Features

Everything you need to finish the book

What makes WriterMorph different

No AI inside. WriterMorph never writes, rewrites or suggests text, and never reads your work. Every sentence is yours.
Your files, on your Mac. Each project is a single .wmorph file in a folder you choose: on your Mac, in iCloud Drive or anywhere else. No account, no server.
No tracking. No analytics, no telemetry and no training on your writing. WriterMorph works offline.
Plan, write, structure and publish in one app. A visual canvas, a manuscript binder and editor, a writer's timeline and a professional compile studio share the same cards, so nothing is copied between tools.
One project, many views. Move a scene on the canvas and it moves in the binder, on the Plot Board and in the compiled book.
A native Mac app. Built with Swift for macOS, with standard menus, keyboard shortcuts, spell checking, printing and full-screen support.
Ready-made structure. 29 templates and complete sample projects for fiction, non-fiction, academic, student and script writing.
An assistant only if you invite one. If you already use Claude Code or Codex, you can connect it to read your project and build pages inside it. It is off by default and read-only until you allow changes. See AI connections.

Visual Planner (canvas)

Infinite canvas of cards you can arrange freely
Built-in card types: Section, Group, Note, Draft, Research, Reference, Introduction, Conclusion, Abstract, Appendix, Character, Location, Storyboard, Folder, Sticky Note, Image, Embed, HTML and Task
Custom card types with their own emoji or icon, colors, fields and property template
Card type sets for novels, scripts, academic writing, students, lesson plans, non-fiction, business reports and poetry
Card type picker on ⌘N with type-to-filter, and ⌃1–⌃9 for your nine most-used types
Card templates: save any card as a template and reuse it
Media cards for images, web pages, YouTube and video files, PDFs and live HTML
HTML cards with a code editor and live preview
Folders and nesting, with collapsible branches
Connections between cards, with labels and reversible direction
Line routing: curved, straight or right-angle
A library of line styles: color, solid/dashed/dotted, width, arrowheads, labels and icons
Relationship types such as Depends On, Blocks, Related To, References, Extends and Conflicts With
Narrative relations between scenes: Cause & Effect, Foreshadowing, Callback, Parallel Events and Character Arc
Automatic layouts: Tree (four directions), Free Form, Horizontal, Vertical, Grid, Radial, Timeline and Mind Map
Saved layouts you can restore
Layout of a card's children only
Align left, center, right, top, middle and bottom; distribute horizontally and vertically
Grid snap with adjustable grid size; adjustable canvas size
Canvas backgrounds: theme, color, gradient, grid, dots or image
Zoom to fit, zoom to selection, pinch zoom, Space-drag and middle-button panning, hand tool
Multi-select, duplicate, duplicate with links, cut, copy and paste cards
Outline panel with a tree of all cards, level filters, property filters and keyboard reordering
Card preview windows
Export the board as PNG, JPG, PDF or JSON

Properties and metadata

Typed properties: Text, Long text, Number, Date, Date & time, Checkbox, Select, Multi-select, Link to cards and List
Obsidian-style property block above the text in the editor
Properties panel with sections for general info, status and tags, appearance, targets, progress, word stats, media, manuscript and connections
Properties scoped to all cards, one card type or a single card
Up to four properties shown on the card face
Safe type changes with conversion and mismatch warnings
Rename or delete a property everywhere in one step
34 starter property sets across academic, student, teaching, non-fiction, work, creative and personal writing
Convert a planner to another kind of writing in one step
Save and reuse your own property sets
Bulk editing of many cards at once in one undoable step
Status, labels, keywords (tags) and colors
Story categories such as factions, themes, objects or moods, with profile cards

