Use cases · Writers

A quiet room
for your words.

For novelists, essayists, journalists, and bloggers who want to write — not fight their tools. Distraction-free modes, AI that waits to be asked, and plain markdown files that are yours to keep for good.

See pricing
Built for the draft

Everything you need,
nothing you don't.

The features that matter to a working writer, and a calm surface that hides the rest until you reach for it.

Focus mode

Dim everything but the line — or the sentence — under your cursor, so the paragraph in front of you is the only thing on the page.

Typewriter mode

Keep your current line pinned to the middle of the screen. Your eyes stay still while the words scroll up to meet them.

Zen mode

Clear the sidebar, tabs, and chrome and go full screen. Just you, the text, and the quiet — one keystroke away.

AI that assists, not replaces

Rewrite a clumsy line, expand a note, fix grammar, or continue a thought — only when you ask. Your draft stays your voice.

You own every word

Each chapter is a plain .md file in a folder you chose. No account, no proprietary format, no one between you and your book.

Nothing gets lost

Every save is versioned with a timeline, diff, and one-click restore. A crash-safe journal keeps the paragraph you just wrote.

chapter-07.md
# Chapter Seven

The lighthouse had not been lit in
forty years, and yet every night the
old man climbed the stairs —

*The cursor sits here, centered.
Everything above and below fades away.*

Focus. Typewriter. Zen.
One keystroke each.
Deep work

Get in, and
stay in the flow.

The hardest part of writing is staying in the chair. Focus dims the noise to a single line, typewriter keeps your cursor centered, and zen takes the whole interface away. Switch between them with a shortcut and never touch a mouse.
  • Focus by line or by sentence
  • Typewriter scrolling
  • Full-screen zen with one keystroke
Ready to submit

From draft to
something you send

When the writing is done, the sending should be simple. Export a clean, professional manuscript in the format an editor, agent, or publication expects — without leaving the app and without reformatting by hand.

  • Clean PDF with headers, footers & page numbers
  • Editable Word .docx for editors and agents
  • Self-contained HTML for the web
  • Plain markdown you can hand to anyone
  • Consistent margins and typography
  • Smart page breaks above chapter headings
[[Ada Vance]] appears in 12 scenes
#foreshadowing — 8 notes
Everything stays on your Mac
Research & notes

Keep the story
and its scaffolding.

Link a character sheet to a scene with [[wiki-links]] and follow the backlinks to see every place it appears. Tag threads, plot points, and sources, then find any of them across your whole project the instant you need them.
  • Wiki-links between notes
  • Backlinks show every reference
  • Tags and instant vault search

Your words outlive your apps

Ampersand writes standard markdown to a folder you control — no lock-in, no export ritual, no cloud you can be evicted from. If Ampersand vanished tomorrow, every draft would open in any other editor, exactly as you left it. That is the whole point.
Questions

Good to know

Is this a good app for writing a novel or a long manuscript?

Yes. Ampersand stays fast in documents thousands of lines long, keeps each chapter as a plain .md file, and gives you focus, typewriter, and zen modes to write without friction. Version history and a crash-safe journal mean a long project is never one accident away from disappearing.

Will the AI write my book for me — or change my style?

Only if you ask it to. There is no autopilot. Inline AI lives behind a keystroke: rewrite, expand, fix grammar, translate, or continue a line on request. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you trigger it, and you can run it entirely on-device with a local model if you prefer to keep drafts private.

Can I submit my work to editors, agents, or a publisher?

Export a manuscript to a clean PDF, an editable Word .docx, self-contained HTML, or a markdown bundle. Headers, footers, page numbers, and page breaks are handled for you, so what you send looks finished.

Do I have to pay a subscription?

No. The editor and all the writing modes are free forever. Pro is a one-time $29 launch price (regularly $49), works on up to three devices, and comes with a 14-day money-back guarantee. No monthly fee, ever.

Get started

Sit down and
write the first line.

The editor and every writing mode are free forever — not a trial. Download it and open a blank page in about two minutes.

Free to start · macOS 13+ · No account required