I Write Like Blog

Spring update

2026-03-18T00:00:00Z

We have released a new update for I Write Like with a new option to preserve line breaks in Markdown Preview and a fix for the Webster’s dictionary.

Preserve line breaks

There’s a new Preserve line breaks option in Markdown Preview:

In Markdown, a single line break is not treated as a line break in the rendered output: to create a paragraph break, you need to add two line breaks, while to create a hard line break, you need to add two spaces or a slash at the end of the line.

The newly added option allows you to preserve single line breaks in the preview, which can be useful for certain types of writing, such as poetry or song lyrics.

Fixes

We’ve fixed the 1913 Webster’s dictionary issue: our preprocessing missed some words. We corrected this and uploaded a new version of the dictionary, which should now work properly. We also corrected capitalization of some words.

On Fediverse

We now have a Mastodon account: @iwritelike@mastodon.social. Follow us there for updates and some fun stuff!

LibreOffice Writer now supports Markdown

2026-03-08T00:00:00Z

LibreOffice Writer, the popular open source word processor and a free replacement for the dreaded Microsoft Word, has recently added support for Markdown, a lightweight markup language that allows you to format text using simple syntax. This is great news for users of I Write Like, as it means you can now easily import and export your Markdown files between IWL and LibreOffice Writer without losing formatting.

How to open Markdown files in LibreOffice Writer

If you open a file with the .md extension in LibreOffice Writer, it will automatically recognize it as a Markdown file and render it accordingly.

By default, I Write Like saves files with the .txt extension (because Markdown files are, in fact, text files), but you can easily change it to .md in the Settings:

How to save Markdown files in LibreOffice Writer

To save a file in Markdown format in LibreOffice Writer, simply click File → Save As, and then choose Markdown Document (.md) from the list of available formats. This will save your file with the .md extension, which can be easily opened in IWL or any other Markdown or plain text editor.

Simple open file formats are the future

LibreOffice Writer’s support for Markdown is a great step towards better interoperability between different writing tools. Markdown is a simple and widely supported format (even Windows Notepad now supports rich text formatted with Markdown), and having the ability to easily import and export Markdown files between IWL and LibreOffice Writer means that you can choose the best tool for writing without worrying about compatibility issues.

It’s also a format for the future: while the default OpenDocument Format (ODF) is great for complex documents, most texts don’t need all its features, and a simple format like Markdown is often more than enough for writing, sharing, and preserving text: you can be sure your Markdown files will be readable and editable hundreds of years from now, while the same cannot be said for ODF or DOCX files.

We already wrote about Markdown support in Google Docs and Apple Notes, and now we welcome LibreOffice to the Markdown club!

Markdown support is available in LibreOffice 26.2. You can install it on Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD and pretty much any operating system. If you need a good, free and libre old-school word processor, spreadsheet, or presentation software, give it a try! Don’t forget to delete Microsoft Word to save disk space and your sanity.

Full-width Markdown preview and bug fixes

2026-01-09T00:00:00Z

In the first release of 2026, we are introducing a new full-width Markdown preview mode in I Write Like along with various bug fixes.

Full-width Markdown preview

When you’re writing Markdown, it is convenient to have a split screen preview of the rendered output. This feature has been available in the new I Write Like from day one. However, sometimes you want to see the preview in more detail or just read the rendered content without distractions. To address this, we’ve added a new full width preview mode that allows you to expand the preview pane to occupy the entire width of the window.

This option is available in Markdown Preview → Full-width preview.

(Note that on mobile devices, the preview is always full width when in vertical mode.)

Bug fixes and improvements

Improved loading performance.
Fixed selection issues in the editor.
Fixed race condition in “Read aloud” when pausing.
Fixed declutter mode activation when entering or exiting full screen.

Premium features

We made Typewriter sounds and Style highlighting features available only to premium users.

I Write Like depends on your support to keep improving. Please consider supporting us by upgrading to IWL Premium. Thank you!

Holiday gift: Typewriter sounds

2025-12-13T00:00:00Z

The first words I typed were not on a computer keyboard or a glass screen, but on an old mechanical typewriter. I loved that machine and produced quite a few home newspapers, stories, and essays on it. I still remember the satisfying sound of the keys striking the paper and miss that feeling when typing on modern devices.