Manuscript Mode

Binder with folders and documents in book order
Editor, Corkboard, Outliner and Combined Pages views
Split editor, vertically or horizontally, with independent panes
Inspector tabs: Synopsis, Metadata, Media, Files, Notes, Comments, Bookmarks, Snapshots and Collections
Corkboard options: label colors, status stamps, keyword colors, card numbers, ghosts for blank cards, card size and columns
Outliner with selectable columns, including custom properties, word counts, targets and progress
Collections, including saved searches that stay up to date
Bookmarks panel and project favorites
Split, merge, group, ungroup, move and convert documents
Include or exclude any document from compile
Append selected text to another document
Sort a folder alphabetically
Quick Reference preview windows
Project targets with deadline, writing days and automatic session targets
Text statistics: words, characters, paragraphs, sentences, pages and reading time
Project keywords overview

Editor

Native rich text editor shared by cards and manuscript documents
Format bar with popovers for styles, fonts, sizes, colors and lists
Bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, superscript, subscript and inline code
Paragraph styles: Paragraph, Heading 1–3, Block Quote and Code Block
Your own paragraph and character styles
Bulleted, numbered and task lists
Tables with row and column editing and header rows
Embedded and linked images
Links to web pages, files, cards and documents
Comments, footnotes and inline footnotes
Comments in the margin and footnotes at the bottom of the page
Page view with office and book trim sizes, plus custom sizes
Ruler with tabs and indents
Typewriter scrolling
Focus mode for the current line, sentence or paragraph
Line numbers
Drop cap
Manuscript format (Courier, double-spaced)
Show invisibles
On-screen text zoom
Find and replace with match case, whole word, regular expressions and project-wide scope
macOS spelling and grammar, substitutions and text replacement
Case transformations and text tidying (double spaces, quotes, ellipses, em dashes)
Copy as HTML, Markdown or plain text
Text-to-speech
Insert date, date and time, and media timestamps
Citations from a bibliography manager
Export or print a single text as PDF, Word, HTML, Markdown or plain text

Composition Mode

Full-screen distraction-free writing
Adjustable paper width, position and text scale
Paper and text colors, background images and see-through paper
Page view, manuscript format, focus, typewriter scrolling and invisibles
Comments, footnotes and printing without leaving the page
Floating synopsis, notes and keywords panel
Jump to another document
Daily word count with a daily target
Pomodoro control
Auto-hiding bar

Revisions and history

Revision Mode with five colored revision levels
Mark deletions as struck-through text
Show all revisions, one level or none; remove markings selectively
Version history for every card, with compare and restore
Keep only the 5 or 10 most recent versions
Snapshots on demand, with titles, compare and restore
Automatic per-card snapshots on a daily, weekly or monthly schedule
Revert History for the whole planner
Undo and redo everywhere

Writer Timeline

Plot Board: chapters × plotlines, with beats and acts
Outline: chapters and scene summaries as prose
Timeline: lanes per plotline or place, by narrative order, story time or structure
Flat: every scene in one grid
Cast Map and Place Map
Four story structures: Three Act Structure, Hero's Journey, Save the Cat and Freytag Pyramid
Switching structures redistributes scenes and remembers earlier assignments
Beat templates that add beat cards to the canvas
Subplot and location lanes
Story dates as real dates, years or free text such as "Day 3"
Time scales from hours to years, with gap detection
Milestone markers
Scene types, POV, places and eras
Color scenes by type, POV, tension or beat
Search, filter and automatic scene numbering
Tension curve with drag-to-edit points, beat markers, act bands, average line and an ideal-shape overlay
Book Stats with "needs attention" lists for missing beats, dates, characters, places, tension and summaries
Story Map: the whole book on one screen with beat coverage and drag-and-drop assignment
Dockable, floating or minimized panels
Export any view as PNG or PDF

Project timelines for non-fiction and academic work

Schedule (Gantt) view of sections and tasks
Roadmap on a calendar with milestones, and automatic chapter planning between two dates
Progress against word targets and status
Project Stats with what needs attention
Chronology of dated cards by year and month
Study Planner for student projects

