Questions
Frequently asked questions
- Is QuillArk free?
- Yes. There is no paid tier, no trial that expires, no feature held back, and no upsell inside the application.
- Does QuillArk require an account?
- No. There is nothing to register and nothing to sign in to. You install it, choose a folder for your books, and write.
- Does it work offline?
- Yes. Writing, projects, worldbuilding, spell check, search, statistics, planning and every export format work with no internet connection at all. Downloading QuillArk needs the internet; using it does not.
- Where are my books stored?
- In a folder you choose on first launch. QuillArk creates a Books folder there and never moves it. You can change the location later in Settings, and you can move the folder yourself whenever you like.
- Does QuillArk upload my manuscript?
- No. There is no code in QuillArk that could. The only outbound connection it can make is to a local AI engine on your own machine, and the address is checked to be a loopback address before any request is made.
- Can I use QuillArk for a book series?
- Yes. A project can hold many books that share the same characters, places and history, while each book keeps its own manuscript, metadata and publishing settings.
- Does it support fantasy worldbuilding?
- Yes, and it starts with the categories a fantasy writer needs: magic systems, species, creatures, artifacts, cultures, languages, religions and more.
- Can it be used for genres other than fantasy?
- Yes. There are 22 project templates covering literary fiction, science fiction, mystery, romance, historical, thriller, horror, non-fiction, memoir, academic writing, screen and stage, poetry and more. Every category can be renamed, removed or invented.
- What formats can QuillArk export?
- PDF, EPUB 3, DOCX, a DOCX flavour tuned for Google Docs, ODT, RTF, HTML, Markdown, plain text, and a ZIP archive of the whole project.
- What can it import?
- DOCX, ODT, RTF, EPUB, text from PDF, HTML, Markdown, plain text, CSV, JSON and YAML. QuillArk proposes where each file should go and where the chapter breaks are, and nothing is written until you agree.
- Does QuillArk support local AI?
- Yes, two ways. A built-in engine works immediately with nothing to download: it summarises, extracts names and places, and organises brain dumps. Connect Ollama or llama.cpp running on your machine and you get a language model as well.
- Can QuillArk permanently delete my manuscript?
- No. There is no delete command and no Empty Trash anywhere in the application. Removing something moves it into a Trash folder with a record of where it came from, so it can be put back exactly. Deleting for good is something you do in your own file manager, where you can see what you are removing.
- What happens if I uninstall QuillArk?
- Your Books folder is untouched. It is not inside the installation, and the uninstaller does not go near it. Every project, chapter and note stays exactly where it is, as Markdown and JSON files you can open in any editor.
- Do I need QuillArk to read my own work later?
- No, and that is deliberate. Chapters are Markdown files, records are Markdown with a readable header, and the reading order is a YAML file. The only database is a search index, which QuillArk rebuilds from your files and which holds nothing of its own.
- Is there a Mac or Linux version?
- There is a Linux version, from 1.1.0 onwards: a Debian package for Linux Mint, Ubuntu and Debian, and a portable tarball for anything else 64-bit. It is the same application, built from the same code, and a Books folder written on one opens on the other. There is no Mac build. The core logic is deliberately kept free of anything platform-specific, so a Mac port is possible later, but none exists today and none is promised.
- Why does Windows warn me when I run the installer?
- Because it is not code-signed. A certificate has to be bought and tied to a legal identity. The warning means Windows has not seen this file before, not that the file is unsafe. The Download page publishes a SHA-256 checksum so you can confirm you have the file that was published. The Linux packages are unsigned for the same reason, and your package manager will say so.