Writing Studio is a private writing workspace for fiction, nonfiction, memoir, poetry, screenplays, essays, and academic work. Its mint charcoal theme pairs white manuscript text with handwritten chapter titles and a soft mint glow that fades after each typed letter. A narrower writing pane keeps lines comfortable to read, with grouped navigation above and chapter tools beside your draft. Writing, revision tools, local backups, and exports work without an account or internet connection. An optional DeepSeek assistant uses your own API key when you choose to enable it.
Version 0.5.1-beta adds the mint workspace, grouped Project, Workspace, and Appearance dropdowns, a formatting toolbar directly above the draft, and independently collapsible chapter and tools panels. Focus mode gives the manuscript more room. The typing glow can be switched off and respects reduced-motion preferences. Existing writing tools include offline corrections, saved Assistant drafts, persistent find-and-replace settings, Back and Forward navigation, local location links, and in-app Help. The downloads below include this design and the MIT license.
Source repository · Version 0.5.1-beta downloads
Download: Windows ZIP · Mac ZIP · Source ZIP
The downloaded app runs independently on your computer. No ChatGPT account, ChatGPT subscription, Writing Studio account, or GitHub sign-in is required to use it. Local mode is the default: open the app and start writing. You do not need Codex or ChatGPT running alongside it.
Writing, browser autosave, chapter guidance, character profiles, revision tools, the bundled thesaurus, and exports work without internet access. The launcher also provides automatic local folder backups. Your workspace stays in this browser and your backup files; there is no account-based cloud synchronization.
The optional DeepSeek assistant uses your own DeepSeek API key and internet connection when you choose Generate. It does not use a ChatGPT account. External research links need internet access to open their websites.
These screenshots show the running app with an original fictional sample manuscript.
Extract the entire download into a folder first. On Windows, double-click Open Writing Studio.bat. On Mac, double-click Open Writing Studio.command. The launcher opens your browser at http://127.0.0.1:8766/. Keep the launch window open while writing and use the same browser and address each time.
Python 3.8 or newer must be installed for the launcher and automatic folder backups. The Mac launcher finds Python on your PATH. The Windows launcher checks py -3, python, and python3. If Python is unavailable, open Writing Studio.html in a current browser and use downloaded JSON backups. Do not remove the app folder when using a launcher.
The standalone HTML edition stores its workspace in browser storage. Storage for files opened directly from your computer varies by browser; moving or renaming the file may create a different workspace. Keep it in the same location, use the same browser, and download backups frequently. Use Import to move projects between browsers or computers.
The font selector above the draft includes Caveat (handwritten), Chalkboard, serif and modern options, and Georgia, Palatino, Garamond, Times New Roman, Courier New, Trebuchet, and Verdana. These choices change draft and in-app reading text. Caveat is bundled for offline use. Other manuscript fonts use local system fallbacks, so their exact appearance varies by computer; exports keep their book typography. Handwritten chapter headings use the bundled Caveat font, which works offline.
Appearance → Colors opens an optional live color preview. Enable custom colors, choose a solid background or a three-color soft gradient, and adjust hue, intensity, brightness, and gradient direction. Writing panels adapt to your selected light or dark theme for readability. Save colors keeps your choices; Cancel or Escape restores the previous palette. Restore original colors previews the original theme without changing your other settings. Appearance also contains the theme selector and Typing glow switch.
The workspace shows your current view and project. Back and Forward revisit chapters and views within the app; your browser's navigation buttons also work. Copy location link records the current project, chapter, and view in the browser address. A location link opens that spot only when the same projects are available at the same app address in the same browser. It does not transfer your writing or create a public sharing link. When returning during a session, the app restores the view's search, open panels, scroll position, and available keyboard focus.
The project-name dropdown contains project switching, creation, import, backups, export, and Trash. Workspace groups Studio and Read manuscript under Write; Chapter board, Characters, and Research under Plan; and Revise and Assistant under Review. Appearance holds visual preferences. The same menus work on narrow screens. Use Chapters and Chapter tools to open or close each sidebar, or Focus mode to clear both away. The Chapter tools selector offers notes, outline, hints, ideas and saved passages, and Assistant while keeping your draft visible. Keyboard users can use Skip to workspace and Skip to draft before the main controls.
