How to use Pure Writer: a ten-minute tutorial

This guide is for people who have just installed Pure Writer. It follows the order in which you’ll probably need things after opening the app for the first time: each step says what to do and where to find it, and links to the Pure Writer User Manual for details. By the end, you’ll have your first documents, an editor set up the way you like it, and cloud backup turned on.

Pure Writer is available for Android, iPhone and iPad, and desktop (Windows and macOS); where the apps differ, each is covered separately.

Download and install

Android: Install it from Google Play. The core features are free; some features require Pure Writer Pro.
iPhone and iPad: Download it from the App Store. It requires iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 or later. You can try every feature free for 7 days. After the trial, you need a subscription or a lifetime membership to keep editing and creating documents, but you can still read, export and back up your existing documents. See Pure Writer for iOS.
Desktop: Download it from the Pure Writer Desktop page. It’s free for now.

Books, folders and documents

Book: the top level, such as a novel or a journal. Tap or click the book name to open the book list and switch books; it’s at the top on Android, at the bottom on iOS, and in the top-left corner on desktop.
Document: each piece of writing in a book, listed in the sidebar.
Folder: a group inside a book, for example for the chapters of one part. On Android, folders are shown only with manual sorting (“Manual order” under “Sort order” in the sidebar).

If you delete a document by mistake, you can restore it from the Trash.

Write your first document

To create a document on Android, tap ⊕ in the bottom-right corner and create a new document from the menu. On iOS, tap “+” in the bottom-right corner and choose “New Document”. On desktop, right-click a document in the sidebar and choose “New document below”. Documents are saved automatically as you edit, so there’s nothing to save by hand.

To find a document later, type something you remember from it into search: on Android, “Find a document” in “More” (⋮) on the top bar; on iOS, “Search Documents / Quickly Jump to a Document” in the panel that “⋯” on the right of the top bar opens; on desktop, the search button on the top bar, or press Esc. See How do I search for a document?

Make typing easier

Shortcut bar: a bar above the keyboard for text you use often, such as character names or a pair of quotation marks, and for actions such as undo and redo. To add a shortcut, tap “⊕ New text shortcut” on the shortcut bar on Android, or “+ Shortcut” on iOS. On desktop, the “Show/hide shortcut bar” button on the top bar shows the shortcuts, which you add and edit on your phone. See How to use the shortcut bar.
Find and replace: on Android, choose “Find & replace” from “More” (⋮); on iOS, choose “Find & Replace” in the panel that “⋯” opens. You can replace across documents (on Android, replacing requires Pure Writer Pro). On desktop, press Ctrl+F (Command+F on macOS); the find bar works on the current document only. See How do I find and replace text?
Undo and redo: on iOS, tap the button in the top-right corner of the top bar that shows the document’s format, and choose “Undo” or “Redo”. On Android, “Redo” is at the bottom of the panel that “More” (⋮) opens. On desktop, “Redo” is in the editor’s right-click menu. See How do I redo something I undid by mistake?

Adjust the layout

	Android and iOS	Desktop
Font and font size	Android: the “Font” section, “Title text size” and “Body text size” in Settings. iOS: “Settings › Font” and “Settings › Title & Content Font Sizes”	“Settings › Font”
Line spacing, paragraph spacing, margins	“Settings › Line spacing and margins” (on iOS, “Settings › Line Spacing & Margins”)	Only “Paragraph spacing” (on or off) in the “Settings” menu
Typewriter mode	“Typewriter mode” in Settings (on iOS, “Typewriter Mode”)	No dimming effect

Change the paper background (the background of the editor) in “Settings › Themes & paper backgrounds” on Android, or in “Settings › Theme” on iOS. For what typewriter mode does, see What is typewriter mode? in the manual, or our article on typewriter mode.

Formatting and Markdown

Pure Writer saves your text as plain text, so you can’t make text bold directly. Use Formatting options to tidy up a whole document, and Markdown for headings, bold text and other formatting.

Formatting options can, among other things, keep one blank line between paragraphs or remove extra blank lines, insert spaces between East Asian and Latin text, and add or remove first-line indents. One-tap formatting runs several common steps at once. On Android, choose “Formatting options” from “More” (⋮); on iOS, choose “Formatting Options & One-Tap Typesetting” in the “⋯” panel; on desktop, click the “Formatting options” button on the top bar. If you don’t like the result, you can undo it.

