Help

Open and edit

DOCX, DOC, DOTX (Word templates), ODT, RTF, and plain text (.txt). Word templates open as regular documents you can edit and save as DOCX.

View as rich text

Markdown (.md) files fully round-trip: open, edit, and save back to .md with headings, lists, code blocks, tables, and inline formatting preserved. Mermaid code blocks in Markdown files render as live diagrams (flowcharts, sequence diagrams, Gantt charts, and more). HTML files open as formatted rich text but save as DOCX or another format, not back to HTML.

Syntax highlighting

Source code files open with coloured keywords, strings, and comments. Supported: Swift, Python, JavaScript, TypeScript, Java, C, C++, C#, Go, Rust, Ruby, PHP, Shell, SQL, YAML, JSON, XML, HTML, CSS, R, Kotlin, and Markdown.

Smart paste

Tables pasted from web browsers, ChatGPT, and Gemini land as proper grids. Code blocks get automatic syntax highlighting. LaTeX math notation (inline $...$ and display $$...$$) renders as typeset equations.

Export

Any document can be exported to PDF, HTML, or Markdown from the File menu.

Set up page size, margins, and orientation

Open the Inspector sidebar (⌘⌥I). The Document tab at the top gives you page size (A4, Letter, Legal), orientation (portrait or landscape), and margin presets (Normal, Narrow, Wide). Pick Custom to set each margin individually with top, bottom, left, and right fields shown directly in the inspector. Changes apply to the current document immediately.

Add headers and footers

In the Inspector sidebar, toggle Header or Footer on. A text area appears at the top or bottom of every page. Click it to type. The footer starts with a page number by default. You can toggle “Different first page” to use a separate header/footer on page one (useful for title pages).

Use columns

Go to the toolbar and choose Insert > Columns, or use the Inspector sidebar to pick 1, 2, or 3 columns. Text reflows automatically. Turn on Column Guides in the Inspector to see where each column sits on the page.

Insert and resize images

Use ⌘⌥G or Insert > Image to pick a file. Once inserted, right-click the image for alignment (left, centre, right) and resizing options. Drag a corner handle to resize while keeping the aspect ratio locked. Hold Shift while dragging to resize width and height independently. Right-click gives you text wrapping modes: inline, wrap around, or behind text.

Add comments

Select the text you want to comment on, then go to Insert > Review > Add Comment. Type your note and click Add. Commented text shows a yellow highlight. Open Insert > Review > Show Comments to see all comments in a sidebar, where you can navigate between them with Prev/Next buttons or delete them. You can reply to a comment for threaded discussions. Resolve a comment by clicking its checkmark; resolved comments show a green highlight and survive .docx round-trips.

Track changes

Go to Review > Track Changes > Toggle Tracking (⌘⇧T) to start recording edits. Insertions appear underlined in green, deletions in red with strikethrough. Bold and font formatting changes are also tracked. Accept a change with ⌘⇧A or reject with ⌘⇧D. Use the Changes Panel (⌘⌥H) to see all revisions at a glance. Accept All or Reject All from the Review menu. Use Show/Hide Changes to toggle revision visibility. Tracked changes survive .docx save and reopen.

Use Focus Mode

Press ⌘⇧F or go to View > Focus Mode. All chrome hides and the window resizes to show the full page. Surrounding text dims to about a third opacity at the sentence level, so only the sentence you are working on stays fully visible. Toggle between sentence-level and paragraph-level dimming from View > Focus on Paragraph. The dimming is purely visual and never modifies your document. Press Esc or click the exit button (top right of the page) to leave. Your entire workspace (inspector, sidebars, zoom, window size) is saved and restored exactly when you exit.

Use No-Paper Mode

Press ⌘⇧P or go to View > No-Paper Mode. Page boundaries disappear and you get a continuous scroll, similar to a code editor. Choose a text width in the Inspector: Narrow, Medium, Wide, or Characters (set an exact column count from 40 to 200). Markdown files open in No-Paper Mode automatically. Your preference persists across sessions.

Change the page appearance

Go to View > Page Appearance and pick from Light, Grey, Sepia, Dark, or Auto. Auto follows your macOS system appearance. Press ⌘⌥⇧A to cycle through them quickly. The chosen appearance also applies in Focus Mode. Print and PDF export always use white pages.

Use the document outline

Go to View > Document Outline to open a sidebar listing all headings in your document. Click any heading to jump straight to it. The outline updates automatically as you add, remove, or edit headings.

Customize the toolbar

Go to View > Customize Format Bar. A sheet shows all toolbar groups. Drag groups to reorder them, and toggle any group on or off with its checkbox. Your layout persists across sessions, so Verso remembers which tools you want visible and where.