Help includes an optional first-session guide and direct links to Studio, Chapter board, Revise, Folder backups, Export, and Assistant settings. Chapter search shows matching text and Clear search brings back the full list.
The formatting toolbar sits directly above the draft, with font, text size, bold, italic, alignment, spacing, and undo/redo. Writing tools groups typing help, dictionary, thesaurus, and shortcuts. Each newly typed letter receives a mint glow that fades over 1.5 seconds while the letter stays visible; pasting and reopening a chapter do not animate the whole passage.
Choose New project from the project-name dropdown, enter a name, and select Fiction, Nonfiction, Memoir, Poetry, Screenplay, Essays, or Academic. Add chapters with the ＋ button. The chapter board supports reordering and flexible structure guidance for 42 genres and approaches across those seven project types. All use the same chapter-based workspace, with prompts suited to the selected type. Add guide prompts to your editable outline, then adapt them to your book. Choose Hints in the Chapter tools selector for guidance, or Outline to work on the chapter plan beside your draft.
Drafts, titles, notes, ideas, saved passages, outlines, research records, and revision tasks autosave after a half-second pause. The browser save indicator reports success or failure. Ordinary closing flushes pending browser changes; check the indicators before closing. A second window changing the same browser workspace pauses saving to protect it.
Select words in the draft and click Bold or Italic. Formatting appears in Formatted chapter preview, whole manuscript reading, and formatted exports; the typing area displays plain text. Each chapter remembers its left, right, or justified alignment and Compact, Comfortable, or Double line spacing. Undo and Redo handle draft edits and formatting during the current session. Save a version for a lasting milestone.
Personal dictionary protects your names and unusual words from the app's typing corrections. It also lets you restore removed words. Browser spelling underlines use your browser's own dictionary. The bundled English typing help offers a small list of common typo corrections, including Ca n → Can, whta → what, thta → that, liek → like, becasue → because, bdy → body, knw → know, and standalone i → I when you finish a word with a space, punctuation, or Enter; ambiguous word boundaries appear as suggestions. Sentence capitalization changes a completed first word after ., ?, or !, including quoted sentences. It avoids common abbreviations, initials, numeric periods, URLs, and ellipses; these are conservative English rules rather than a full grammar checker. Existing text is not changed automatically. Single missing-letter guesses use 82,378 locally bundled English spelling entries, plus recognized regular inflections and appear as review choices, even in Autocorrect mode; the app does not choose an inferred word for you. Recognized words, personal dictionary entries, pasted text, and unfinished words do not produce missing-letter guesses. Inference checks alphabetic words of 3–32 letters, tries one inserted letter, and shows at most eight choices. It cannot reliably recover two missing letters or determine meaning from context. It is not a complete spelling dictionary. Use Undo correction to immediately reverse a correction.
Offline thesaurus uses the locally bundled WordNet 3.0 English word database. Select a word to explore synonyms grouped by meaning and part of speech, then choose a replacement yourself. Replacements preserve selected formatting and can be undone. Coverage varies by word; definitions and part-of-speech groups help you judge whether a synonym suits your sentence. It does not interpret the context for you, and it makes no external runtime requests.
Delete moves chapters, notes, ideas, saved passages, outlines, tasks, research records, character profiles, versions, and projects to Trash. Restore brings them back; permanent deletion asks for confirmation. The last chapter is replaced by a blank chapter so writing can continue.
Open Characters to keep a separate collection for each project. Add a name and role, then describe appearance, traits, habits, beliefs, goals, fears, relationships, backstory, character arc, and notes. Search works across names, roles, and all profile details. Edits autosave, and deleted profiles move to Trash for recovery.
Full JSON backups include character profiles. Manuscript exports keep chapter text and exclude these private profiles. Character information is not sent to the assistant automatically; include it explicitly in the text preview only when you want it used in a request.
Revise → Find and replace searches a chapter or the whole manuscript, with case and whole-word options. Preview the matches before applying changes. Applying saves a version of every affected chapter first. Find and replacement text, scope, case, and whole-word choices save with each chapter, so leaving Revise or reloading keeps your setup. Returning during the same session restores a preview only while the manuscript and search settings still match it. Reloading or importing keeps the settings and asks for a new preview before applying. If the manuscript changed after previewing, create a new preview.