Some of that clicky experience can be brought back with mechanical keyboards – they also click loudly, but don’t strain your fingers as much.

However, many people today type on mushy laptop keyboards or touchscreens, which don’t provide this satisfying auditory feedback. This is why I’ve added optional typewriter sounds to I Write Like.

Typewriters produce sounds in various ways, and simulating them correctly in software is not as easy as just playing a sound effect when a key is pressed:

When a letter is pressed, the typebar strikes the paper through an inked ribbon, producing a “clack” sound.

When the spacebar is pressed, it produces a softer “thud” sound since it moves the carriage without striking the paper.
When the Shift key is pressed, it makes a distinctive “clunk” sound as the type basket shifts to type uppercase letters. Another sound is produced when the Shift key is released, as the type basket drops back to lowercase.

When the carriage reaches the end of a line, a bell rings to signal that it’s time to return the carriage. The bell is not implemented in I Write Like, because our lines are virtually infinite and wrap automatically.
When the carriage return lever is pulled to go to the next line, it produces a distinctive sound as the carriage moves back to the starting position. This is implemented in I Write Like when you press Return. The duration of this sound depends on the length of the line, just like on a real typewriter – the longer the line, the longer it takes for the carriage to move back.

Scrolling up or down produces a soft “whirr” sound as the platen rotates to move the paper up or down. This is implemented in I Write Like when you press Up or Down arrow keys. (Right or Left arrows simulate horizontal scrolling, which is performed by moving the carriage left or right, which produces a different sound.)

Since you cannot hold down keys on a typewriter like you can on a computer keyboard and expect it to repeat, I Write Like will rate-limit some of the repeating key sounds so that you don’t hear a continuous stream of clicks when holding down a key.

As you can see, we went all the way to simulate authentic typewriter sounds. You can enable them in Settings or via the Focus Modes toolbar button.

As our holiday gift to you, typewriter sounds – an IWL Premium feature – are free to use online during the holiday season until early January. They are also available in our Mac and iOS apps.

Enjoy the nostalgic typing experience and happy holidays!

Video credits: Antonio, Lisa Redfern, Yeray Saavedra Ruiz from Pixabay.

Introducing Text Transforms

2025-12-08T00:00:00Z

The new Transform tool in I Write Like adds 32 useful text transformations that you can apply to your text with a single click.

You can apply transforms to the entire text or only to the selected portion.

When using transforms, click on the arrow next to each button to see a description and example of the transformation.

We’ve added Undo and Redo buttons to the toolbar for easy reversal of the transforms.

List of text transforms

Case conversion

Uppercase. Convert all letters to uppercase.
Lowercase. Convert all letters to lowercase.
Title Case. Capitalize the first letter of each word.
Title Case (Chicago style). Capitalize the first letter of each word, except for short conjunctions, articles, and prepositions (The Chicago Manual of Style).

Formatting

Straighten quotes. Convert curly quotes to straight quotes.
Line breaks to paragraphs. Convert single line breaks to double line breaks to properly format paragraphs in Markdown.

Numeric

Spell out numbers. Convert numeric digits to their word equivalents.
Integers to ordinals. Add ordinal suffixes to integer numbers in the text.
Sum numbers. Find all numbers in the text, calculate their sum, and append it at the end. (Calculates using floating point.)

Lines

Sort lines ascending. Sort lines in ascending (A-Z) alphabetical order.
Sort lines descending. Sort lines in descending (Z-A) alphabetical order.
Reverse lines. Reverse the order of lines.
Shuffle lines. Randomly shuffle the order of lines.
Remove duplicate lines. Remove duplicate lines, keeping only the first occurrence.
Add line numbers. Add line numbers to the beginning of each line.
Add list bullets. Convert lines to a Markdown unordered list format.
Add checkboxes. Convert lines to a Markdown todo list format.

Cleanup

Remove extra spaces. Remove extra spaces and tabs, leaving only single spaces between words and no leading or trailing spaces on lines.
Remove trailing spaces. Remove trailing spaces and tabs from the end of each line.
Remove trailing and leading spaces. Remove trailing and leading spaces and tabs from each line.
Remove blank lines. Remove all blank lines from the text.
Remove single line breaks. Remove single line breaks, keeping paragraph breaks.
Normalize paragraph breaks. Replace multiple consecutive line breaks with a maximum of two.
Join lines. Join all lines into a single line by replacing line breaks with spaces.

