iA Writer: Writer is a writing app for writers who write, which is a conscious pleonasm. Microsoft Word is not a pleonasm but an involuntary oxymoron because Microsoft makes more and more money by creating software aimed at making thinking harder. Word is not a writing app but an elaborate layout program for paper or PDF documents. Apple’s Pages is more honest about its core function, which is arranging words on a paper or PDF. Writer by contrast is hyper focused, and so are all its features. Its Syntax and Style Check are pro tools that help you re-feel, re-think, and rewrite your text until you match internal impression against external expression.

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iA Writer for Windows 2.0

The second Winterfest 2024 gift is a freshly squeezed iA Writer for Windows, now in public beta.

iA Winterfest 2024

Welcome to iA Winterfest 2024, where you get a special gift every week until December 25th.

We Need to Go Deeper: How to Master iA Writer

Tutorials, videos, and writing tips to help you become a better writer.

Your First Novel (3/4)

How to create an outline for your story, and do the research you need.

Your First Novel (2/4)

How to build memorable characters and unique worlds for your first novel.

Your First Novel (1/4)

How to select your topic, find the driving question, and set up a basic daily routine.

iA‎‎‎lice

On 4 July Americans will celebrate Independence Day. And so they should, as gloomy days may lie ahead. But did you know that 4 July is also Alice Day?

Why write?

Writing is part of lifelong learning process that keeps us awake, sharp and connected.

Design as Thought: AI and the Future of Design

Orlando and Oliver studied philosophy together 30 years ago. Their shared love for philosophy, design, and technology reunited them to discuss AI and the future.

New Year Recap

2023 marked a significant chapter for iA Inc. The iA family grew from a single app to three distinct products: iA Writer, iA Presenter, and iA Notebook.

The iA Writer Template for Screenwriters

If you know markdown, you’ll get the basics in ten Minutes. And then off you go, typing away on your screenplay.

Markdown in Academic Writing

Academic writing should be "clear, concise, focused, structured, and backed by evidence." Markdown and iA Writer are a winning combination for achieving this.

After all, everyone is distracted once in a while

Staying focused is tough for many, especially those with ADHD. Let’s see how iA Writer helps address the challenges of distractions and focus.

Style Check on Android

After its launch on Mac and iOS last summer and its recent introduction to Windows, Style Check has arrived on Android with version 2.1 of iA Writer. It has been one of our best received and most requested features, therefore we worked hard to make it available for all platforms.

An ADHD-friendly Writing App

There is a ton of specialist advice out there regarding writing for high school and university students with ADHD. Most of these suggest a distraction-free writing environment that allows for channeling one's energy into the task at hand.

Style Check on Windows, Big Sur Support, and Next Steps for Android

iA Writer for Windows 1.4 is now available and it brings Style Check in a free update. We launched Style Check on Mac and iOS this past summer and we have never received so much praise for a new feature. You sent us request after request to bring it to other platforms. We doubled our efforts to bring it to other platforms as soon as possible. It's ready for Windows as of today. We are working on bringing it to Android next.

Subscription or no subscription? That is not the question.

Companies selling apps via subscriptions use drama to sell: "Either subscription or we die.”

The Power of Style Check

Style Check is like having a personal editor-in-chief on your device, carefully reviewing your text for redundancies, clichés and filler words as you type. It's simple, different, powerful, and available for Mac, iOS, Windows and Android.

Syntax Control, Individual Scroll, Snippets

iA Writer for Windows 1.3 is the biggest update the platform has ever seen. It's available to download right now and comes as a free update for existing users.

New PDF Preview, Better Web Publishing, Improved Editing

iA Writer 5.5 for Mac and iOS has arrived. The update adds a powerful mix of functionality and delicate subtlety that will improve your writing workflow.

PDF Preview, New Typography, Preferences

You've waited patiently for it, and now it is here. Version 1.2 of iA Writer for Windows has launched. This release packs in a boatload of improvements, making it the biggest update to hit the platform since the initial release.

Multi-window, Dark Mode, Content Block Flexibility

iA Writer 5.3 is ready for iOS13. It now comes with multi-window support, Dark Mode, and Content Block improvements.

The Nice Place

It seems the times of free online advertising for indies are over. Blogs are not what they used to be, RSS is about to be buried. Facebook is a commercial and moral nightmare, and so is Facebook's Instagram. On Twitter, our main marketing channel since 2007, our engagement is sinking year after year. On Google, VC powered startups steal our ad positions, and we're all too old for Snapchat or TikTok. So what can you do in 2019 to get the word out?

Music in Writing

Being fully immersed in writing is like composing and playing music while we drum up our perceptions into letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs. How does it all play together?

Write to Organize

Creating the latest update to iA Writer was a slow burn. Beginning with some basic maintenance and then improvements for the new iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, the Kraken was released in the final weeks of preparation. The all new Tags and x-callback-urls are so hip they'll take you to funky town.

