With the simplicity of a Markdown text editor and powerful features for managing even the most sprawling projects, Ulysses is a no-compromise tool for creating beautifully styled documents you can export to HTML, EPUB or Word, or publish directly to Medium, WordPress and more.

What we love: All the ways Ulysses helps you manage your work. Folder-like Groups are great for storing one-off blog posts, papers and articles, while Keywords (which helpfully become tags in WordPress) make everything easy to categorise and browse. For more complex documents, use Projects to organise chapters, notes and other content. And when you’re done, archive your documents to keep them from cluttering your view – and your search results.

Quick tip : Ulysses’ Dashboard offers the usual writing tools (spelling, grammar and style checks; word and character counts), along with less common options serious writers will appreciate. Set a word-count goal and monitor your progress in real time; make and review annotations right in your document; browse all web links, bookmarked document locations and attachments without having to scroll the entire text; and see estimated read times.

Pro tip: Split your Ulysses window to see two sections of a document at once or to keep your notes in view while you write. (Go to View > Second Editor.)

Meet the creator: Coder Max Seelemann and designer Marcus Fehn created Ulysses as a side project in 2003 and founded their company eight years later. One of their favourite features, Typewriter Scrolling, keeps the line you’re writing fixed in the centre of the screen. Initially a bug, the feature became a user favourite and has since been adopted by other text editors.