Tasks and productivity

Tasks on cards, linked to chapters and scenes or independent
Task types: To Do, Task, Research, Review, Edit, Deadline, Milestone and Reminder
Task Manager with List, Board (kanban) and Calendar (month, week, day) views
Smart lists: All Tasks, Today, Upcoming, Overdue, No Date and Completed
Subtasks up to four levels deep
Status, priority, start, due, length, notes and assignee
Custom statuses, priorities and task types
Search, filter, sort and group tasks; bulk changes
Dependencies (finish-to-start, start-to-start, finish-to-finish, start-to-finish) with lag and automatic rescheduling
Gantt chart with hour, day, week, month and quarter scales
Alerts for overdue, due-soon, unscheduled and blocked tasks
Local reminders as macOS notifications
Pomodoro timer with focus, short and long breaks, auto-start and session counts
Word targets per card and per project, with deadlines and writing days
Daily word goal, weekly totals and writing streaks on the Home screen
Active writing time tracking on your Mac
Quick Notes: a floating notepad across all projects

Compile Studio

Presets: Manuscript, Paperback, E-book and Screenplay
Save, import and export your own presets
Formats: PDF, Word (DOCX), EPUB 3, HTML, Markdown, LaTeX, plain text, RTF, OpenOffice (ODT) and Word 97–2004 (.doc)
Page sizes from US Letter and A4 to book trim sizes, plus custom sizes
Margins, font, size, alignment and line spacing, or keep the editor's formatting
Section layouts for chapters and sections, page breaks, numbering and scene separators
Title page, table of contents (HTML and EPUB), synopsis, notes and comments
Line numbers in PDF and Word
Real footnotes in PDF, Word, EPUB, HTML, Markdown and LaTeX
Images in the text and optional card images
Chapter title patterns with placeholders for number, Roman numeral, words, title and more
Front matter, back matter, copyright page and dedication
Document metadata
Compile-only find-and-replace rules
Compile the whole book, a selection, a folder or a collection
Live preview with page, continuous and two-page modes

Projects and data

Projects as single .wmorph files
Library on your Mac, in iCloud Drive or in any folder
Automatic saving
Automatic, compressed, dated backups with a configurable number kept
Back up on demand to any location
Four levels of trash with restore
iCloud Drive library sync with status and conflict resolution
Sync text documents with an external folder as plain text files
Home screen with search across all projects, recent documents, favorites, archive and writing stats
Multiple tabs per project: planners, manuscripts, notes, rich text documents, Markdown, HTML pages, PDFs, images and web links
Split view for two tabs side by side
Saved window layouts
Save any project as a template

Import and export

Import Word, OpenDocument and RTF into the book, split at headings or one document per file
Import Scrivener projects (.scriv)
Import text, Markdown, HTML and RTF files as tabs
Import research files, web pages, PDFs and images
Import Obsidian vaults with full frontmatter mapping, and update a project from a vault by ID
Export to an Obsidian vault and back without losing data
Export the manuscript as RTF, the planner as JSON, and the canvas as PNG or PDF

Customization

Twelve built-in themes, most in light and dark versions
Theme Designer for a custom color theme
Match macOS appearance or toggle light and dark instantly
Adjustable interface and panel text sizes
Customizable toolbars with icon and text, icon-only or text-only styles
Monochrome or colored icons
Line, Lucide and Phosphor icon sets, emoji, SF Symbols and your own icons for card types
Configurable mouse wheel, trackpad and canvas-drag behavior
Settings presets and themes you can save, load and share as files

Optional: AI connections

Off by default, and nothing runs while WriterMorph is closed
A local-only connection from Claude Code or Codex on your Mac, protected by a private key
Read-only until you turn on Allow changes
Allow deleting is a separate switch, and deleted cards and tabs go to the Trash
Draft cards for you: acts, scenes, chapters, characters, places and research notes, nested and connected on the canvas
Fill in card properties: point of view, characters, beat, tension, place, story date and time, status, tags and word targets
Write or revise card text, synopses and notes, and reorganize the binder
Create HTML pages as tabs inside the project, such as story bibles, pitch pages, study guides and dashboards
Read the whole book and compile it
Undo any change with ⌘Z, and review what the assistant did in Recent activity

Your next book starts here

Try every feature free for 30 days. Your files stay yours whatever you decide.

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