were not loaded
- FIXED: Not properly centering opened documents
- Changes in version 1.1.2
- Released on May 31, 2009
- Use UTF-8 character encoding for files
- Changes in version 1.1.1
- Released on May 10, 2009
- FIXED: Was always launching with time based goals
- Changes in version 1.1.0
- Released on April 19, 2009
- Added daily goals
- Added support for themes
- Added find and replace
- Changed default centering
- FIXED: Crash when first sentence was deleted
- FIXED: Image selection dialog not showing last visited path
- FIXED: Highlighted text using page alpha
- Changes in version 1.0.0
- Released on October 23, 2008
- New project
Distraction-Free Writing. 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 ease-to-use user interface. Download 30-day free trial Buy now A pay-once license. 2 Bear – Distraction-Free Writing App for Mac. Bear is a most flexible writing app for mac that enables you to compose, sync, and store your notes and prose on various devices such as iPhone, iPad, and Mac. It’s an ideal writing app for writers, lawyers, chefs, teachers, engineers, students, parents, and more! As a blogger, I know the importance of writing in a distraction-free mode. What makes an app suitable for writing? Every app is intended to make you feel comfortable while writing. Also, personally I feel Mac is suitable for writing, the keyboard is very convenient to type and the backlight feature is best for night typing.
We write on computers. Computers have the Internet. Internet is an infinite pool of information and entertainment.
Once we sit down to write, hundreds of distractions including Facebook and social media notifications, news, weather alerts, and videos constantly scream for our attention, even if for one second. If we get tempted to look, that second turns into a minute, and then into an hour as we switch tabs, watch cat videos that never stop scrolling our feed, and get lost in the world of social media. When we try to brave these interruptions to get back to our writing, a tiny box pops up in a corner of our computer to inform us that XYZ bought a ticket to the Disney and is feeling happy.
Why don’t we switch off the Internet to write without getting interfered?
Writers, bloggers, and content creators need the web while writing to research the topic or to delve into language. But even if they disconnect from the Internet, various tabs and toolbars of traditional writing software distract them.
Quick navigation
Traditional writing software aren’t enough.
The most popular writing software — Pages (for iOS) and Microsoft Word — are losing their hold on creators for the market offers smarter writing applications now.
With these new distraction-free writing software, a writer can
- switch to focused or typewriter mode
- format her writing with markdown editors
- design the outline of her novel and big projects
- preview the writing in pdf form
— while never leaving the keyboard.
Pages and Microsoft Word lack all these above-mentioned capabilities thus forcing writers to find their best writing applications elsewhere.
Writing distraction-free is hard.
To help you write with no interruptions, we analyzed countless writing tools to come up with a list of the best writing applications.
Our favorite editor so far is Ulysses. Ulysses’s sophisticated features, slick interface, and an in-depth user manual for a really affordable price make it stand way ahead than other writing tools. iA Writer comes close to Ulysses in terms of a simple writing interface and has a rich markdown editor, but iA Writer isn’t as capable as Ulysses in terms of advanced features.
We have also provided a list of the deserving competitors of Ulysses and iA Writer. You can compare the most distinguishing features of these apps along their pricing to see which writing application fits you the best.
Let us go through these winner distraction-free writing apps one by one.
Our favorite app to write ‘Distraction-Free’: Ulysses
($4.99 USD per month subscription. Support Macs, iPads and iPhones.)
Ulysses is a simple markdown editor for focused writing. Along with basic edit features that standard writing software come with, Ulysses is a bundle of advanced features for all kinds of writers — while never making them compromise on their creative focus.
Let us go into the setup and features of Ulysses in detail.
Setting up and using Ulysses
Once you install Ulysses on your Mac, the application gives a simple to follow introduction guide on how to make the best of the app. The Library pane on the left side provides a rich user manual with easy to follow instructions while you are writing.
The interface
Ulysses’s interface is user-friendly and is meant for the most non-technical writers.
On the left sidebar, you can find the Library, Introduction to Ulysses, and Inbox — where you can see all your files.
Once you have read through the First Steps of the introduction guide, you can create content right away by clicking on the editor (the pen symbol).
