novelWriter

Posted by satis
Jun 10, 2025 at 12:52 AM

Since it hasn’t been mentioned here before, I thought I would highlight novelWriter—a free, open-source plain text editor for Mac, Windows, and Linux, designed specifically for writing novels and other large, multi-document projects. It uses a “markdown-like” syntax tailored for long-form writing.

Similar to Ulysses, it allows you to organize your work using drag-and-drop to reorder files within folders. You can also view multiple files as a single continuous document in a separate “Novel View” (similar to Ulysses’ “glued” sheets).

The Project Outline view provides an overview of your project’s structure, making it easy to navigate between sections. Export options include Word, PDF, HTML, Markdown, and Open Document Format—although the link provided for the latter currently resolves to a Korean domain squatter.

novelWriter also supports metadata features like comments and cross-referencing between files.

https://novelwriter.io/features.html