Book writing software, from the first idea to the finished book.

The common setup among novelists is two programs: one to draft in and one to format in. Scrivener drafts, then the manuscript is exported and finished in Vellum or Atticus. That advice is repeated in every writing forum for a good reason, which is that it works, and each of those programs is genuinely good at its half. Scrivener's Binder has organized long manuscripts for close to 20 years, and Vellum produces a beautiful print interior with very few decisions to make.

The two-app route has two costs. The first is money: Scrivener is $59.99 per platform, Vellum is $249 and Atticus is $147, so the pair comes to $308.99 or $206.99 before a word is written in the second program. The second is the handoff itself. Each time the manuscript moves between programs, the formatting you set up applies to a copy, so a late change to chapter 9 means exporting again and repeating the work.

One program that carries the manuscript all the way through removes the copy. Calamus is $189 once and does both halves on the same file: the Binder, Outliner and Corkboard for drafting, and Compile for the EPUB and the print PDF at the end. Whether that is worth it to you depends on how much you expect to revise after formatting has started, and for most writers that turns out to be more than they planned for.

Both models exist here and neither is wrong on its face. Dabble is $19 a month and Codex Heim is $15 a month. Scrivener, Vellum, Atticus, EmberWrite and Calamus are bought once, and Dabble sells a lifetime plan too. Counted over 5 years the subscriptions come to $1,140 and $900, Dabble's lifetime plan is $699, and the one-time purchases come to roughly $122 for Scrivener across all its platforms, $249 for Vellum, $147 for Atticus, $65 for EmberWrite and $189 for Calamus.

A subscription buys a program that keeps changing while you pay for it, and if you write in a browser and want the current version without thinking about it, that is a fair trade. It does mean the tool is rented rather than owned: Dabble and Codex Heim provide updates while you are subscribed, and Codex Heim caps a subscriber at 10 projects.

With a one-time purchase, the copy you have keeps working. It is still worth reading the update policy, because the phrase covers more than one arrangement. Scrivener is partial here: point releases are free and major versions are paid, which is normal for desktop software of its age and worth knowing in advance. Vellum, Atticus and Calamus include future updates. Calamus is $189 with free updates, no second invoice for a later version and no separate charge for the iPad app.

This depends on where you write. At a desk with a stable connection, a browser tool is fine, and the version you have is always the newest one. If you write on trains, on planes, in a park or anywhere the signal comes and goes, a browser tool stops being writing software the moment a tab fails to load.

Codex Heim is browser only. Dabble runs in a browser and on mobile. Atticus is a web app, a PWA, which is how it reaches Windows, Mac, Linux and Chromebook from one codebase. Scrivener and Vellum are native and work offline, and EmberWrite runs locally, though it keeps files on a single machine with no sync at all.

Calamus is built both ways. The Mac and iPad apps are native, work with no connection, hold a local copy and reconcile when you are back online, and Calamus Ideas does the same on the iPhone for what you capture there. A browser version is there for a machine you do not own. Sync belongs to the account rather than to a folder you configure, so there is no Dropbox or iCloud service in the middle and no conflicted copy to resolve later. Scrivener, by contrast, syncs its iOS app through Dropbox or iCloud, which is the piece a lot of writers end up managing by hand.

An iPad is the second machine a lot of novelists actually draft on, and support for it varies more than anything else in this category. Scrivener has an iOS app, bought separately at $23.99, which syncs through Dropbox or iCloud. Vellum, EmberWrite and Codex Heim have no iPad app. Atticus and Dabble reach an iPad through the browser, which does work, with whatever limits the connection has that day.

Calamus includes a native iPad app in the $189, and the iPad app is a full writing environment rather than a viewer: the Binder, the Editor and the Codex are all there, and it works offline. The phone app is a different thing and worth being clear about. Calamus Ideas holds Ideas, the Focus Timer, Quotes and social sharing, and a line you capture on it turns up inside the book on the Mac without anybody moving it. You can write in the notes it keeps, but drafting a novel happens on the iPad, the Mac or in the browser; Scrivener's iOS app is a full editor and does something here that Calamus does not.