Markdown marks formatting with plain text symbols, such as **bold** and # Heading. You can switch each document between plain text and Markdown:

Android: Tap the TXT icon on the right of the top bar. To preview, tap the small M↓ button next to ⊕.
iOS: Tap the button in the top-right corner of the editor that shows the document’s format and choose “Switch to Markdown”. To preview, use “Preview & Save as PDF, Long Image, DOCX, EPUB…” in the “⋯” panel.
Desktop: Click “Plain text” in the status bar at the bottom of the window and choose “Markdown”. There’s no preview on desktop for now.

To learn the basics, see the Pure Writer Markdown User Guide in the manual.

Get back an earlier draft with History

If you’ve deleted too much or made a mess of a document, open History to preview its recently saved versions and restore one. On Android, choose “History” from “More” (⋮); on iOS, choose it in the “⋯” panel; on desktop, click the “History” button on the top bar. History is stored only on your device and keeps a limited number of entries, so it’s no substitute for backups. See How do I restore an earlier version of a document from History?

Set up cloud backup on day one

Pure Writer automatically keeps backups on your device, but they’re on the same device as your documents: if the device is lost or damaged, they’re lost together, and on iOS, local backups are also deleted when you delete the app. So connect a cloud drive on your first day; after that, backups are uploaded automatically.

Android: In “Settings › Backup & cloud sync”, tap “Cloud connection type”, choose a cloud drive, and tap “Sign in”.
iOS: In “Settings › Backup & Cloud Sync › Cloud Drive”, tap “Connect Dropbox”, “Connect OneDrive”, or “Connect AliyunDrive”. There’s also “Back Up to iCloud”, which is on by default when iCloud is available on the system.
Desktop: Click the cloud icon in the top-right corner of the window, and in the “Backup and sync” window, click “Sign in to OneDrive”, “Sign in to Dropbox”, or “Sign in to AliyunDrive”.

All three apps support OneDrive, Dropbox and AliyunDrive. For step-by-step instructions, see the Automatic and Cloud Backup Tutorial.

Sync across devices

Connect each device to the same account of the same cloud drive and turn on cloud sync, and your documents sync between your phone and computer. See How to sync writing between your phone and computer.

Export

Android and iOS: Save a document as a TXT, MD, PDF, DOCX or EPUB file, or as images, from “Preview & export…” in “More” (⋮) on Android, or “Preview & Save as PDF, Long Image, DOCX, EPUB…” in the “⋯” panel on iOS. To export a whole book as TXT, DOCX or EPUB, choose “Export as one book” on Android or “Merge and Export Book” on iOS from the sidebar menu. On Android, both require Pure Writer Pro.
Desktop: Documents can’t be exported for now.

See Can I export to .docx, .epub, or other formats?

Getting help

Look in the Pure Writer User Manual first. If that doesn’t solve the problem, email writer@drakeet.com.

FAQ

Do I need a Pure Writer account?

No, you don’t need an account to write. Purchases made through Google Play or the App Store don’t go through a Pure Writer account, and Pure Writer Desktop doesn’t need one either. Cloud backup and cloud sync use your own cloud drive account, which has nothing to do with a Pure Writer account.

Is there a desktop version of Pure Writer?

Yes. Pure Writer Desktop for Windows and macOS is free for now and syncs with your phone through a cloud drive. Download it from the Pure Writer Desktop page.

Is Pure Writer available for iPhone and iPad?

Yes. Pure Writer for iOS is on the App Store for iPhone and iPad with iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 or later, and you can try every feature free for 7 days.

Where does Pure Writer store my documents?

Your documents and local backups are stored on your device. Once you connect a cloud drive, backups are uploaded to your own cloud drive; on iOS, when iCloud is available on the system, automatic backups are also saved to your own iCloud by default. Apart from online features you choose to use (Fanhuaji conversions, which appear when the app language is Chinese, and AI features on Android), your documents aren’t sent to Pure Writer’s servers. See Could my writing be stolen through Pure Writer?