Does Write by Zaweba work on a Mac or on Linux?

It does. Write by Zaweba runs on macOS and Linux as well as Windows. It uses the same layout engine on every system, so a document looks and prints the same wherever you open it. On a Mac you get Cmd shortcuts and the Mac menu bar, and on both Mac and Linux printing goes through CUPS, the printing system those computers already use.

Which computers it runs on

The Mac version runs on macOS 12 or later, on both Apple silicon and Intel Macs. The Linux version runs on 64-bit Linux, on x86 and ARM machines. On Windows, it runs on Windows 10 and 11, 64-bit.

What is the same everywhere

The heart of Write is its own layout engine, which draws real pages with margins, headers, footers, footnotes and sections, and measures text from the font files. That engine is shared between Windows, Mac and Linux. So the page you see is the page you print or export to PDF on every system.

The file formats are the same too. Write's own .zawr format is a .docx inside, and Write opens and saves .docx, .odt, .rtf, Markdown and plain text, and exports PDF and single-file HTML. A document started on a Windows PC at work can be finished on a Mac at home, or on a Linux laptop, and back again.

Styles and headings, tables and pictures, page numbers, columns, footnotes, comments, the UK English spell check, find and replace and the rest of the writing tools come along.

What is different on a Mac and on Linux

The interface on Mac and Linux is built with Avalonia, a toolkit for apps that run on several systems. It looks at home on each, and the commands are where you would expect.

On a Mac, shortcuts use Cmd, so Cmd+S saves where Windows uses Ctrl+S, and the menus sit in the Mac menu bar at the top of the screen rather than in the window. On Mac and Linux, printing uses CUPS, the standard printing system on both, so the printers you already have set up are the ones Write offers.

Moving between computers

Because the files are standard .docx inside, moving work between systems is just a matter of copying the file. Keep it on a USB stick, a shared folder or whatever storage you already use. Write itself has no account and no cloud, so there is nothing to sign in to on each machine.

Fonts are the one thing to keep an eye on. Write measures text from the fonts on the computer it is running on. If a document uses a font that is installed on your Windows PC but not your Mac, the Mac will substitute another, and lines may break differently. Using fonts that are on every machine you use, or installing the same font on each, keeps pages identical.

Feedback and help

Write's Help menu has keyboard shortcuts, Write's file format, Send feedback and Report a problem, where nothing is sent unless you click Send.

Write by Zaweba is the same free, offline word processor on Mac and Linux as on Windows, with real pages, .docx built in and no account to make.