Who wrote this?

Authorship has been part of iA Writer for iPad, iPhone, and Mac for some time. Now it is coming to Windows.

Common writing software treats all text as if it poured from one source. But words can be pasted from notes, revised from an older draft, added by a collaborator, quoted, spellchecked, or generated by AI.

This matters because a spellchecker makes a blind correction. A quote loses its source. Leftovers from AI blend in at first glance and fall apart on closer reading.

In most editors, these differences disappear. In collaboration, changes slip through. iA Writer, in contrary, tracks authorship and makes visible who wrote what. Seeing where text came from helps ensure that everything is there on purpose.

What it does

Authorship shows where text came from. It marks the difference between what you wrote, what came from somewhere else, and what changed along the way.

Knowing where words came from matters. It matters for editing, collaboration, teaching, revision, and thinking.

Writing was never purely solitary. There were always editors, friends and sources involved. And now, that our tools are built for faster, more complex collaboration, text editors should reflect the sources. In times of Large Language Models, we need tools that put an honest light on authorship more than ever.

Get it early

If you have a license for iA Writer on Windows and want to help us test Authorship before release, join the beta and tell us where it works, where it confuses, and where it breaks.