Eight Languages Wrapped in Wallpaper

Both iA Writer for Mac and iOS are localized in English, German, Japanese, Chinese, French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. For this update, we've decided to add a little present: 17 beautiful wallpapers for your desktop, mobile phone, or tablets.

The Elements of Style

A timeless guide to clear and effective writing that still influences authors today. Written by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.

Using Parts of Speech to Improve Your Writing

Discover iA Writer’s Syntax Highlight tool, which gives you a more structured view of your text and improves your writing style.

Writer vs Word

Microsoft Word is the classic do-all text editor used by... just about everyone. How does it compare to a modern, focused writing app like iA Writer?

Computer Poetry

Every time we read a computer-generated text, part of our life gets sucked into a little black electric hole.

Design is Political

Everything around us is designed. Design shapes cities, gives form to houses, sketches and connects spaces; designers define our environment, our things, bodies and minds. Design is political.

Web Trend Map 2018

The most important ingredient for a Web Trend Map is missing: The Web. Time to bring some of it back.

Why we like distractions

Just when it really matters and we should really do what we are about to do we are most vulnerable to distractions. How come? And what can we do about it?

The Ideal Paragraph

You may have read or heard that the ideal paragraph consists of one thought. Clearly, there are various ways to begin and end a thought. One way is to start with a claim or topic sentence, offer examples for your claim, explain how your examples support the claim, repeat the claim in the light of the examples, and build a bridge to the next thought. It is not clear if the ideal paragraph has five, six, seven, a maximum or a minimum number of sentences, as it is not clear what one thought is, where or how it begins, and where or how it ends. On second thought, one could as well argue that every sentence consists of one thought.

Duospace: In Search of the Perfect Writing Font

Monospace is the typical choice that communicates writing. With iA Writer Duospace, we went a step ahead. After seven years of offering no font options to write, iA Writer now comes with a choice. Next to the monospace Nitti you will now find a brand new duospace font. Duospace?

Multichannel Text Processing: The Benefits of Using Markdown

In the classic era of word processing, text was born between MS Word and a printer. Today, it is written and edited on multiple devices and apps, then mailed, printed, copied, pasted, annotated, published, RSSed, shared and re-shared, using all kinds of tools and platforms. Stubborn proprietary file formats fail in this frantic new environment. Plain text does better, but lacks Rich Text’s formatting. Markdown could be our golden gun. If only it looked a little shinier!

Bringing Responsiveness to Apps

iA Writer for Mac is the first native text editor that uses a responsive design. Why did it take so long?

“400,000 downloads with a super simple app” (Business Insider)

The following Interview on iA Writer and the secret of its success has appeared in Business Insider, who reached out to us, “to get the story on where his app came from, where it's heading, and what's wrong with contemporary text editors.”

“Good design is invisible” (The Verge)

Since iA's work is informed by its presence in Europe and Asia, The Verge wanted to know our thoughts on the differences between the two, and in particular where he sees the state of Japanese design right now.

Responsive Typography: The Basics

When we built websites we usually started by defining the body text. The body text definition dictates how wide your main column is, the rest used to follow almost by itself. Used to. Until recently, screen resolution was more or less homogeneous. Today we deal with a variety of screen sizes and resolutions. This makes things much more complicated.

On Prices and Features

It's been two weeks since the launch of Writer for Mac and it went off like a rocket. We sold almost 5,000 copies in two weeks. Of course, version 1.0 had some birth defects (1.01 is out now), but the feedback was overwhelmingly positive—with the exception of a few complaints, mostly about the absence of features, and the price.

iPad App Sales Numbers: WIRED vs. Writer

We're tracking the performance of iA Writer with a wonderful app called AppViz from ideaswarm. AppViz not only allows you to track your own sales—you can also use it to evaluate how much other apps make, if you have comparable sales numbers. My first question was: How much does WIRED make?

Form and Information

Here is the lecture iA's Oliver Reichenstein gave in 2010 at Keio University on creativity, information, and innovation.

Stephen Fry on iA Writer

When asked which four iPad apps he couldn't live without Stephen Fry replied: IMDB, Instapaper, Soundhound, and Writer. “Astonishingly simple. Everything goes away except for the writing experience.”

Designing for iPad: Reality Check

Over the last two months we have been working on several iPad projects: two news applications, a social network, and a word processor. We worked on iPad projects without ever having touched an iPad. One client asked us to “start working on that tablet thing” before we even knew whether the iPad was real.

New and Dirty: Tweet Blogging

We all waste too much time reading (and writing!) boring text. Here is one solution to the problem.

Use Your Real Name When You Comment

Dear anonymous reader, if you intend to be critical: Be our guest. But if you're our guest, act like a guest.