All the documents or in Ulysses’s language — the sheets — that you create go under your Inbox which is uploaded on iCloud, without you having to change any settings. Download Ulysses on your iPhone and iPad and enable iCloud so that you can access all your documents while you are on the go. Ulysses will keep your work synchronized across your devices.
On the top right of the interface, you have the export and publish options, Statistics such as word count on your writing, markup options, and attachments. Click on any one of the choices to edit or add to your writing.
Getting distracted by the various options and just want to write? You can just switch to the typewriter mode in full screen. You can also choose between a dark or light theme to set your environment as per your convenience.
How much simpler can a writing interface get?
Now as we know how to set up and get started with Ulysses, let’s explore the advanced features of Ulysses in detail.
Focus and productivity
Ulysses offers a typewriter mode for focused writing. In this mode, Ulysses only shows you the editor window and hides all the other tabs. While writing in focused mode, you can highlight the current line, a sentence, or an entire paragraph. This way you only need to focus on what you are typing at the moment.
If you wish to edit two documents at the same time, Ulysses provides a double editor. You can use the double editor even in the highlight mode so that you don’t get distracted.
There is a minor flaw here. If you had chosen to display Library from the view menu, even when you go in the typewriter mode, the Library panel displays on the left. To make it go away, you will have to manually deselect Library from the View options.
Ulysses also has an inbuilt Markup Editor. Using Ulysses’s native markup language ‘Markdown XL,’ you can format your writing without ever leaving the keyboard. By using dashes, numbers, and command shortcuts, you can add lists, make a sentence bold, add images and quotes, and mark text for deletion — all with keyboard shortcuts.
During our testing, we used the Markdown XL to write richly formatted texts with just the keyboard shortcuts. What would be a better way to minimize distractions than never touching the mouse?
To maximize productivity, you can even create goals with Ulysses. While tracking goals within Ulysses, you can track your writing progress and stay on schedule — without using any other application.
After thorough testing of Ulysses’s interface, we conclude that Ulysses’s typewriter mode is one of the best digital typewriters in the market.
Organization and management
The job of a writer not only involves writing, but writers also need to organize their work well. Ulysses provides filters and groups to classify similar sets of writing together.
If you have draft blog posts, you can put them under a group. If you are writing characters of a novel? You can can right-click on the group , select ‘New Filter’, and then add the characters under a new filter ‘character.’
Even within a document, you can insert bookmarks to return to the same paragraph later and edit.
Ulysses is meant for a multi-genre writer without having the writer remember what goes where.
Synchronization across devices
Ulysses keep your documents synchronized amongst iPad, iPhone, and Mac. With Ulysses’s perfect synchronization, you don’t have to wait to access the device you last edited your document on.
Ulysses acknowledges that writing ideas occur sporadically and provides a well-integrated environment across devices to write tension-free.
Ulysses even takes a failsafe automatic backup of your entire library on the local hard drive. Even if iCloud gets full or a system update deletes folders, you never lose work.
Export & sharing
Unlike the standard software like Microsoft Word and Pages, you can live preview your document in Ulysses. Whether you need your work as a pdf report or a html file, you can select the preview option from the top-right corner of the screen to see how the document looks.
If everything looks perfect, you can export the document to five formats: Text, html, EPub, PDF, and docs. Or you can even publish the file to Ghost, Medium, and WordPress with Ulysses’s Publishing feature.
Like traditional editors, Ulysses provides word, character, space, and paragraph count. But the impressive feature of Ulysses is that you can even see the time taken to read the document with slow, fast, average, speeds or while speaking it aloud.
This feature is gaining popularity for many publications only accept writing under a specified reading time.
With preview and statistics, you can finalize any writing piece within Ulysses. Then export or publish from within Ulysses to continue writing without getting distracted by the world of the internet.
Apart from these advanced features that can make any writer’s life easy, Ulysses offers Intelligent search, various themes and the option to create your own writing environment, a support of more than ten languages, and much more.
A minor disadvantage of Ulysses is that you might take a bit of a time to get used to the advanced interface of the app, like other writing applications. But once you understand how the shortcuts and full-screen mode works, Ulysses keeps you safe from all distractions.
While testing Ulysses, we have become a life-time fan of Ulysses for the app offers everything that a focused writer wishes for.
But how much do we have to pay for this brilliant writing app?
