What’s new in PureQuill Writer

Every released version, newest first.

Version 1.6.0

3 November 2026

New

• Time machine: see earlier versions of your text on a timeline, with changes marked in colour; play them back as the text grew and restore any version in one click. A cog chooses whether changes are compared with the previous or the current version.
• Outline with cards: every chapter with its first line and word count, the total at the top. Move chapters by dragging or with the arrows, and give each a status: Draft, In progress or Done.
• A click in the outline jumps to the chapter and briefly highlights it in the text.
• Mods: the typewriter turns your writing space into an old typewriter, with the Special Elite typewriter font, an ink ribbon from fresh to worn and real recorded typing sounds (quiet by default, bell optional), full screen if you like. Print, PDF and preview always use your real font.
• Recently used files in the start window and under File › Recently used.
• “All commands” reworked: recently used commands at the top, everything grouped by menu, names as in the menus and a more precise search.
• More room for checkpoints: they are now kept in a much larger storage area, so even long books keep many earlier versions. Settings show how much space they take, per document, with a limit you can set and buttons to delete them.
• “Close all documents” in the right-click menu of a document.
• Menus with coloured icons and a little more space between entries.
• Writing goal with “Start goal” and “End goal” instead of a checkbox.
• The note count in the status bar counts only this document and opens its notes.

Fixed

• Moving the first chapter of a document in the outline can now be undone.
• Headings pasted from web pages stay headings instead of turning into bold text.
• Closing every document and restarting showed an empty document instead of the start window when there were notes or a glossary.
• Clicks on the word count and the goal bar in the status bar sometimes did nothing.
• The number fields of the header and footer toolbar were unreadable in dark colour schemes.

Version 1.5.0

28 October 2026

New

• Tables as in Word: merge and split cells, shading, borders, cell alignment and column width, right from the right-click menu.
• Table styles in one click: Grid, Green, Blue, Orange, Grey and Simple, with highlighted header row, first column and banded rows.
• Long tables repeat their header row on every page, as in Word.
• Undo and redo work for every change, including tables, images, lists and paragraph formatting.
• Word files split into pages as they do in Word: same line heights, tables in the same place, in print too.
• Headers and footers are easier to edit: their own toolbar, page number and date visible while you type, logos, formatting and tab stops from Word, .odt and .rtf.
• New “Insert” menu as in Word: image, table, link, page break, footnote and endnote, tables of contents, header and footer.
• Notes on text passages redesigned; attached passages are only coloured while you point at the note.
• Clearer settings, with “Reset all settings” under General.
• Clear formatting without a selection works as in Word, and the image and table toolbars sit fixed below the main toolbar.

Fixed

• Pinning a note to a passage inside a table could break the table.
• Header and footer lines with a tab no longer gain an empty line, and clicking into the footer no longer moves a page number that is set with a tab.
• Printing breaks tables at the same places as the screen and Word.
• Old Word files (.doc) without spacing information get no space after paragraphs, as in Word.
• On note cards in French and Spanish, the buttons for detaching and deleting had the same label.

Version 1.4.0

26 October 2026

New

• Old Word files (.doc, Word 97–2003) open with pictures, tables, lists, footnotes, endnotes, headers, footers and comments.
• RTF files open completely and can be saved as RTF. Word and OpenDocument templates (.dotx, .dotm, .dot, .ott), Word files with macros (.docm) and flat OpenDocument (.fodt) open too.
• An opened .odt or .rtf file is saved back in its own format. The title bar shows the file name with its type, and formats PureQuill can only read show “[Compatibility mode]”, as in Word.
• Word files look as they do in Word: small icons stay in the line, custom tab stops line up columns, lines under paragraphs and headings, character spacing, and list indents and bullet colours from the file.
• Line and paragraph spacing per paragraph, as in Word: a new toolbar button with 1.0 to 3.0 and space before or after, and Format › Paragraph… (also in the right-click menu) with indents, special indent, spacing before and after, and line spacing single, 1.5 lines, double, at least, exactly or multiple.
• Styles as in Word: Title, Subtitle, Heading 4 and three quotation styles, with a paragraph style list that shows each style as it looks.
• Prepare e-book: finds chapter openings, tidies up text files (blank lines, line breaks in mid-sentence, quotation marks, dashes) and sets book typography for EPUB — in a copy, so the original stays as it is. The EPUB dialog shows whether a document is ready.
• Find and replace redesigned, with Find and Replace tabs and match markers beside the scroll bar.
• Typing —, ___, === or *** and Enter draws a horizontal line, as in Word.
• Duplicate a tab from its right-click menu, zoom with Ctrl + mouse wheel, and choose the snapshot interval under File › Snapshots › Automatic.
• On Windows, PureQuill Writer appears under “Open with” for Word, OpenDocument, RTF, Markdown and text files.

Fixed

• Pressing Enter on an empty list item leaves the list again; in coloured lists you could stay in the list forever.
• Backspace at the start of the paragraph after a page break removes the page break, as in Word, instead of pulling the paragraph apart. A page break can also be selected with a click and deleted.
• Headings with their own size were saved in the size of the heading style in Word, OpenDocument and RTF.
• Lists from LibreOffice that fell apart in Word files are numbered correctly.
• The dialog when closing a document asks as in Word — Save, Don’t save, Cancel — and Save is the default.
• “Saved” shows its time after a restart too.

