iA Writer for macOS

Getting Started with iA Writer for Mac

iA Writer for Mac is designed for focused writing. Some of the powerful features included that let you keep your mind in the text are…

Focus Mode

Focus Mode dims everything but the current sentence or paragraph, helping you stay in the flow, get words out, and avoid the temptation to edit. Together with Full Screen, it gives you laser focus. Once you start typing, all chrome fades away — move the pointer over hidden chrome to make it reappear. To turn Focus Mode on or off, select the menu View → Focus Mode or use the keyboard shortcut ⌘D.

Syntax Highlight

Syntax Control improves upon Focus Mode by helping you to gain insight into your text’s grammatical structure, and concentrate — one sentence at a time — for optimum productivity. Syntax Control dims everything but the chosen syntax (Adjectives, Nouns, Adverbs, Verbs, Prepositions, or Conjunctions) for English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish text. This gives you deep insight into how your text is constructed: focus on the syntax to control your writing style.

Toggle Syntax Control

• Select the desired part of speech in the View → Syntax menu
• Click the desired part of speech in the Syntax Toolbar

Night Mode

iA Writer includes an inverted “light on dark” mode, perfect for writing at night.

Toggle Night Mode

In iA Writer, select the menu View → Night Mode or the keyboard shortcut ⌃⌘N.

You can also independently invert the color of the Preview. From the iA Writer menu, select Preferences → Preview → Appearance → Invert Colors.

Reading Time

iA Writer for Mac shows you word and character counts for your document, at the bottom of the window. iA Writer also includes Reading Time — an indication of how long the average reader would take to read the text. These stats are shown in the bottom toolbar, which is normally configured to fade out of view unless hovered over with the mouse. You can alter the visibility of the toolbar in the menu: View > Toolbar.

Main Shortcuts