A distraction-free, retro CRT-styled word processor that saves plain Markdown.
Green phosphor glow, scanlines, and nothing on screen but your words — the mood of writing on an early-80s machine, with modern keyboard shortcuts, native spellcheck, and files you can open anywhere.
What this is not: a WordStar clone or emulator. It borrows the spirit of DOS-era writing tools (fullscreen text, zero chrome, keyboard-driven), not their commands — there are no Ctrl+K chords, no dot commands, no WordStar diamond. If you want the real thing, WordStar 7 archives and WordTsar have you covered.
Modern writing apps are busy. WordSlate gives you a full screen of glowing monospace
text, a word count, and nothing else. Your work is saved as ordinary .md files in a
folder you choose — no database, no cloud account, no lock-in.
- Portable, single-file app — one
.exe, no installer, no admin rights. Settings live in adata/folder beside the exe; documents default to adocuments/folder beside it too. Drop the whole folder in OneDrive/Dropbox and it travels with you. - Plain Markdown files — nothing proprietary. Open your writing in any editor.
- Retro CRT look — three phosphor themes (green, amber, blue) with scanlines, vignette, subtle flicker, and an optional "refresh band" that rolls down the screen.
- Zen mode — fullscreen with every UI element hidden. Hold
Escto leave. - Outline lists —
Tabnests list items with proper marker styles (1.→a.→i.),Shift+Tabun-nests and renumbers, wrapped lines keep their indent level. - Native spellcheck, autosave, crash-safe save-on-close, live word count.
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+S |
Save |
Ctrl+Shift+S |
Save as… |
Ctrl+O |
Open |
Ctrl+N |
New file |
Ctrl+T |
Cycle theme |
Ctrl+, |
Settings menu (or click the ⚙ in the corner) |
F11 |
Full screen |
Hold Esc |
Exit full screen / zen mode |
Tab / Shift+Tab |
Nest / un-nest list item |
Grab WordSlate.exe from the latest release, put it in any
folder, and run it. That's the whole install.
Windows SmartScreen note: the exe isn't code-signed (signing certificates cost money and this is a free hobby project), so the first launch may show "Windows protected your PC." Click More info → Run anyway. The source code is all here if you'd like to audit or build it yourself.
On first run WordSlate creates two folders next to the exe:
WordSlate/
├── WordSlate.exe
├── data/ ← settings (theme, text size, save folder…)
└── documents/ ← your writing goes here by default
Delete the folder and the app is gone — nothing is written anywhere else.
Prerequisites: Node.js, Rust, and on Windows the MSVC C++ Build Tools.
npm install
npm run tauri buildThe portable exe lands in src-tauri/target/release/WordSlate.exe.
For development with hot reload:
npm run tauri devTauri 2 (Rust) + CodeMirror 6 + vanilla TypeScript. No frontend framework. The CRT effects are pure CSS, tuned to stay off the keystroke repaint path so typing stays fast.
MIT — free to use, copy, modify, and share.