Availability and pricing
Ulysses has a free trial which you can use to test the software before shifting to a fully-paid environment. Ulysses’s subscription costs $4.99 for a month or $39.99 yearly (3.33 per month) — in the US. You may also get Ulysses from Setapp.
With extensive features and a simple writing interface — while not forgetting the price you pay — Ulysses is by far the best writing application present on Mac and iOS. For the sophisticated features, Ulysses isn’t costly and also offers a special discount to students.
Also great: iA Writer
($29.99 USD one-time purchase. Support Macs, iOS, Android and Windows)
iA Writer is an advanced, markdown text editor for all writers. With a no-nonsense editing interface, iA Writer lets you do what you do the best — write.
iA Writer has a typewriter and focused mode to write distraction-free. You can highlight the current sentence or paragraph in iA Writer similar to Ulysses.
iA Writer’s full-screen mode even hides the open tabs to create the best writing environment for you.
The simple markdown editor of iA Writer provides enough keyboard shortcuts so that you never have to touch the mouse. If you forget the shortcuts, just hover to the bottom of the screen to find the right keyboard shortcut on the markdown toolbar.
With iA Writer, aspiring writers can improve their writing style for this editing tool highlights adverbs, adjectives, verbs, nouns, and even conjunctions. You can track the usage of modifiers, indirect verbs, and weak words to keep them at a minimum.
While in Pages you cannot go into a focus mode, and Microsoft Word first asks you to choose a layout before writing, iA Writer let you type right away on a minimal screen.
But iA Writer lacks Ulysses’ primary features such as live preview without exporting, synchronization amongst various devices, double editor, reading speed, and automatic backups.
When it comes to pricing, iA Writer has a variant pricing for all the platforms. iA Writer’s license costs $29.99 for Mac, $9.99 for iPhone and iPad, and $19.99 for Windows. You may download free trials of iA Writer for Mac, Windows and Android, no free trials on iTunes.
Overall, though iA Writer doesn’t stand against Ulysses in terms of advanced features, if you are looking for an app to simply write and not worry about anything else, and if you prefer one-time purchase over subscription — iA Writer is your best bet.
Other distraction-free writing apps
Ulysses and iA Writer are our best picks. But here are some competitors that are worth mentioning if you have specific requirements for your writing software.
Let us go through these fine writing apps one by one.
Focused
($19.99 one-time license, support for Mac)
Focused is a one of its kind markdown editor that offers soothing inbuilt soundtracks to listen while writing.
Focused has inbuilt Zen soundtracks for better productivity. You can listen to any of the eight tracks while writing to get maximum focus. As the music comes along with Focused, the writer never has to leave the editor or switch applications to change the song or pause the music. Focused is the best tool for people who write with music.
Focused also comes with a markdown editor and a typewriter mode with sentence and paragraph highlighting to write with full concentration.
With a typewriter mode and inbuilt music, Focused might look like the best option to write distraction-free.
But unlike Ulysses or iA Writer, Focused doesn’t have an option to preview writing in pdf format or highlight adverbs and adjectives and misses many other advanced features of our two favorite writing software.
A one-time license of Focused for Mac costs $19.99 — which is better than iA Writer and Ulysses. For the price you pay and depending on the features you need, Focused could be the right fit.
WriteRoom
($9.99 one-time license, support for Mac)
WriteRoom adheres to the literal meaning of the application’s name as the app is just a black screen with green text – An environment that takes you away from the regular world and into a writing room. WriteRoom is for the minimalist writers who don’t want to exit the writing room until they have written their heart out.
Minimalistic writing interface is WriteRoom’s stand-out feature.
Distraction Free Writer Mac
WriteRoom’s Mac OS license costs $9.99 — which seems fair for the simple features provided.
On days you find it hard to write, you can switch on WriteRoom and forget about the world. But if you need more features or editing options, you would have to move out of WriteRoom.
Scrivener
($56 one-time license, support for Mac, iOS and Windows)
Scrivener combines the features of a smart digital editor with a real writing process.
Scrivener offers inbuilt templates for novels, dramas, essays, poems, recipes, and even stage plays. While starting a new document, you can not only choose the required project format, but you can also select if you want to create a character or a chapter and then provides the right template.