Worth checking before you buy anything: whether the mobile app is a real second place to write or a place to read what you already wrote. That difference matters most when you are away from your desk for a week.

This is the part most writers meet only once, after the draft is done, so it is worth setting out plainly. A finished book is two files. An EPUB reflows: the reader chooses the size and the text rewraps, so what matters is clean structure, a working table of contents and fonts embedded correctly. A print PDF does not reflow; it is fixed at a trim size, 5 by 8 inches or 6 by 9 inches or whatever the printer expects, with margins, running heads, page numbers that skip the front matter, and chapter openers that begin where a reader expects a chapter to begin.

Fonts are the part that surprises people. A typeface has to be licensed for embedding before it can travel inside a book you sell, which is why the font count in a formatter is a real number rather than a decorative one. Vellum ships 26 typefaces. Atticus has over 1,500. Calamus has over 1,900, licensed for embedding in books you sell.

Support for a print PDF at a real trim size varies the most across these tools. Vellum, Atticus and Calamus produce one. Scrivener's is limited. Dabble and Codex Heim do not produce one, and EmberWrite exports in manuscript format. If you intend to sell a paperback, that single row will decide more for you than any other.

Most people arriving at a new writing program already have a manuscript, in Word or Google Docs or half in each. Import is the first column to read, and it varies: Scrivener takes DOCX, RTF and more, Vellum and Atticus take DOCX, Codex Heim takes DOCX, TXT and RTF, and Dabble is paste only.

Calamus imports DOCX, RTF, Markdown and TXT, and reads the chapter breaks out of the manuscript itself rather than asking you to mark every one by hand. A book that exists as one long file arrives as a Binder of chapters you can reorder, which is the state you want it in before revision starts.

Whatever you decide, take a full export out of wherever the manuscript lives now and keep it somewhere separate first. That is good practice whichever program you move to, and it is also the reason to read the export column as carefully as the import one. Calamus exports EPUB, PDF, DOCX and Markdown, so the book can leave in a form you can open without the app.

For a standalone contemporary novel, a notes file is enough. For a series, or for anything with invented history, geography or magic, a notes file stops being the fastest place to look somewhere around the second book, and a structured place for the same material starts to earn its keep.

Tools handle this differently. Scrivener gives you folders and templates, which is flexible and leaves the structure to you. Dabble has a story bible, EmberWrite has character and location sheets, and Codex Heim has a codex with a lineage canvas for family trees. Vellum and Atticus do not do world-building, because neither of them is trying to.

Calamus has a Codex with 14 categories, each with typed fields of its own: Characters, Locations, Factions, Magic Systems, Lore, Cultures, Languages, Timeline, Glossary, Lineages, Regions, Maps, Storylines and Items. Entries are tagged from the prose, so a character named in chapter 2 links to the entry that says who she is, and that entry stays consistent across a series. There is a relationship map for how people and houses connect, and a Moodboard for the visual side of a book, which nothing else in this comparison offers.

The last stretch is the one writing software usually leaves alone. The manuscript is done, the file is made, and from there you are in a different set of programs entirely to talk about the book.

Calamus keeps that inside the same tool. Quotes you marked while drafting go into a queue you can post from, so the lines you liked while writing are the lines that go out. Pen names each keep their own books, series and dashboard, for writers who publish under more than one name. The writing log counts words written and words cut separately, and the streak belongs to you rather than to a single book, which makes it a record of your work rather than of one project.

That is the shape of the whole thing: an idea captured on a phone, drafted on a Mac or an iPad, built out in the Codex, compiled to an EPUB and a print PDF at a real trim size, and shared from the same place. Nothing is handed between programs, so nothing has to be kept in step by hand, and the parts of the work that are enjoyable sit next to each other instead of being spread across four apps and a folder of exports.