- A page and nothing else. Focus mode clears the interface down to the sentence. One more
Escbrings it back. - A count you can trust. The editor counts words as you write; the word counter handles the “paste the final draft and check the limit” case without uploading it.
- Typography that does not fight you. A serif for the body, adjustable size and column width, and light or dark themes.
- Submission formats. PDF for reading and commenting, Markdown for anything that edits plain text,
.quorlyfor keeping images with the document. - No account. Open the page and write; nothing asks who you are before the first sentence.
What an essay needs
The AI question
More publications now ask whether a submission was generated, and “no” is easier to defend when the tool could not have helped even if you asked. Quorly has no model, no assistant, and no server that accepts documents — the no-AI page explains why that is architecture rather than a setting. If you do use an assistant elsewhere, the draft leaves only when you export it.
What it leaves to other tools
Citations, footnotes, tracked changes and comments are not part of the editor. That is a deliberate line: a writing surface, not a word processor. In practice:
| Task | Where |
|---|---|
| Drafting, restructuring, finishing | Quorly |
| Footnotes and referencing | Word, Google Docs, or a LaTeX editor |
| Editorial comments and tracked changes | The PDF you send, or Docs |
| Publishing to a magazine's CMS | Copy to clipboard, or Markdown into the CMS |
A workflow that holds up
- Draft in Quorly, one document per piece, in Focus mode.
- If the argument is still a pile of notes, start from the essay outline template — thesis, evidence, counterargument, in that order.
- Check the length with the counter if the call for submissions has a hard limit.
- Read it once in the PDF export — the change of surface catches things the editor hides.
- Send the PDF, or paste the formatted draft into the publication's editor. The clipboard route covers Substack, Ghost and Medium.
- Keep the Markdown. A piece that lives in a text file can be reused, quoted and republished without asking a tool for permission.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Does Quorly support footnotes or citations?
No. There is no footnote syntax and no reference manager. For academic work, write in a tool that handles citations and use Quorly only if the drafting is separate; otherwise Word, Google Docs or a LaTeX editor is the better fit.
Can I send the essay to an editor as a PDF?
Yes. Export a PDF and the text stays selectable, so the editor can comment on it and you can quote from the returned file. The layout follows the document rather than a designed page.
Why does an essayist care that there is no AI?
Because submissions increasingly ask whether a draft was generated, and because an assistant that reads the draft is another reader. Quorly ships no model and no server that receives documents, so the question does not arise.
Ready when you are
Start writing — free
A quiet page for the kind of writing you do.