You can write distraction-free with the full-screen or composition mode of Scrivener with typewriter scrolling.
During the writing project, Index cards can be used to write nascent thoughts. Scrivener’s digital corkboard can be used to arrange these ideas and find a connection between them.
Scrivener also offers an Outliner view for viewing the structure of your writing project. Scrivener Outliner view allows dragging and dropping sections, adding or moving headings, marking to-dos, keeping targets, and tracking progress.
Scrivener is a really smart editor equipped with many advanced editing and project management features. With Scrivener’s Insert tool, you can even add tables, images, Bibliography, and math equations to your writing.
Hundreds of testimonials by recognized authors on Scrivener’s website would agree that Scrivener is an excellent writing and managing tool for a novel or a large project.
But if you want to write a short story or simple blog articles, Scrivener might not be the best option for the interface is not straightforward. During our testing, we found the editor interface complex and full of hard-to-understand options.
Scrivener’s license is priced at $56 for a Mac and $49 for Windows. The iOS version costs $19.99. You can also buy a bundle of the app for Mac OS and Windows that would cost you $94.
For the pricing and the complex features, Scrivener doesn’t look like the best option but it is still a great writing tool for writers who want to manage and plot their entire novels on a writing platform.
ProWritingAid
($70 USD per year subscription, support for Mac, iPad, iPhone, Windows, Web Editor, Chrome Extension)
ProWritingAid is an editor, grammar checker, and style editor. Apart from using the Desktop versions of this application, you can add ProWritingAid to Google docs or install its Chrome extension to edit everything that you write.
As you write, ProWritingAid provides word suggestions or a contextual Thesaurus. It also highlights overused and repeated words to improve writing. By suggesting to delete redundant words, ProWriting Aid fastens the editing process.
The tool emphasizes complex paragraphs and sentences to make the text more readable. While also assessing readability along with other relevant statistics, ProWriting Aid allows you to create your best piece of work.
When its time to publish or send your work to publications, you can check for plagiarism from within ProWritingAid to make sure you didn’t write a duplicate statement.
Even though ProWritingAid is one of the best style editors, unlike Ulysses or iA Writer, ProWritingAid doesn’t have a TypeWriter mode, options to preview writing before exporting it, and markdown keyboard shortcuts.
A one-year subscription to ProWritingAid costs $70, two-year costs $100, and a life-time subscription costs $240.
For this pricing, ProWritingAid seems to be a great grammar and style editor — but it is not one of the best distraction-free apps as even in the full-screen mode you see the application’s toolbar.
Bear
($1.49 USD per month subscription, support for Mac, iPad, iPhone)
Bear is a simple writing and note-taking app.
Bear allows you to write in focused mode with the application’s markdown editor to achieve maximum productivity. With Bear, you can make cross-notes, create checklists within the document, sketch in between text, insert links, and organize your writing with tags.
In addition to the markdown language, Bear comes with twenty programming languages. You can write and code, both, with the same application.
While syncing your writing on various devices and Apple watches, Bear lets you write on the go. Bear also offers export in different formats and direct publishing to Medium, WordPress, and Evernote.
If your focus is on taking notes, writing down inspiration, and project management, Bear is a smart application to achieve the same.
Bear subscription plans are monthly and yearly — $1.49 monthly with a one-week free trial and $14.99 annually with a one-month free trial.
As per the smart pricing and features, Bear is a good choice for content creators who put together inspiration from various sources to create the final draft. But Bear still doesn’t beat Ulysses or iA Writer in terms of a distraction-free interface or advanced features.
Byword
($10.99 one-time license, support for Mac and iOS)
Byword is a straightforward markdown editor for Apple users.
Byword also has the Focused Typewriter Mode to help you write without getting disturbed. With the simple markdown editor of Byword, you can type within the document and use keyboard shortcuts to format your writing.
Byword provides the options to choose between dark and light themes as per the time of the day and user preference. Byword syncs documents across all Mac, iPhone, and iPad devices.
The app comes with standard pdf and html export. You can also publish to Medium, WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, and Evernote from within Byword.
As Byword says, Byword is a Markdown app for writing in plain text efficiently.
