When comparing Textnut 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 Textnut is ranked 26th. 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 Can automatically convert Markdown to rich text
TextNut has two modes that it can switch between on-the-fly - Markdown and rich text editing mode. In rich text editing mode Markdown syntax is automatically converted to rich text. For example, typing ***bold***
will automatically convert it to bold. In Markdown mode syntax will be kept (with chosen styling applied).
Pro Advanced yet easy way to add images
Images can be added by writing a curly brace ({
) anywhere in the text and a popup will appear that will allow dragging and dropping the image in as well as customize the parameters without having to remember the proper syntax.
Pro Effectively does WYSIWYG editing
Pro Easy document management
Drag and Drop tree structure document management, powerful and flexible.
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 Rich text editing mode has incomplete Markdown support
Some Markdown elements don't convert to rich text in rich text editing mode. For example, for emphasis only *
will convert, _
will be left as is.