Version 1.3.0

17 October 2026

New

• OpenDocument: files from LibreOffice and OpenOffice open completely, with fonts, lists, tables, pictures, footnotes, headers and footers — and documents can be saved as OpenDocument Text (.odt).
• Font and size apply to the selected text, as in Word. Word files that mix fonts and sizes open exactly as they were, word for word.
• New font picker: all fonts installed on your computer, recently used ones at the top, and a search as you type.
• Pictures have a new toolbar: in line with text, wrap text, behind text or in front of text. Pictures behind or in front of text move with their paragraph, so a signature stays under its closing line.
• Lists work as in Word: the same indent, numbering 1. → a. → i., the style you chose last is used for new lists, and typing “a)”, “A.” or “I.” starts a list.
• PDF files carry a title, your name as author (“Your name” in the settings), a subject and keywords.
• On a phone, the browser version shows the text across the screen width, with one toolbar row and the menus behind ☰.
• New documents start in Calibri 12, and new users start with the “Cloud” colour scheme.

Fixed

• Word files lost alignment, superscript and subscript, highlighting, link targets, page breaks, merged cells, captions and quotes.
• Pictures behind or in front of text came back from Word in line with the text, and a signature could land on the wrong page in Word.
• Headings could be left alone at the bottom of a page; now they stay with their text. Paragraphs and lists break line by line at the end of a page, with widow and orphan control as in Word.
• Capitalization after abbreviations works as in Word and can be undone.
• “Clear formatting” also turns headings and quotes back into normal text.
• Lists pasted from Word keep their structure, and sub-items are no longer lost when saving.

Version 1.2.0

12 October 2026

New

• Word files: logos and pictures in headers and footers, endnotes, different first and even pages, and formatting and tabs in headers are taken over. Word comments become notes beside the text.
• Everything PureQuill does not show itself, such as columns, sections, text boxes and charts, is kept unchanged when you save the Word file again.
• Headers and footers can hold your own logo in the size you choose, and the first page can have its own header and footer.
• New, compact “New document” window: title, page format and font at a glance, everything else under “More settings”. The page preview shows the formats to scale.
• Settings with a sidebar: General, New documents, Autocorrect, Saving and Snapshots, each on one page. Saving shows at a glance what is active.
• “Reset to factory settings” resets the settings and keeps your documents, notes and glossaries.
• The version history now reaches back up to a month. Recent snapshots stay complete, older ones are thinned out.
• Keyboard shortcuts follow Word in your language, for example Ctrl+Shift+F for bold in German.
• Pasting text with pictures asks whether the pictures should come along.
• Linux version as AppImage and .deb, for x64 and arm64.

Fixed

• Filled-in Word forms lost all answers when opened, and tracked changes went missing.
• Word files kept too little of their formatting: font colours, all caps, font sizes, indents, borderless tables and numbered lists that continue.
• Printed pages all showed page number “0”.
• Footnotes are printed at the foot of their own page instead of as a list at the end.
• Long tables are split across pages on screen, as in print.
• A selected picture or a fully selected table can be deleted with Backspace or Delete.
• Dialogs open centred in the program window.
• Submenus closed only after a click; now they close when the pointer leaves them.
• Pasted web pages and emails no longer push the layout apart.
• The print preview showed the page in the colours of the scheme, or blank pages.
• The character count counted paragraph breaks.
• Double-clicking a .pqw file only opened the program, not the file.

Version 1.1.0

4 October 2026

New

• File › Save (Ctrl+S) writes the document to its Word file. The first time, it asks where to save; after that, it saves without asking. A .docx file you opened is updated directly.
• Ctrl+S now saves the file. A checkpoint on its own is on Alt+Shift+S.
• The status bar shows the file name with a dot: green when the file is up to date, in the accent colour when there are changes that are not in the file yet. A click saves.
• Closing a document with unsaved changes asks first: Save, Don’t save or Cancel.
• If the file is locked, usually because it is still open in Word, the program says so and asks for another location.
• New documents start like in Word, with Calibri 11 and 1.15 line spacing. Font, size and spacing can be chosen right when you create a document.
• New section Settings › General › New documents, with “Reset to Word defaults”. Existing documents keep their look.
• Line spacing is calculated the way Word does it, so 1.15 looks the same in both programs.
• Word, ODT and RTF files open in their own font, size, line and paragraph spacing, and keep them when saved.
• The toolbar shows Bold, Italic and Underline with the letters Word uses in your language.
• New users start at 100% zoom, as in Word.

Fixed

• Text from Word files looked larger than in Word.
• File names no longer end with the punctuation of the first line, as in “Dear Sir or Madam,.docx”.
• Spell check accepts typographic apostrophes, as in “don’t”.
• Word export: code blocks keep their line breaks and tabs.
• Word export: lines no longer start with spaces that the editor did not show.
• The welcome window now closes after File › Open.
• Creating or opening a document with no tab open no longer adds a second, empty tab.
• Repeated words no longer lists filler words that are switched off.
• “Dictionary not available” is now translated into every language.
• The colour scheme dialog named the wrong scheme as the default.

Version 1.0.0

2 October 2026

First release on the Microsoft Store. Free, with no account and no subscription.

• Opens DOCX, ODT, RTF, HTML, Markdown and text. Saves as DOCX, EPUB, PDF, HTML, Markdown and text.
• Real pages: margins on the ruler, headers and footers, page breaks, A4 and US Letter.
• Footnotes, tables, pictures, table of contents, handwritten signature.
• Spell check with its own dictionaries in seven languages: English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Polish and Portuguese.
• Word goal, word count and repeated words in one panel.
• Autosave with checkpoints and version history.
• Sticky notes and a glossary beside the text.
• Text clean-up, seventeen colour schemes, focus mode, reading view and print preview.
• Interface and help in the same seven languages.
• Settings › Save › Delete all data, which offers a full backup first.
• An About window with the version and the licences of the dictionaries.