Save a version captures the chapter's text, formatting, alignment, spacing, and notes. Compare with current draft shows added and removed wording. Large comparisons may show whole changed blocks or shortened displays; the complete versions stay saved. Restoring a version first preserves the draft it replaces.
Read manuscript displays all chapters in order, with a chapter jump list and buttons to return to editing. Private notes and research do not appear in this reading view or manuscript exports.
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Ctrl/Cmd+B or Ctrl/Cmd+I | Bold or italic selected draft text |
| Ctrl/Cmd+Z | Undo draft edit |
| Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Z; Ctrl+Y | Redo draft edit |
| Ctrl/Cmd+S | Save current changes |
| Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+F | Open find and replace |
| Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+R | Read the manuscript |
Browser storage is the working copy. Clearing browser data removes it, and a full disk or browser storage limit can prevent saving. The app reports failures and keeps a previous valid browser copy when possible. A backup is an additional copy; keep one on another drive for protection against a lost or damaged computer.
With the launcher running, Folder backups saves complete project JSON copies outside browser storage. The separate folder indicator shows the last successful backup and any failure. By default, copies go to:
- Windows:
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Writing Studio\Backups - Mac:
~/Library/Application Support/Writing Studio/Backups - Linux when running Python directly:
~/.local/share/writing-studio/backups
If the new Writing Studio folder does not exist and an older Writing Desk backup folder is present, the launcher reuses that older folder. Existing copies stay in place; the app does not move or delete them during the rename. The folder shown in the app is the folder actually in use.
latest.json updates after edits are saved. previous.json retains the preceding changed copy. Dated recovery snapshots are written on the first changed save and when at least five minutes have passed since the last snapshot; this is an edit-driven schedule, so idle time does not create extra copies. Back up now forces a dated copy. The newest 50 dated snapshots are kept, in addition to latest and previous. Writes use temporary files and atomic replacement.
If an existing folder copy differs from the browser's workspace, automatic folder saving pauses until you choose Import latest backup or Use this workspace. Importing adds separate project copies. A stale window cannot silently replace a newer folder backup; use the visible recovery controls when a conflict occurs. The app never automatically replaces the browser workspace with a disk copy.
Back up projects downloads a JSON file containing every project, character profiles, notes, research, versions, dictionary, and Trash. Import restores JSON backups as separate copies, or imports TXT and Markdown source as a chapter. Markdown import retains its source text rather than converting its formatting. Research URLs are saved references; keep excerpts in your records for offline reading.
To choose a different backup folder or local address, run Python directly:
python3 launch.py --backup-dir "/path/to/your/backup-folder" --port 8767
On Windows, use py -3 and a Windows folder path instead of python3. Changing the port changes the browser storage address; import a backup to transfer your workspace. Close an old launcher before starting the updated app.
Export offers PDF, Word (.docx), Markdown (.md), TXT (.txt), and a standalone HTML reading copy. Chapter titles and draft text follow manuscript order; private notes and character profiles remain in full JSON backups.
Word, PDF, and HTML preserve bold, italic, alignment, and line spacing. Markdown includes bold and italic markup, but visual alignment and line spacing depend on the reader. TXT preserves words and paragraph breaks without formatting. Direct PDF includes a bundled serif font, page numbers, wrapping, and chapter page breaks. If a character is outside that font, the app reports it; use Print / save as PDF for browser font support.
The assistant requires the local launcher, your own DeepSeek API key, an internet connection, and any usage charges from your provider. Choose a goal such as brainstorming, outlining, continuation, rewriting, or feedback. Each project can save a writing profile: tone, point of view, English variant, style, audience, and preferences. Review the instruction and Text to send before choosing Generate suggestion. Text is included only when you select it, choose a chapter excerpt, or paste it; private notes and project titles are excluded. Generate sends the profile, project type, genre, instruction, and previewed text to DeepSeek.
Suggestions stay in an editable review area until you explicitly save them as a chapter note, replace selected words, or append them to the chapter. Insertion preserves a saved version first. If the draft, project type, genre, or writing profile changes after generating, create a new suggestion before inserting. The core writing tools continue to work offline.
