iA / Writer / Support / Editor

Syntax Highlight

iA Writer for Mac includes iA’s signature Syntax Highlighting feature.

Highlighting syntax provides you with a more structured view of your document and can help you spot typos and improve your writing style. We have grouped a collection of blogposts on that matter, you can find more tips on this category: How to Write.

Enable Syntax Highlight

On Mac you can enable Syntax Highlight in one of four ways:

Preferences pane Preferences → Editor → Syntax: Enable All | Last Used
Focus menu FocusShow Syntax
Editor Select Focus dropdown
Keyboard shortcut D

You can specify which parts of speech are highlighted by selecting/deselecting options found in Preferences, Menu and Focus dropdowns.

For example in the Focus dropdown shown below you can see Nouns and Verbs are selected:

In the text both parts are clearly identified by the corresponding colour:

Syntax Highlight also works well in conjunction with Focus Mode allowing you to see your structure down to sentence-level:

Languages

Syntax Highlight leverages system-level libraries and is available for documents/text in the following languages:

En De Fr Es It Ru

Working With Syntax Highlight

There is no right or wrong way to work with the feature enabled. Different writers all have different needs and workflows. Since Syntax Highlight can be quickly toggled using D you can easily switch from working with Syntax Hightlight to not.

Importantly, Syntax Highlight does not make any changes to your content and you’ll never see the parts of speech highlighted in Preview, printed or exported documents…

If you are not familiar with iA Writer yet, you can check out Style Check, a similar feature to Syntax Highlight providing you suggestions to improve your text.

Editor

Stats

From word count to estimated reading time, document stats help you stay on top of things.

Focus Mode

Shut down distractions. Focus on the sentence or paragraph you’re currently working on.

Title Bar

From Library navigation to enabling core features, the Titlebar is your go-to.

Keyboard Bar

Formatting options at your fingertips make writing on mobile a breeze.

Metadata

A simple key-value format for storing additional information about a document, only visible in the Editor.

Shortcuts

Knowing keyboard shortcuts will greatly improve your performance with our app.

Syntax Highlight

A more structured view of your document will help you improve your writing style.

Style Check

A personal editor-in-chief on your device, carefully reviewing your text for redundancies, clichés, and filler words.

Spell Checking

How to install additional spellchecking (Windows)

Snippets

Snippets allow you to save a significant amount of time by providing smart text substitutions. (Windows only)