Parchment is a plain text editor designed for writing both prose and computer code. Rather than trying to compete with feature-rich programmers’ editors or integrated development environments, it deliberately offers a compact set of editing tools. The intention is to keep the interface straightforward and the text immediately readable, reducing distractions from the writing and editing process.
The editor follows GNOME conventions and works with keyboard, mouse, and touch input. Its restrained approach also extends to source-code editing. Parchment does not provide syntax highlighting and avoids many of the specialist facilities commonly found in programming editors. This makes it better suited to users who value a simple editing environment than those looking for extensive development tooling.
Parchment handles ordinary plain-text files and supports text in any human language for which suitable fonts are installed. It also takes an opinionated approach to text formatting, helping keep saved files clean and consistent.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Native GTK 4 and libadwaita graphical interface.
- Works across desktop and mobile-sized displays with touch support.
- Find and replace text throughout a document or only within highlighted text.
- Jump directly to a specified numbered line.
- Choose tabs or spaces for indentation from the context menu.
- Uses the configured system document font, with support for changing the viewing size.
- Refuses to open data that is not recognised as text.
- Removes trailing spaces when saving documents.
- Normalises trailing line breaks so saved files end with exactly one newline.
- Keeps the displayed line width deliberately short to aid readability.
- Supports Wayland and X11 environments.
Website: codeberg.org/vtrlx/parchment
Support:
Developer: Victoria Lacroix
License: GNU General Public License v3.0
Parchment is written in Lua and C. Learn Lua with our recommended free books and free tutorials. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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