Use the Format Painter

Select text with the formatting you want to copy, then press ⌘⌥C (or click the paintbrush icon in the toolbar). Select the target text and press ⌘⌥V to apply. The Format Painter copies font, size, colour, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, and paragraph style.

Insert and edit footnotes

Press ⌘⌥F or go to Insert > Footnote. A superscript number appears at the cursor and a popover opens for typing the footnote text. Click any existing footnote marker to edit it. Footnotes renumber automatically when you add or remove them, and they round-trip through DOCX.

Use Find and Replace

Press ⌘F to open the Find bar. Type your search term and use the arrows or ⌘G to jump between matches. Click the gear icon for case-sensitive, whole-word, and regex toggles. Expand the bar to show the Replace field for find-and-replace. Replace and Replace All are fully undoable.

Insert a Table of Contents

Go to Insert > Table of Contents. Verso scans headings below the insertion point and builds a clickable list with page numbers and dot leaders. Use Insert > Update Table of Contents after editing to refresh it.

Work with tables

Press ⌘⌥T or go to Insert > Table to create a grid. Right-click any cell for the full context menu: insert or delete rows and columns, set cell background colours, and choose text wrapping. Tab moves between cells.

Add a watermark

Go to Format > Watermark to add a text watermark to your document. Useful for marking drafts or confidential documents. The watermark appears across every page and exports to PDF.

Paste from the web

Regular paste (⌘V) imports HTML from the clipboard, keeping bold, italic, links, headings, and images while stripping web artifacts like background colours. Paste and Match Style (⌘⌥⇧V) strips all formatting. Paste with Original Formatting (⌘⇧V) keeps everything from the source. Tables from ChatGPT, Gemini, and other tools paste as proper grids. Code blocks get automatic syntax highlighting.

Use citations with Zotero

Open Zotero 8 and make sure the local server is enabled: go to Zotero > Settings > Advanced and tick “Allow other applications on this computer to communicate with Zotero.” Then in Verso, open the Citations panel with ⌘⇧C or Review > Show Citations Panel. Verso detects Zotero automatically. Type in the search field to find references in your library and click to insert them. If you also have the Better BibTeX plugin installed, clicking the citation button opens Zotero’s native picker directly. You can also load a .bib or CSL JSON file if you prefer to work offline.

Zoom with a trackpad

Pinch to zoom on your trackpad to zoom in and out of the document fluidly. You can also use ⌘ + and ⌘ – or the zoom slider in the status bar.

Redefine a paragraph style

Format a paragraph the way you want it, then right-click the style name in the style dropdown and choose “Update Style to Match.” Every paragraph using that style updates to match your new formatting.

Change text case

Select the text you want to transform, then go to Format > Change Case. Choose from UPPERCASE, lowercase, Title Case, or tOGGLE cASE. The transformation preserves all your formatting (font, colour, size) and only changes the letter casing.

Set a custom font size

Click the font size field in the toolbar and type any number from 1 to 999. Press Return to apply. Verso rounds to the nearest half point. You can also pick a preset from the dropdown.

Turn off auto-save

Go to Verso > Settings > General and toggle Auto-save off. When disabled, documents only save when you press ⌘S. When enabled, auto-save only kicks in for documents you have already saved at least once. It will never interrupt you with a save dialog while you are typing a new document.

Use Markdown shortcuts

When Markdown shortcuts are enabled, Verso converts Markdown syntax into formatted text as you type. Type **bold** for bold, *italic* for italic, # Heading at the start of a line for headings, > for blockquotes, - for bullet lists, [text](url) for links, and ``` for code blocks. Task lists work with - [ ] and - [x] . Toggle this on or off in Settings > Writing or in the Inspector sidebar under Writing.

Does Verso work on Intel Macs?

Yes. Verso ships as a universal binary that runs natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel Macs. Requires macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.

What languages does Verso support?

Verso is fully localized in 16 languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic, Polish, Simplified Chinese, French, Korean, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Traditional Chinese, German, Turkish, Swedish, and Brazilian Portuguese. It follows your macOS language setting automatically.

Where are my files stored?

Wherever you put them. Verso is a regular macOS document app. Files live on your disk, in your folders. There is no cloud, no library, and no proprietary database.

Can I save a document back to Markdown?

Yes. Markdown files fully round-trip. Open a .md file, edit it, save, and headings, lists, code blocks, tables, and inline formatting are all preserved.

Is there a subscription?

No. Verso is $14.99 one-time on the Mac App Store. No subscription, no recurring fees, no in-app purchases. All updates are included.

Does Verso send any data anywhere?

No. There is no telemetry, no analytics, no crash reporting, and no network calls of any kind. Verso runs entirely offline.

How do I report a bug?

Email hello@versowriter.app. Please include your macOS version, what file you were working with, and a screenshot if you can. This helps us reproduce and fix the issue faster.