The TextBundle file format aims to provide a more seamless user experience when exchanging plain text files, like Markdown or Fountain, between sandboxed applications.

Sandboxing is required for all apps available on the Mac and iOS app store, in order to grant users a high level of data security. Sandboxed apps are only permitted access to files explicitly provided by the user - for example Markdown text files. When working with different Markdown applications, sandboxing can cause inconveniences for the user.

An example: Markdown files may contain references to external images. When sending such a file from a Markdown editor to a previewer, users will have to explicitly permit access to every single image file.

This is where TextBundle comes in. TextBundle brings convenience back - by bundling the Markdown text and all referenced images into a single file. Supporting applications can just exchange TextBundles without asking for additional permissions. Beyond being a simple container, TextBundle includes a standard to transfer additional information - to open up new possibilites for future integration.

You can download a simple example file for a TextBundle file (Version 2) and its compressed variant TextPack. We provide also an example for apps only supporting TextBundle file (Version 1).

Supporting Apps

OS Reading Writing Standard
Agenda macOS, iOS, iPadOS 14.0 14.0 v2
Bear macOS, iOS, iPadOS 1.0 1.0 v2
Craft macOS, iOS, iPadOS, web 1.0 1.0 v2
Deckset macOS, iOS, iPadOS 1.0 (iOS), 2.0.28 (macOS) 1.0 (iOS), 2.0.28 (macOS) v2
eBookBinder macOS 1.4.0 1.4.0 v2 (md, html, Textile, Wikitext, BBCode, Smark)
FSNotes macOS 2.0 2.0 v2
Go Edit iOS, iPadOS 1.0 1.0 v2 (md, html)
#Gazer macOS 1.0 1.0 v2
Highlights macOS - 1.0 v1
iThoughts macOS, iOS, iPadOS, Windows - 4.11 + (macOS), 2.3 + (Windows), 2.7 + (iOS) v1
Keepmark Linux, macOS, Windows 1.7 1.7 v2 (Textpack)
Marked 2 macOS 2.3.4 2.5 v1
MarkMyWords macOS 1.10.0 1.10.0 v2
MindNode macOS, iOS, iPadOS 2.5 + (macOS), 4.5 + (iOS) 2.5 + (macOS), 4.5 + (iOS) v2
Myary macOS 1.5.0 1.5.0 v2
Note-C macOS 1.5.0 1.5.0 v2
One Jotter Android, Windows 1.83 1.83 v2
Paper macOS 46 - v2
Smartdown II Windows - 0.8.2 v2
Taio macOS, iOS 1.0 1.0 v2
Textbundle Editor macOS 1.0 1.0 v2
Ulysses macOS, iOS, iPadOS 2.7 1.2.2 v2
WordPress iOS, iPadOS 12.3 - v2
Xmind macOS, iOS, iPadOS 9.1.0 9.1.0 v2
Zettlr macOS, Linux, Windows 1.2.0 1.2.0 v2

TextBundle framework for macOS and iOS

Developers can easily incorporate TextBundle import and export with the TextBundle library from Shiny Frog. See the GitHub repository for details.

Quick Look on OS X

Properly formatted TextBundle files can be viewed with Quick Look on OS X by installing Brett Terpstra’s fork of the MultiMarkdown QuickLook plugin. Be sure to run qlmanage -r in Terminal after installing or upgrading the plugin.

You can download the official logo of TextBundle in various file formats here. The logo was created by Brett Terpstra. It is published under the CC0 license, so you can use it without restrictions.

Join us!

Like to join in with your app? Please drop us a line or write us on twitter!