How to use a word processor in dark mode

Switch Write by Zaweba to its dark theme. The window around the document goes dark, including the menus, toolbars and panes, while the pages themselves stay white paper. That way the screen is easier on the eyes in a dim room, and the document still looks exactly as it will print.

Why the page stays white

Some dark modes turn the page itself black with light text. That can be pleasant for reading, but it is a poor guide for a document that will end up printed or sent as a PDF. Colours look different on a dark background, a highlight that is clear on white can vanish on black, and you lose your sense of how the page will really look.

Write keeps the page white in dark mode, so the thing you are making always looks like paper. Only the surroundings change. The bright area on the screen shrinks to the page you are working on, which is where your eyes should be anyway.

Switching to dark

Choose the dark theme in Write and the interface changes over. Choose light to go back. Pick whichever suits the room and the time of day: light for a bright office, dark for late evening writing or a darkened room.

Making late night writing comfortable

Dark mode is one part of a comfortable setup. Zoom helps too: Write zooms in and out, to 100%, to page width or to show the whole page. Page width on a large screen makes the text bigger and fills the window with paper rather than dark background. Whole page is better for checking a layout.

Focus mode, on F11, goes full screen with just the pages, and typewriter scrolling keeps the line you are typing in the same place on the screen. In the dark theme, with focus mode, the screen is just the page and a dark surround, with nothing else to look at.

Turn your screen's brightness down in the evening as well. A white page at full brightness in a dark room is tiring whatever the theme.

Checking colours in a dark theme

Because the page stays white, the colours you choose for text and highlight look the same in either theme. A pale yellow highlight looks pale yellow on the page whether the window around it is light or dark. That is the point of keeping the paper white.

What can change is how you judge contrast. Against a dark surround, a white page with light grey text can look sharper than it will on paper. If you use coloured text, check it with the light theme now and then, or export a PDF and look at it on its own.

It works the same everywhere

The theme belongs to Write's interface, not to your documents. Switching theme changes nothing in the file, so a document written in dark mode opens looking the same for anyone else. Print preview, printing and PDF export use the same renderer as the screen, and always give a white page with your colours as you set them.

Write by Zaweba has no ribbon, no account and no cloud, and its dark theme keeps that quiet, uncluttered screen easy on the eyes for as long as you are writing.