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novelWriter#

A plain text editor for novels

A markdown-like text editor designed for writing novels and larger projects of many smaller plain text documents.

It is designed to be a simple text editor that allows for easy organisation of text files and notes, with a meta data syntax for comments, synopsis, and cross-referencing between files, and built on plain text files for robustness.

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novelWriter is Free and Open Source, and runs on Linux, Windows and MacOS

Latest Release#

Version 2026.1 – Released on April 26, 2026 – Read the Release Notes

Linux

Download
Linux AppImage
Debian Package
Installation Help
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Windows

Download
Setup Installer*
Installation Help
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* Code signing on Windows is sponsored by SignPath.io, certificate by the SignPath Foundation. See the Code Signing Policy.
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Note that as of release 2026.1, MacOS DMGs have been discontinued.
The only current method of running novelWriter on MacOS is to set up a Python environment and install the novelwriter package. See Installing from PyPi for additional details.

Other Install Options#

ubuntu-logo Add the Ubuntu PPA to your system#
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:vkbo/novelwriter
sudo apt update
sudo apt install novelwriter
pypi-logo Install from the Python Package Index (Install Help)#
pipx install novelwriter
fedora-logo Install on Fedora 41+#
sudo dnf install novelwriter

Note that the Fedora package is maintained by Fedora package managers and will have a delayed release cycle.

  • For more download options, including pre-releases and checksum files, see the Downloads page.

  • You can also use the Ubuntu PPA on other Debian-based distros. See Installing on Linux for more details.

  • Ubuntu pre-releases are available on the Pre-Release PPA, by adding ppa:vkbo/novelwriter-pre instead.