I have a copy of iA Writer on my Mac Mini but am working at a moving all my “computing” to iOS (I also have an iPad Air 6 13" and an iPad Mini 7 and want these to become my primary devices).
I live in Australia and iA Writer on the iOS App Store is AUD90 - very very expensive for a retiree 
.
I would like to chat with some iA Writer users who use the app primarily or extensively on an iPad before spending such a large amount of money on an app that may or may not suit my needs.
Regards,
Peter
I have iA Writer on both my MBP and iPad, and have used it extensively on the iPad. For a while, I used the 13” iPad as my primary computer. I’ve since gone back to using the MBP as my primary computer and my iPad as a complementary device, but I still use the iPad for hours during the week, for meetings, annotating PDFs, for speech notes, reading, and when traveling.
I’m happy to share what I can. Do you have any specific questions?
I use iA Writer on iPhone, iPad and Mac. I mostly use it for writing notes that I integrate into Obsidian. Obsidian’s mobile apps are pretty bad at writing, but OK with organizing my notes.
Tried iawriter, but prefer 1Writer on IOS, supported by Obsidian on my MBA.
I use GoodLinks then export as MD files to 1Writer for the articles I want to keep.
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It’s a good app and worth the money. I love the minimal design and extensive support for keyboard shortcuts. Do you have any specific questions?
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Several years ago I was a real fan of 1Writer. Then I discovered Taio which I believe is THE best Markdown editor for iOS.
The problem with both 1Writer and Taio is that their developers have stopped supporting these fine apps.
Peter
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I have several questions:
- The UI; is it the same as on the Mac?
- I want to store my Markdown documents is folders in the “Documents” folder on iCloud. I use an old fashioned (e.g. IBM mainframe/Windows/Finder hierarchy). I don’t want to use an app’s “Library” system like Obsidian. How does iA Writer store documents on iOS?
- Inline images. On the Mac you can just drag and drop an image into the document. How does this work on an iPad.
More to follow…
I’m moving from a Mac Mini M1 to my iPad Air 6 13".
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So I could just use the existing “Documents” folder with all my Markdown (and other) documents left in place?
Yes.
iA Writer also have a feature for previous versions of a file and I don’t if that works with other folders than the dedicated iA Writer folder.
I’ve reinstalled Taio Markdown editor as part of my search for “the best iOS MarkDown editor. It really is a nice piece of software even if it’s no longer supported.
I wish there was a trial period for iA Writer; $90 is a lot for an app that might not be suitable.
Peter
Apple offers an option for a refund. I used that several times.
Yes, I’m aware. But on several occasions my refund request has been denied.
You might also want to take a look at iWriter Pro as another macOS+iOS editor option, if you haven’t already.
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I understand that it is not exactly the same, but I would suggest trying Bear. It syncs easily and everywhere, uses Markdown, and exports well. It is subscription, but in my opinion it is relatively inexpensive. More importantly, you could try it very inexpensively and see if it works for you.
+1 for Bear. I’ve used just about every notes app and keep returning to Bear for its simplicity and reliability
I’ve made a decision!!!
I’ve purchased iA Writer for my iOS devices (I have owned a copy for the Mac for ages but not used it for a very long time).
While I’m still in the process of setting up the app; I am already really pleased with my decision. I really like the way the Lightning menu can be configured.
I think that the iPad version of iA Writer is better than the Mac version!
BUT I have another request. Has anybody on the forum developed their own Template(s). I am Ok with HTML and CSS but I find the iA Writer templates quite difficult when you get into them. I have a fairly simple CSS style sheet I have used with other Markdown editors but I’m not sure how to implement it in iA Writer. I’ve had a go at modifying the “default” custom template but it won’t install on my Mac. I think the problem might be in the info.plist file; I changed the template name but nothing else. Any thought are welcome.
Thanks for all the suggestions above,
Peter
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Good choice!
This may not be pertinent to you, but it is for me since I use a lot of footnotes. I dislike having inline footnotes because they distract from the text. To avoid this problem, I learned how to create traditional (non-inline) footnotes in iA Writer.
To do this, place a caret (^) followed by a unique identifier inside square brackets immediately after the text you want to annotate, like this: [^1].
Then, somewhere later in your document — usually at the very end — you define the footnote by repeating the identifier, adding a colon, and writing the footnote text, like this: [^1]: This is the content of the footnote.
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From memory, the two things I had to change for my ‘DB Palatino’ template were these two elements:
<key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key>
<string>net.ia.writer.template.db-palatino.legacy</string>
<key>CFBundleName</key>
<string>DB Palatino</string>
I copied the built-in ‘Palatino’ template, then opened the info-plist file in BBEdit and searched for any line with ‘Palatino’ in and changed them to ‘db-palatino’ and ‘DB Palatino’ as required. That seemed to do the trick.
The template itself is really simple – it just changes the default font to Charter and makes a couple of other cosmetic changes.
Does that help?
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