Fun

ROT13. Encode or decode text using the ROT13 algorithm, which replaces each letter with the letter 13 positions ahead in the alphabet. Good for obfuscating spoilers or jokes.
Leetspeak. Convert text to leetspeak by replacing certain letters with numbers or symbols.

Technical

URL encode. Encode text for use in a URL.
URL decode. Decode URL-encoded text.
Base64 encode. Encode text to Base64 format.
Base64 decode. Decode Base64-encoded text.
JSON pretty print. Format JSON text with indentation for better readability.
SHA-256 digest. Generate SHA-256 hash of the input text.
SHA-512 digest. Generate SHA-512 hash of the input text.

macOS and iOS apps updated

2025-12-02T00:00:00Z

New versions of our IWL: Smarter Writing app for Mac, iPhone and iPad are now available on the App Store.

Here’s what’s new:

Improved typewriter mode: Typewriter mode now recenters the cursor smoothly when you type, providing a more pleasant experience. It no longer recenters the cursor when you scroll or select text.
Separate focus modes: You can now have different focus mode settings for window and Full Screen modes, allowing for a more customized writing environment.
Updated models. Newer LLMs, such as GPT-5.1 are now available.
Liquid glass support: We didn’t go overboard with glass, as it can be distracting – we only added it where it enhances integration with the operating system.
Updated icon. The apps now have a fancy icon, which looks great on macOS Tahoe and iOS 26.
UI tweaks: Various user interface improvements and bug fixes to enhance the overall experience. For example, the mini word counter is now centered on iOS.

You can get IWL from Apple’s App Store: it’s a single purchase for all platforms (macOS, iPhone and iPad) without subscriptions, in-app purchases, or ads. Thank you for your support!

Smoother typewriter mode

2025-11-26T00:00:00Z

Typewriter mode in I Write Like keeps your cursor vertically centered on the screen as you type, providing a comfortable writing experience: you don’t have to look down at the bottom of the screen while typing. However, it didn’t provide a great experience when you scrolled manually, as the cursor would jump back to the center immediately after you stopped scrolling or when you tried to select something, so you had to turn it off for editing. It’s better now! First of all, it now only recenters the cursor when you type, not when you select or scroll. Secondly, it now smoothly recenters the cursor instead of jumping abruptly, making the experience much more pleasant.

We also fixed a bug in the previously announced Backup all your files in one click feature: since you could have the same filename for multiple unsaved files, which is not possible in the ZIP archive, only one of those files would be included in the archive. This is now fixed by appending a number to the filenames of duplicate files in the ZIP archive. For example, if you have three unsaved files named myfile.txt, they will be named myfile.txt, myfile (1).txt, and myfile (2).txt.

Happy writing!

Backup all your files in one click

2025-11-01T00:00:00Z

Since IWL is completely private, unlike Google Docs, Microsoft 365, and various other cloud systems, it stores unsaved files in your browser’s local storage (unless you opt-in to sync them with Dropbox), and works just like a desktop application: clicking Save saves or downloads your file to disk. While this keeps your texts private, it also means that if you clear your browser data or switch devices, you may lose them. We remind users of this in the File Manager.

We learned that some users don’t regularly save their files in the web version of I Write Like and have accumulated many unsaved files in the File Manager, so we created a solution for them.

To make it easier to back up your files, we have added a new feature that allows you to download all your open files with a single click. It collects all your open files (excluding the ones in Dropbox), creates a ZIP archive with the filename iwl-files-YYYY-MM-DD_hh_mm_ss.zip, where YYYY-MM-DD is the current date, and hh_mm_ss is the current time, and downloads it to your device.

If you insist on not saving your files, at least click this button once in a while to back them up!

Apple Notes now supports Markdown export and import

2025-09-15T10:25:49+02:00

With the release of macOS 26 Tahoe, Apple Notes has gained the ability to export and import notes in Markdown format. This new feature makes it much easier to move texts between Apple Notes and IWL and other Markdown-based text tools without losing formatting or manually converting text to other formats.

How to export Markdown from Apple Notes

To export text from Apple Notes:

Click File → Export as → Markdown.
Choose a location to save the .md file and click Export.

