Authorship Windows

iA Writer for Windows lets you label text by source: Human, AI-generated, or Reference.

Authorship is a manual process; iA Writer does not automatically detect the source of your text. You must explicitly assign authorship using Paste as Author or Mark Selection as Author.
When Authorship is enabled, you can manually distinguish source types:

• AI-generated text is shown with a colorful gradient.
• Human text appears in pastel tones.
• Reference material is dimmed.

As you edit as the primary author, your own writing remains in full focus so you can clearly see where your text ends and externally sourced content begins.

Note: Authorship does not modify your content in any way, and your text is not sent to a server to detect authors. Everything happens locally on your device. Your data is yours, in compliance with our privacy policy.

Want to learn more about our perspective on AI and how to use it to improve rather than replace writing? Read Turning The Tables on AI.

Enable or Disable Authorship

You can always mark a selection or paste as any author type. To see source distinctions in the Editor, enable Authorship first.

You can enable Authorship from the menu bar Authors. Note that when using Authorship for the first time, the context menu will appear as Set up Authorship.

Pasting

Paste as Author (Manual)

Writer relies on manual attribution.

With text on your clipboard, choose the author type before pasting. Regular/default paste does not assign authorship.

Method	Action
Right-Click	Right-click in Editor → Authors → {desired author} → Paste
Authors Menu	Menu bar Authors → {desired author} → Paste as {desired author}

Pasting Between Existing Documents

If copied text already includes author data, iA Writer lets you choose:

Option	Result
Paste With Authorship	Keeps authorship information and adds it to the receiving document.
Paste Without Authorship	Pastes text without authorship data.

Marking Existing Text

Use this when text is already in the document and needs attribution. Remember that existing text stays unlabeled until you mark it manually, as iA Writer does not infer authorship automatically.

After selecting one or more ranges of text:

Method	Action
Right-Click	Right-click in Editor → Authors → {desired author} → Mark Selection
Authors Menu	Menu bar Authors → {desired author} → Mark Selection as {desired author}

Managing Authors

Global Settings

Managing your list of authors is simple in Writer: Settings → Authors

In Authors settings you can:

• Add or remove an author
• Edit an author’s details
• Reorder authors
• Choose a specific color for a human author

Removing an author does not remove authorship already assigned in existing documents. Authors sync to Writer on your other devices with cloud storage.

In a Document

With a document open in the Editor, go to: Authors → Edit Authorship...

This opens a popup with the document’s author list and character count per author.

You can also:

Action	Result
Enable	Assigns newly typed text to you and enables paste/mark attribution actions.
Disable	Removes all authorship data from the file.

In a document with existing authors, select an author and right-click or press the edit icon:

Action	Result
Replace Author	Transfer authorship to another author.
Save/Remove Author	Save new authors coming from external documents. Remove any author you’ve added.
Edit	Modify details such as name, identifiers, and kind for the selected author.
Delete	Remove the author and associated data from the file (does not remove the author from app Settings).

Annotated Files

Files that include authorship data show a blue Ⓐ icon.

iA Writer stores authorship metadata at the end of the file. This metadata is hidden in Writer’s editor, but visible if the file is opened in other text editors or apps.

Export

When exporting to Markdown, HTML, PDF, and MS Word, iA Writer automatically strips author metadata.

Authorship