When comparing LightPaper vs iA Writer, the Slant community recommends iA Writer for most people. In the question“What are the best Markdown editors for OS X?” iA Writer is ranked 11th while LightPaper is ranked 21st. The most important reason people chose iA Writer is:
The Noise Free Writing Experience is one of the first approaches to create a first class distraction-free environment. The feature hides the Mac program bar when you start writing.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Extended markdown support
Can be extended to support Multimarkdown, GFM-style code fences with syntax highlighting and even math rendering.
Pro Advanced file-management built-in
Can browse and open files and even has a built-in fuzzy file search.
Pro Built-in preview
Pro PDF & HTML export
Pro Your own preview template is supported
You can create your own template that is aligned with your branding.
Pro Noise Free Writing Experience removes even the program bar
The Noise Free Writing Experience is one of the first approaches to create a first class distraction-free environment. The feature hides the Mac program bar when you start writing.
Pro A mode that brings focus to the sentence you're working on
Enabling Focus Mode will dim the whole text except the sentence you are currently writing on.
Pro Can tell how long it would take to read through what you've written
Pro Markdown support
Pro Syncs using iCloud and Dropbox
iA Writer can sync documents using iCloud or Dropbox from within the editor for use across multiple devices.
Pro Create whole document by including separate images/markdown docs
This is new and very awesome feature in iA Writer 4.0.
Pro Can export a Word document
Pro Available for all Apple devices
iA Writer is available for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
Cons
Con Crashed repeatedly and refused to open without crashing after theme installation
Con Spell checking needs to be activated every time you open a file
In order to activate the spell checker you have to do so every time you open a file in LightPaper. There's no way to leave this setting on by default.
Con No Linux support
