Heron Binder

Now in testing

Write without restrictions.

Heron Binder organises long-form writing on Mac and iPad: one view of every chapter and scene, kept as plain Markdown files, in the editor you prefer.

Test it on your Mac Why I made it

A Christmas Carol AddFindNamesCompile

ManuscriptSynopsisStatusPOVWords

Stave One: Marley’s GhostScrooge · Marley—6,414

The Counting-HouseOpening Image · Set-Up · Bob Cratchit · FredOPENING IMAGE / SET-UP: Christmas Eve, bitter cold.CompleteSc2,934

The KnockerCatalyst · Scrooge’s ChambersCATALYST: Home through the fog, Scrooge sees Marley’s face…CompleteSc1,171

Marley’s VisitTheme Stated · Debate · MarleyTHEME STATED / DEBATE: Marley’s ghost, wrapped in the chain…CompleteSc2,309

Stave Two: The First of the Three SpiritsGhost of Christmas Past—6,149

Stave Three: The Second of the Three SpiritsGhost of Christmas Present—8,199

The Ghost of Christmas PresentFun and GamesFUN AND GAMES: A giant spirit in a room heaped with food…Revised DraftSc2,451

The Cratchits’ ChristmasMidpoint · Tiny Tim · The Cratchits’ HouseMIDPOINT: The Cratchits’ small, joyful dinner.Revised DraftSc2,744

Stave Four: The Last of the SpiritsGhost of Christmas Yet to Come—5,348

Stave Five: The End of ItScrooge · Bob Cratchit—2,292

The sample document, Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, comes with the app.

The app

Heron Binder gives you a single view of your project, so you can create, order, tag and track your chapters and scenes, then compile your document into Word for distribution.

Your writing is your own. Heron Binder works with the Markdown editor you prefer, and you can change it at any time. Your project is a folder of plain Markdown (.md) files that you can keep on your Mac, a local server or your preferred cloud service (e.g. iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive).

With a cloud service, you can work on your files from any connected Mac or iPad. Heron Binder isn’t available for Windows or Linux yet, but your Markdown files can still be edited there in any text editor.

Made for novels, non-fiction, scripts, advertising campaigns, articles and journalism, theses and reports.

What it does

OrganiseParts, chapters and sections, front and back matter. Drag to reorder; undo anything.
TrackStatus from Outline to Complete, word targets, point of view and tags for every chapter.
Check namesName Check finds misspelt names of people and places across the whole document.
FindSearch every file at once and jump straight to each match in your editor.
CompileA Word manuscript in standard submission format: title page, headings, running header.
Back up3-2-1 backup: copies on your Mac, on a removable drive and off-site in your cloud folder. Restore any earlier version of a file.

Test it on your Mac

Heron Binder is being tested before its release on the App Store. You can download the Mac version below and try it now.

To test it on your iPad, or the App Store version on your Mac, ask to join the test group and I’ll send you a TestFlight invitation.

The final release will be free for the first twenty testers. After that, the Mac and iPad apps will be a once-off purchase of $4.99 each, with no subscription.

Download for Mac

Version 1.0 (8) · macOS 14 Sonoma or later · Apple silicon and Intel · signed and notarised by Apple

Open Heron-Binder.dmg from your Downloads.
Drag Heron Binder onto the Applications folder.
Open it from Applications, and choose Try the Sample Novel to look around, or open a copy of your own work.

Send feedback with the Feedback button in Heron Binder’s toolbar, or through the contact form. When a new test version is ready, download it here again and replace the old one in Applications. After installing version 1.0 (8), choose your document, editor and backup folders once more: it’s now set up as its own Mac app. Your writing and backups aren’t touched.

New to the app? Start with the Help page.