# davidgiven/wordgrinder

A word processor which gets the hell out of your way and lets you get some work done.

Repository: https://github.com/davidgiven/wordgrinder
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/wordgrinder
Homepage: http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder
Language: Lua
License Family: other
Last push: 2026-06-09T20:49:05+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 62/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 86, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4105, "days_push": 85, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1263, forks 70 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:10.347245+00:00)

## What it is
WordGrinder is a Unicode-aware, character-cell word processor that runs in a terminal (with optional GUI frontends for X11, Windows, and macOS) and is designed for distraction-free writing such as novels. It offers just enough paragraph and character styling, undo/redo, a spellchecker, configurable shortcuts, and import/export with HTML, Markdown, OpenDocument, LaTeX, and Troff.

## Use cases
- write a novel or long-form text in the terminal
- distraction-free word processor without a GUI
- edit my documents over SSH on a remote server
- minimal writing tool with basic bold, italic, and heading styles
- convert documents between its format and Markdown, HTML, or OpenDocument
- lightweight word processor that runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows consoles

## When to choose
- You want to focus on words and prose rather than formatting, fonts, or page layout
- You work in a terminal, over SSH, or on low-resource machines where a GUI word processor is overkill
- You need a small, fast, scriptable editor with document conversion to common text formats
- You want style and shortcut configuration stored with the document itself

## When to avoid
- You need WYSIWYG layout, fonts, tables, images, or desktop-publishing features
- You require right-to-left scripts, combining characters, or other advanced text shaping
- You need collaboration, commenting, or track-changes workflows
- You want a polished GUI-first office suite experience

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: editor, markdown, templating
- domain: text-editors, developer-tools, cross-platform
- platform: windows, cli, cross-platform
- tags: word-processor, tui, distraction-free-writing, novel-writing, terminal-app, unicode, opendocument, document-conversion, spellchecker, lua, command-line, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- davidgiven/wordgrinder (main) score 62

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:10.347245+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T05:04:07.902600+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/davidgiven/wordgrinder (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:10.347245+00:00, sha 364084755419)
  - homepage: http://cowlark.com/wordgrinder (fetched 2026-08-29T12:16:11.715667+00:00, sha a9dbded8e464)
  - site_page: http://cowlark.com/about (fetched 2026-08-29T12:16:11.725885+00:00, sha 5073c960a690)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.