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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 2026.1.1 – Released on June 28, 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.
We are working to bring back the DMG releases soon. Stay tuned!
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.