Paper
A minimal WYSIWYG Markdown editor for the desktop. You type Markdown. It hides the syntax and shows the formatted result in the same place.
Universal, for Apple silicon and Intel. Requires macOS 13 or newer. Free and open source.
On writing plainly
The best writing tool is the one that gets out of the way. A page, a caret, and enough space to think in — nothing else.
Markdown is a good bargain: it is plain text that survives every editor you will ever use, and it reads perfectly well before it is rendered at all.
The source of truth is the file on disk, not the program that opened it.
fn main() {
println!("and code, where code belongs");
}No preview pane
Most Markdown editors split the window: your text on the left, a rendered copy on the right, two scrollbars disagreeing about where you are. Paper does not. The formatting happens where you type it, so there is one column to read and one place to look.
The syntax markers appear on the line the caret is on, and nowhere else. Move away and the line settles into its formatted shape.
Three ways to look at the same document
- Editing
- The caret reveals the syntax underneath the line it is on, so you can always see and correct the source.
- Presentation
- The markers stay hidden and the keyboard still works. The page reads as a finished document while remaining editable.
- Reading
- No caret and nothing to type into, with the text still selectable so it can be quoted.
None of them changes the layout, the typography or the chrome. They are not a focus mode.
One file per window
A window is a document, the way a Mac application is supposed to work. Each one holds a file, its own undo history and its own unsaved state. A second document opens a second window, not a tab.
Files are written atomically, to a temporary file that is then renamed, so an interrupted save cannot leave you with half a document. If a file changes underneath you, Paper notices: it reloads quietly when you have no unsaved work, and asks when you do.
What comes with it
- Seven typefaces, bundled. Literata, Lora, Newsreader, Source Serif 4, Inter, iA Writer Quattro and JetBrains Mono, so the writing surface is the same on every machine.
- Light and dark themes, following the system or pinned to one.
- Typography you control. Text size, line width and line height, because those three decide how a page reads.
- Code blocks that behave like code. Syntax highlighting, with the language remembered in the fence.
- Tables, read and written back without being flattened.
- Find and replace, including inside code blocks.
- A source view, one keystroke away, when you want to see the raw Markdown.
What it will not do
Paper has no file tree, no tabs, no outline panel, no diagrams, no collaboration and no telemetry. It does not check for updates on its own, and it makes no network request unless you ask it to.
These are decisions rather than gaps. A small editor stays small only if the list of things it declines is written down and kept.