Byword is a simple and elegant writer for fiction writers, bloggers, and content creators alike. You can purchase Byword’s license for $10.99, which is a great price for a writing app with the included features. But Byword doesn’t have a free trial to try the app before purchasing.
Storyist
($59 one-time license, support for Mac and iOS)
Another writing tool for Apple users, Storyist, as the name says, is for storytellers, novelists, and screenwriters. With inbuilt templates for screenplays, plays, and novels, Storyist has a rich text editor which supports comments and images as well.
Similar to Scrivener, Storyist has inbuilt templates for stories, novels, screenplays, and plays. While starting a new document, you can opt between the various default templates for scenes, characters, settings, plot points, and outline to get a head-start on writing.
Storyist provides index cards to note your thoughts, then rearrange or expand to build on the idea.
When finished writing, writers can export their writing in pdf, html, rich-text, and many other useful formats. Storyist comes with unique export features as you can export a book directly in the Kindle format from the app.
Storyist is a competitive editing tool for storytellers.
If you are looking for a distraction-free app, Storyist might not be the best choice as there is no focus or typewriter mode. Also, while creating a new file you have to choose from a plethora of templates before you can start writing.
But for a $59 one-time license, Storyist is a powerful application to develop plot outlines, characters, and scenes.
Other apps to support your writing
Writing is more about collecting your inspiration and editing than putting words to paper. Here is our curated list of applications that will aid your writing process by helping you edit, providing grammar and style suggestions, offering the right tools to help you write faster, managing your references, and providing aid with technical writing.
Grammarly
Essentially a grammar checker, Grammarly is an intelligent tool which highlights grammatical errors and suggests style improvements. You can add Grammarly to your Chrome as an extension and edit everything you write on the web — your emails, messages, WordPress articles, and social media posts. Or download the Desktop version to check your writing before sending it or publishing it on another platform.
If you are a beginner writer, consider using Grammarly. For Grammarly has many features that can help a new writer improve her writing — such as providing contextual synonyms, highlighting grammatical errors or complex wording, pointing out redundant and overused words, checking the text for plagiarism, and assessing readability as per the audience.
Grammarly can give you a head start on your writing process.
TextExpander
As literally as the name goes, TextExpander is a nice text expansion app that allows you to insert ‘snippets’— paragraphs, standard replies, email addresses, code pieces, images — in your writing with the abbreviations you have created. As you write, TextExpander then transforms these snippets into the longer text.
If your work involves sending a lot of emails, adding various signatures, or including standard code chunks, try TextExpander to save time and get your work done faster.
Typora
Typora is another distraction-free markdown editor that allows you to insert mathematical blocks and code in your writing with the help of keyboard shortcuts.
Typora’s markdown editor supports math blocks, code, tables, and lists. The Focus and Typewriter modes that come inbuilt in Typora allow interruption-free writing.
With the live preview feature of Typora, writers can preview even the most mathematically rich documents and then export not only to doc, html, and pdf but to Latex, restructured text, and Textile.
Typora is a great interruption-free tool to write scientific and research-based mathematical documents.
Bookends
Bookends is a reference management system that helps you manage your references collected from various sources.
With Bookends you can add, delete, or search through attachments. You can add and edit your notes or search through them using Notecards. The Tag Clouds feature of Bookends helps in visualizing the stored information. You can then drill down to the reference that the word is sourced from.
Writers and creators need an effective reference system else all their ideas will get mixed up, and they could never sort through them. Bookends is a great tool to organize references and access them easily.
Focus at Will
Focus at Will provides you the right music to increase your productivity and help you focus while writing. Using human neuroscience, Focus at will has developed music that reduces distractions, maintains productivity, and enhances focus for a longer time.
Distraction Free Writing App Mac
After asking your priorities and other personality questions, Focus at Will provides you with a channel that you can listen to while working and an additional fifty channels to choose from.
Why don’t you tune in and see for yourself?
The bottom line
This is our best selection of writing tools and supporting writing applications that will help you write and focus better.
Ulysses is an excellent distraction-free writing app. iA Writer is also a smooth and interference-free application to write. Choose an application as per your devices and platforms, requirements, and writing features while keeping your budget in mind.
Distraction Free Writing Mac Os
Now pick a tool and let your creative juices flow.