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novelWriter

novelWriter is a free, open-source developer tool for Windows and Linux. NovelWriter is an open source plain text editor designed for writing novels. It has 3,205 GitHub stars and is released under the GPL-3.0 license. Its source code is on GitHub at saga-soft/novelWriter.

github.com/saga-soft/novelWriter (opens in a new tab)

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About novelWriter

novelWriter is a plain text editor designed for writing novels assembled from many smaller text documents. It uses a minimal formatting syntax inspired by Markdown, and adds a meta data syntax for comments, synopsis, and cross-referencing. It's designed to be a simple text editor that allows for easy organisation of text and notes, using human readable text files as storage for robustness. The project format is well suited both for version control software and file synchronisation tools.

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FAQ

novelWriter FAQ

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Is novelWriter free and open source?

Yes. novelWriter's source code is public on GitHub under the GPL-3.0 license, which is OSI-approved or FSF-free, so you can use, copy and change it for free.

How do I install novelWriter?

Download the installer for Windows and Linux from its GitHub Releases page (latest: v26.2.2) or the project website.

Is novelWriter still maintained?

The repository's most recent commit was on Oct 26, 2026. appsgit only lists apps whose repository had a commit in the last six months.