An offline desktop app for writing books and exporting them to print-ready PDF and reflowable EPUB — a focused, free alternative to InDesign for text-first books (novels, non-fiction).

Stack

Tauri 2 (Rust shell) — offline by construction; the entire export pipeline runs locally, nothing hits the network.
React + TipTap — the semantic writing surface.
Typst (embedded as a Rust crate) — print-ready PDF with real book typography.
Built-in EPUB3 generator + zip packager.

One semantic document feeds three renderers — the editor, the PDF, and the EPUB — from a single design-token theme (Quiet Press: Literata for the page, Hanken Grotesk for the chrome). Both fonts are bundled.

Develop

pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev     # the real desktop app: live PDF dock, file dialogs, PDF/EPUB export
pnpm dev           # browser-only UI preview (Tauri APIs are inert)

The first tauri dev build is slow because it compiles Typst.

Using it

A book saves as a single .margin file (JSON). Open / Save with ⌘O / ⌘S.
Click the title in the top bar for Book setup (title, author, ISBN, trim size, language).
Insert images from the toolbar and choose a placement (inline / full-width / full-page / float).
Export to PDF or EPUB from the titlebar menu.

Layout

src/editor/ — TipTap editor, extensions, figure block, floating toolbar.
src/components/ — app shell, preview dock, book-setup panel, pdf.js renderer.
src/export/ — typst.ts (book → Typst source), epub.ts (book → EPUB3 files), exporters.ts.
src/store/, src/model/ — document model and state.
src-tauri/src/ — pdf.rs (Typst compile), epub.rs (zip packager), project.rs (file IO).