Francis · A writing desk, and nothing else
Francis is a browser-based writing app with one page to type on and nothing else on the screen. No toolbar, no formatting menus, no account to create, no monthly fee. It looks like a book instead of a spreadsheet, it works on your phone and your laptop, and you pay $19 one time. If you write novels, memoir, essays, or a newsletter and you are tired of Google Docs, this is the desk.
This is the real writing app, not a screenshot. Type in it. The trial desk holds a thousand words, free, with no sign-up.
The details
Most minimalist writing apps are a white box with a font. Francis is a writing desk designed to look like a manuscript page in a 1920s edition, and every part of it comes from the two writers it is named for.
An ivory manuscript page on a bottle-green desk, with gold rules and the title set in caps like a Scribner's title page. If you have been searching for a writing app that looks like paper, this is what that means.
The save indicator is styled after Gatsby's green light at the end of the dock. It burns steady when your work is saved and dims to a slow pulse while you are still typing.
The ornament at the head of every page is the Fenian sunburst on the Irish Brigade colors Meagher rode under, and the same Art Deco sunburst on every Jazz Age poster. One shape that belongs to both men.
A dark mode for night writing. The paper goes deep green, the ink goes ivory, and the gold stays.
One click swaps the book face for a typewriter font. Francis in Courier, for anyone who writes better in monospace.
No toolbar, no formatting, no bold button, no comments. Curly quotes as you type. Plain text you can download as a .txt whenever you want it.
The name
Thomas Francis Meagher gave the Sword Speech in Dublin in 1846, introduced the Irish tricolour in 1848, led the Irish Brigade as a Union general, and drowned in the Missouri River at Fort Benton in 1867. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby and died in Hollywood in 1940. Both Irish Catholic, both dead in their forties, both called Francis. The desk is named for them, and the paper, the sunburst, the green light, and the epigraphs on every empty page all come from their two worlds. They are inspiration, not endorsement, and their portraits here are public domain.
How it works
You pay $19 one time through Stripe. There is no subscription and there never will be. The desk unlocks in that browser on the spot and an unlock link lands in your email. Open the link on your phone, your laptop, or whatever else you write on, and the desk opens there too. Keep the email; the link keeps working.
Your manuscripts save inside the browser you write in, automatically, with no account to create. Francis keeps a copy as well, so the desk restores your work on any device you unlock, and one switch in the manuscripts drawer turns that off and deletes it. To move a manuscript by hand, use Back up all in the manuscripts drawer, then Restore backup on the other side. Or just download the .txt.
On an iPhone or Android, add Francis to your home screen and it opens full screen with its own icon, like any other writing app, except it never asks you to log in.
Switching
Google Docs and Word are built for documents, meetings, and comments. Francis is built for the part where you sit down and write. If you have used iA Writer, Ulysses, Calmly Writer, or OmmWriter, you already know the feeling of a distraction-free page; Francis is that page in your browser, with no app to install, no account, and a one-time price instead of a subscription. Paste your draft in from Google Docs and keep going.
Questions
No. Francis is a one-time purchase. You pay $19 once and the writing app is yours on every device you unlock, for as long as browsers exist.
Yes. Open your unlock link on your phone and the desk is there. Add it to your home screen and it works like a writing app for iPhone or Android, without a subscription and without an app store.
Yes. Francis is a browser-based writing app with no account, no login, and no password. The unlock link is the only thing you ever need, and the trial desk needs nothing at all.
In your browser, on your device, saved as you type. Francis also keeps a copy, so a new phone or a cleared cache doesn't cost you a manuscript. If you'd rather it didn't, one switch in the manuscripts drawer turns that off and deletes the copy. There's no account and no login either way. It's your choice, and you can change it whenever you like.
It works on your phone and your laptop. Buy on one, open the unlock link on the other, and your manuscripts are there. What it isn't is live two-way sync, where you type in both places at once and watch them mirror each other. Francis is a single desk that follows you, not a shared document.
This one. Francis puts an ivory manuscript page on a green desk with gold rules and a title in caps, the way a book from the 1920s looks when you open it. It is the closest thing to writing on paper that still saves as you type.
Yes. Click Typewriter in the footer and Francis swaps the book face for Courier. Click Lamp for a dark mode. Both settings stay where you left them.
Email within 14 days and you get your money back. No questions.
About the maker
I'm Ty McDuffey, a third-generation Lake of the Ozarks resident with a J.D. and 24 books on Amazon. I built Francis because I was writing my own books in Google Docs and wanted a desk instead of a spreadsheet with a font. I use it every day. If something's wrong with it, email me and I'll fix it.
Francis
One-time purchase. Not a subscription.
A distraction-free writing app with no account, on every device you write on, for one payment.
Buy FrancisSecure checkout by Stripe. Unlock link by email within a minute. Works on phone and laptop. 14-day refund.