Write on one endless page.
Slate is a lightweight, native word processor for Linux and macOS. It opens Word documents, Markdown, and plain text, lets you edit them as they look, and saves them back without touching what you didn't change.
Download- Word, Markdown, text.docx, .md, and .txt, opened as they look.
- Only your editsEverything you didn't change is saved as it was.
- Safe savesA crash never corrupts your file.
Install
For your user, no sudo, on Linux or a Mac. Run the command again to update.
curl -fsSL https://this-site/install.sh | sh
On Linux it installs the app, its menu entry, and Word documents and Markdown files opening with it; start it from your app menu or with slate. It needs GTK 4, which GNOME desktops have; otherwise the installer says how to get it.
On a Mac with Apple Silicon and macOS 14 or later, it puts Slate in your Applications folder, with everything it needs inside. Word documents, Markdown, and plain text list Slate under Open With; to open them with Slate by default, select one in Finder, then File > Get Info > Open with > Change All.
To remove it:
curl -fsSL https://this-site/install.sh | sh -s -- --uninstall
Downloads
- No release published yet
From the DMG: open it and drag Slate to Applications. Slate isn't notarized by Apple yet, so the first time you open it macOS says it can't check it. On macOS 15 or later, open System Settings > Privacy & Security and click Open Anyway beside Slate's name; on macOS 14, Control-click Slate in Applications and choose Open. Or run this once in Terminal:
xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Slate.app
The install command needs none of this: what curl downloads isn't flagged. Check a download against its sha256 with shasum -a 256 on a Mac or sha256sum on Linux.