Your instruction, text preview, goal, model, and editable suggestion save locally with the chapter and are included in full JSON backups. Clear saved assistant draft removes those saved fields for the current chapter after confirmation. After reload or import, restored suggestions remain available for review, editing, and copying. Generate a new suggestion before using an insertion or save-as-note button, because the original draft target cannot be verified after reload. Saved drafts contain your writing; API keys remain excluded.
Manual key attachment keeps the key in launcher memory for that session. Closing the launcher clears that in-memory copy. You can also opt in to reading a private local key file, using the setup described in KEY_FILE_SETUP.md. The file is plain JSON on your computer and stays outside the app folder by default, beside the backup folder. Protect access to your computer and keep the private key file out of GitHub. API keys are excluded from project backups and release downloads; the distributed example is blank. The controls are under Assistant → Assistant settings → Saved API key file. Create a blank private file, fill it locally, then select Allow Writing Studio to read this key file or Reload saved key if it is already enabled. Reading a saved key requires your explicit setting; it is not enabled by default. Disconnect forgets the in-memory key and disables automatic file reading while leaving the file in place. Remove saved key empties the configured file, disables reading, and forgets the in-memory key. You can also clear its apiKey value manually. The assistant is optional and disabled until configured. Manual Attach key turns off automatic file reading. Attaching a key only sets up the local session; it makes no provider request and does not verify account credit. An actual live DeepSeek request has not been verified in this build without a user key.
The source download includes generated runtime files and their build inputs. To regenerate app/index.html, app/main.js, app/styles.css, and Writing Studio.html, run:
python3 work/build_app.py
The WordNet data is already bundled, so ordinary builds need no downloads. To regenerate that data, work/build_thesaurus.py takes the WordNet 3.0 database archive, full archive for word exceptions, and license file downloaded separately by the developer. Its help and source list the inputs and their official URLs. The script itself makes no network calls, and the writing app never downloads thesaurus data at runtime.
Run checks from the project folder with Python 3.8+ and Node.js available:
node --test tests/storage.test.cjs
node tests/export.test.cjs
node tests/pdf.test.cjs
node tests/revision.test.cjs
node --test tests/revision-ui.test.cjs
node tests/text-tools.test.cjs
node --test tests/autocorrect.test.cjs
node tests/local-backup.test.cjs
node tests/thesaurus.test.cjs
node --test tests/theme-palette.test.cjs
node --test tests/genres.test.cjs
node tests/assistant.test.cjs
node --test tests/assistant-drafts.test.cjs
python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -p test_local_backup.py -v
python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -p test_ai_proxy.py -v
python3 -m unittest discover -s tests -p test_key_file.py -v
Checks cover storage and recovery, invalid imports, Trash, formatted exports, alignment, replacement settings across navigation and reload, replacement previews, stale previews, saved Assistant drafts, restored suggestion limits, version comparisons, formatting edits, dictionary storage, backup conflicts, atomic writes, retention, and local request boundaries. Backups in these tests use temporary folders and sample text. PDF checks require Python for structural inspection. Loopback server tests require permission to bind a local address. Assistant checks use mocked provider responses and need no real API key; tests/mock_ai_server.py is a development-only browser test launcher.
After rebuilding, create curated downloads with:
python3 work/package_release.py
The packaging script checks archive integrity and excludes working backups and scratch files. Downloads include the selected app preview above. The script does not upload anything to GitHub.
This is a beta browser app with launch scripts, rather than an installed desktop application. Nested scenes, attached research files, anchored comments, DOCX import, EPUB, full offline spelling dictionaries, and cross-device synchronization are future work. Undo history is per session; saved versions and JSON backups are persistent. Keep a backup before updating, and import it when moving to a new browser or address.
The application source is available under the MIT License. Bundled assets retain their own licenses: the handwritten Caveat font uses the SIL Open Font License in app/vendor/Caveat-OFL.txt, the PDF font's license is in app/vendor/DejaVu-LICENSE.txt, and the English thesaurus data license is in app/vendor/WordNet-LICENSE.txt.