Now you can open the exported Markdown file in IWL Mac app by clicking File → Open and selecting the file, or dragging it into the app icon in the Dock. You can also open it in our web app by clicking the Open file button or opening the menu and clicking Open…

How to import Markdown into Apple Notes

To import a Markdown file into Apple Notes, save the file in IWL, and then in Apple Notes:

Click File → Import Markdown.
Select the Markdown file you want to import and click Import.

You will find the imported note in the Imported Notes folder.

If you use macOS, iOS or iPadOS, download our app for full Markdown editing experience and writing analysis features.

Updated focus modes, local model in Chrome, GPT-5 and Gemini 2.5

2025-08-16T00:00:00Z

We have released a new online version of IWL with several new features and improvements.

Focus modes and settings improvements

The focus modes menu now applies changes to the current mode: normal or full screen, which means you can have different settings for different modes! It also looks better now, and includes a button to open the settings.

Speaking of Settings – you can now configure focus modes there, for both Normal and Full Screen modes.

Local model support in Chrome

Google Chrome browser is trialing a new feature that allows running AI models locally, without sending data to the cloud. I Write Like have joined this trial program, so now you can use local models in the Chrome browser. This means you can run AI tools like Edit with AI without sending your data to external servers, enhancing privacy and performance, and without spending money on API calls.

You can try it out by selecting “Local (experimental)” in the model selection menu in Edit with AI. (If you don’t see this option, your browser doesn’t support it yet.)

This will download a model to your device (it takes around 2 GB of disk space) and run it locally. The first time you use it, it may take a while to download the model, but subsequent uses will be much faster. Once downloaded, the model can be used on any web app that supports it, not just IWL.

Please note that this feature is experimental and may not be available in all regions or versions of Chrome. It may not work well, and it may disappear at any time, but we hope it will become a standard feature in all browsers in the future.

GPT-5 and Gemini 2.5 support

We have added support for the latest GPT-5 and Gemini 2.5 models in IWL. You can now use these advanced models in the Edit with AI tool, providing you with even more powerful writing assistance.

Specifically, the following models have been added:

GPT-5
GPT-5 mini
GPT-5 nano
Gemini 2.5 Pro
Gemini 2.5 Flash
Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite

These models can be used with your own API keys, so you control the cost and privacy of your data.

We also removed the following legacy models: GPT-3.5 Turbo, GPT-4, and Gemini 1.5. If you still need to use them, you can add them as custom models.

Other improvements

Fixed performance of analyzing text that contain large data-URIs (including word counter).
Tweaked some UI elements to improve usability.
Fixed keyboard navigation in a few places.
Added information about free text tools available on IWL.

These changes are now live on iwl.me and will be available in the macOS and iOS apps in the next release.

15 Years of I Write Like

2025-07-09T00:00:00Z

Fifteen years ago, I launched I Write Like — a playful little website that analyzes your writing and tells you which famous author you write like. What started as a weekend experiment quickly went viral, with millions of people pasting in everything from essays to fan fiction to grocery lists. It struck a nerve: part game, part curiosity, part validation.

Over the years, it’s been featured in media, discussed in classrooms, and even used by famous authors trying to find their literary doppelgänger. I’m grateful for everyone who tried it, shared it, or built something inspired by it.

Last year I Write Like evolved into a smart workspace for writers — a place to write, edit, and get insights into your writing. From author comparisons to smart tools that help you refine your voice, it’s become a companion for the creative process, not just a curiosity.

As AI takes center stage in writing, I Write Like has embraced this change by incorporating large language models as another helpful tool for authors, ensuring the human element remains central.

This year we released native apps for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS — IWL: Smarter Writing — making it easier than ever to edit and analyze files on your devices without losing privacy and control over your work to cloud services. Privacy is the core of I Write Like, and we continue to prioritize it in everything we do.

And this is only the beginning.

As we celebrate 15 years, I’m more excited than ever about what’s next. With new features in the works and a growing community of writers, I Write Like is turning into something much bigger: a home for people who love writing, want to improve, and still enjoy the occasional surprise of being told they write like Arthur Conan Doyle or Jane Austen.

Thanks to everyone who’s been part of this journey, and here’s to the next chapter!

— Dmitry