Native Markdown, done beautifully

The beautiful home for
your AI Markdown.

Your LLM hands you walls of Markdown. Read them in book-grade typography, refine them with private on-device AI, and export to PDF, EPUB, or HTML.

Free forever to read, edit, and export. Add Pilcrow AI for the best cloud models, no setup, from $8/mo.
Pilcrow reading a Markdown document in book typography
Who it's for

Built for people who live in Markdown

Two kinds of people fall in love with Pilcrow.

Primary

People who work with LLMs

Developers, researchers, writers, and builders who pull endless Markdown out of ChatGPT and Claude. Stop reading it cramped in a chat sidebar. Pilcrow is your reading room and workbench: gorgeous type, a private AI that improves and summarizes without sending a byte to the cloud, and a place to keep it all.

And

Writers & indie publishers

Draft in plain Markdown, then export a genuinely beautiful PDF or EPUB in real book typography, no $200 tool required. Perfect for nonfiction, guides, docs, and AI-assisted authors who want to ship something that looks typeset, not word-processed.

What's inside

A reader and an editor that respect the words

Book-grade typography

The Vollkorn book font, drop caps, justified text, and a measured column. Markdown that finally looks like a page, not a textarea.

Read & edit, side by side

Flip between a clean reading view and a live split editor with a draggable divider. Save straight to your .md file.

🔒

Private, on-device AI

Improve, Rewrite, Expand, Summarize, or turn a draft into notes, running on a local model. Your text never leaves your machine. Cloud models optional.

📄

Export to PDF, EPUB, HTML

One click turns your Markdown into a typeset document or a real e-book, in the same beautiful typography you read in.

📁

Tabs, sidebar, outline

A file-tree sidebar, tabs, a live table of contents, find & replace, and image paste. It works like a real editor.

Native & lightweight

A real desktop app, not a browser in a trench coat. It reuses the OS WebView, so it's roughly 3× smaller than an Electron app, and it works offline.

Pilcrow AI

Your private AI writing desk

The best cloud models, right inside your reader. No API keys, no Ollama, no setup. Select a bit of text (or the whole document), pick a command, and Pilcrow reshapes it in your voice. Prefer fully offline? Local models are free.

Improve

Fix the LLM's clunky prose

BeforeIt is important to note that the utilization of this approach can potentially lead to improved outcomes in many cases.
AfterThis approach usually produces better results.
Summarize

Turn a wall of output into 5 bullets

BeforeA 2,000-word answer your model just dumped into the chat.
AfterFive tight bullets you can actually skim, act on, and paste into a doc.
Rewrite

Strip the AI tells

BeforeIn today's fast-paced world, leveraging synergies is a game-changer for passionate teams.
AfterTeams that share work ship faster. Here is how.
To Notes

Draft a blog into shareable posts

BeforeYour long-form draft or notes.
AfterFive standalone posts for X or a newsletter, punchy and ready to schedule.
Expand

Flesh out a bullet into a section

Before- caching cuts our p95 latency
AfterA full paragraph with the mechanism and specifics, in your voice, Markdown intact.
Your rules

It writes the way you write

Set onceWho you are, your preferred tone, and a master prompt (e.g. "never use em dashes").
Every commandEvery rewrite, summary, and expansion follows your rules automatically.
Best models, zero setup. Top cloud models on tap, always current, nothing to install.
Private by default. Use local models for fully offline AI; nothing leaves your machine.
Right where you read. No copy-paste to a chatbot and back. It works on your selection, in place.
On your selection or whole doc. Reshape a sentence or the entire file, then review and save.
Your voice, enforced. Persona, tone, and a master prompt applied to every command.
Keeps your Markdown. Headings, lists, code, and links survive every edit.
No API keys to manage. One subscription covers the models and the billing.
Cancel anytime. Reading, editing, and export stay free forever, with or without AI.
Pricing

Free reader. Subscribe for the intelligence.

Everything except the cloud models is free forever. Pilcrow AI is the hosted service that adds them.

Free
$0
Forever. No account.
  • Full reader with book typography
  • Full editor, tabs, outline, find
  • Local AI (bring your own model)
  • Export to PDF, EPUB, HTML
Download free
Most popular Pilcrow AI
$8 /mo
The hosted AI service. Cancel anytime.
  • Everything in Free
  • Best cloud models, no setup, no keys
  • Improve, Rewrite, Expand, Summarize, To Notes
  • Your persona, tone, and master prompt
  • Private routing, all future models
Start Pilcrow AI →
Lifetime
$149 once
Pilcrow AI forever. One payment.
  • Everything in Pilcrow AI
  • Pay once, no recurring bill
  • All future updates and models
  • For people who hate subscriptions
Get Lifetime

After you subscribe, your license key is emailed instantly. Paste it into Pilcrow to activate. Reading, editing, local AI, and export never need a key.

Get started

Download Pilcrow

Windows 10 and 11. Signed installer. About 25 MB.

macOS and Linux are on the way. Reading and editing start working the moment you open it; the 14-day Pro trial is automatic.