Templates Mac

Preview, create PDFs, and print documents in your own style with templates in iA Writer for Mac.

The templates determine the style of your text in Preview and Print with elements such as the fonts, the margins, the line height, etc…

You can switch templates from:

the Toolbar on Preview
the Menu → View → Template

Built-in Templates

iA Writer comes with 5 built-in templates:

Modern (Sans)
Classic (Serif)
Manuscript (Mono)
Manuscript (Duo)
Manuscript (Quattro)
Github

Templates are visible from Preview, you can display them in Web or PDF mode. Here is a quick peek of each of them side by side in PDF mode:

Classic | Modern

A screenshot of side-by-side Preview with the Classic and Modern templates.

Mono | Duo | Quattro

A screenshot of side-by-side Preview with the Mono, Duo and Quattro templates.

GitHub

A side-by-side screenshot showing a text in the Editor and its Preview with the GitHub template.

The GitHub template stands apart from other built-in templates due to its primary focus on technical writing. Crafted by directly replicating GitHub’s CSS, this template does not support the Default Template Settings (such as Number heading, footer…) typically used for creative writing.

Additional Templates

Over the years, the iA Writer team has developed extra templates. You can individually download and install each of them in iA Writer.

Helvetica

Simple, Clean | Download A side-by-side screenshot showing a text in the Editor and its Preview with the Helvetica template.

Palatino

A classic for prose | Download A side-by-side screenshot showing a text in the Editor and its Preview with the Palatino template.

Academic MLA

For academic writing | Download A side-by-side screenshot showing a text in the Editor and its Preview with the MLA template.

Letter

For beautiful correspondence | Download A side-by-side screenshot showing a text in the Editor and its Preview with the Letter template.

Fountain

The template for screenwriting | Download A side-by-side screenshot showing a text in the Editor and its Preview with the Fountain template.

Chess

Log your chess games | Download A screenshot of the Chess template with Editor and Preview side by side.

Create Your Own

CSS and HTML DIY | Learn more A side-by-side screenshot showing a text in the Editor and its Preview with the DIY template.

Installing Templates

Please follow these steps to install additional templates on macOS:

download each of the templates directly from this page.
the downloaded file will be a .zip: double-click on it in Finder to extract the template.
in iA Writer, go to Settings → Templates → +→ Install Template…
you can as well drag and drop the template file from Finder into Settings → Templates

A screenshot of the Templates tab from the Settings.

Note: Mac Template bundles are copied when installed. Any changes made to the original bundle will not be visible in iA Writer.
You may modify the installed bundles: to find an installed bundle, right-click one in Preferences and select “Show in Finder”.

Custom Templates

Users comfortable with code (CSS, HTML, and JS) can create custom templates tailored to their own tastes.
For more on this please see our dedicated page: Custom Templates.

It is also possible to override some of the CSS for a selected template by adding an HTML style block in your document. In the example below, the code block modifies the font size in PDF rendering:

<style>
  @media print {
    body {
      font-size: 25pt;
    }
  }
</style>

A screenshot of an HTML style block in the Editor and its rendering in Preview.
This solution is great for users who aren’t comfortable with code or those who just want to add a few changes (font size or font color for example), without creating a template.

You can see the code and CSS classes to target by enabling the Web Inspector in Preview.