Recto Writer for Mac, iPhone, and iPad
A quiet place to write a book.
Free. One optional tip, which unlocks nothing.
Features
- The page, the outline, and nothing else
- Your books are Markdown files in your own iCloud Drive
- Front matter and back matter as pages of their own
- A book bible, characters, notes, and darlings beside the manuscript
- Export to EPUB, Word, PDF, Markdown, HTML, or plain text
- Daily word goals, timed sprints, and a thirty-day chart
- Spelling and grammar checked on the device
- Five reading typefaces and three styles of drop cap
Recto is a word processor for people writing books. The page, the outline, and nothing else. Every book is a folder of Markdown files in your own iCloud Drive.
Recto is a word processor for people writing books.
Your projects sit on a bookshelf. Open one and start writing your masterpiece.
The outline is the book
Plan the book in the outline or let the outline grow out of the chapters. It stays beside the manuscript, and a line in it takes you to that part of the book.
At the top of the outline is the book bible: the facts and circumstances about your story and characters that should never be violated.
Front matter and back matter
A dedication, an epigraph, acknowledgments, and an afterword are pages of their own.
Your words stay yours
Every book is a folder of Markdown files in your own iCloud Drive. Open it in any editor.
When the draft is done
Export to EPUB, Word, PDF, Markdown, HTML, or plain text. The EPUB is built to what Kindle Direct Publishing expects.
What else is in here
Darlings: cut a passage and keep it, for this book or the next.
Placeholders: leave a mark for the fact you will look up later, and keep writing.
Daily word goals, timed sprints, and a chart of the last thirty days.
Find and replace across the whole book, spelling and grammar checked on the device, typewriter scrolling, five reading typefaces, and three styles of drop cap.
Free
Recto is free. There is no trial, no subscription, and no in-app purchase beyond an optional tip, which unlocks nothing.
With thanks
Recto is a native rewrite of NEO, the word processor Hugh Howey wrote and released under the MIT License. The outline, the scene breaks, and the page with nothing else on it are his.
Questions
- What does Recto cost?
- Nothing. Recto is free, with no trial, no subscription, and no in-app purchase beyond an optional tip. The tip unlocks nothing.
- Where are my books stored?
- In a folder in your own iCloud Drive, one folder per book. Each chapter is a Markdown file, and book.json and spine.json hold the title, the author, and the reading order. Every file opens in any text editor.
- Does my writing go to a server?
- No. There is no Recto server and no Recto account. Your books sync between your devices through your own iCloud account. Recto sends anonymous usage events (which features get used, and crashes) and none of them can carry text. You can turn that off in Settings.
- Which devices does it run on?
- Mac, iPhone, and iPad, on macOS 26 and iOS 26. One purchase covers all three, since there is nothing to purchase.
- What can I export?
- EPUB, Word, PDF, Markdown, HTML, or plain text. The EPUB is built to what Kindle Direct Publishing expects, and the blurb from The Book goes into it.
- What is NEO, and what does Recto owe it?
- NEO is the word processor Hugh Howey wrote for his own books and released under the MIT License. Recto is a native rewrite. The outline, the scene breaks, and the page with nothing else on it are his.
- What is the book bible?
- The top of the Outline. The facts and circumstances about your story and characters that should never be violated: who is how old, what happened in which year, what color somebody's eyes are. It stays with the book and syncs with it.
- What are darlings?
- Passages you cut from the manuscript but want to keep. Select the text, choose Move to Darlings, and it waits in the Darlings tab, named for the chapter it came from, until you copy it back out or delete it for good.