atticus.ioReviews of atticus.io

I do not think this product is ready for the market - or at least it is not ready to be used on Mac computers, despite what the website says. The features are great, no doubt, but I've been using this program for over a year now, and the number of bugs and technical issues is UNREAL. Yes, support gets back to you with ideas for fixes...but they are time-consuming and frustrating. Every time I think we've found a way around one issue, a new one pops up. Right now, the chapter subtitles are spaced differently from chapter to chapter. Support wants me to rebuild the entire theme from scratch to see if that will help. Spend a little more and get a more established program. The amount of time it will save you is worth it. I have nothing but regrets.

This app is an absolute headache to open and operate. Instead of improving it, they are more determined to eliminate the negative reviews. As if that wasn't enough, most of the responses I get are often quite racist and bias as if they are in the center of the world and the rest of the planet is filed with degenerates.

Atticus is a solid tool for basic formatting and straightforward layouts. It’s easy to use and gets the job done for standard manuscripts or simple self-publishing needs. However, if you’re looking to produce a creative, premium-quality book—with custom title pages, nuanced control of headings, illustrations, or advanced print layout—Atticus is limited. It’s a great place to start, but not the final stop for authors aiming for truly professional or artistic results.

Atticus is a trainwreck for me. It cannot locate my chapters, while the demo of Vellum instantly recognizes them, as does the AutoCrit Publish function. I have spent hours with email support, and I still haven't received any usable help. It runs as slow as molasses. What a waste of money! A few months back, it was okay, but not anymore. They must have "updated" it and made it a slow and buggy mess. Thanks, Gary

I've been using this app for three months now and I really wanted to like it, because it's an excellent idea, and Vellum needs serious competition - BUT - for the price, which is almost equivilent to Vellum, this app is just not worth it. Where Vellum is seamless, and functions perfectly to produce a great looking final product, Atticus is slow to register updates, glitchy, loses edits and forgets chapter headings. And forget actually writing a draft in it - it's just too slow. And though I've tried and tried to do something as simple as change the cover jpg, even deleting the former copy from the image bank - Atticus just won't do it. I'm so sick of this app I'm thinking of ditching it, regardless of what it cost. The only reason I'm giving it two stars is because, as I said, it's a great idea, and I wish very much it worked.

Frustratingly slow, the lag on characters appearing on the screen after I type them is ridiculous. This is enough to send me back to MS Word, even though I have paid for Atticus. I'll use it just for formatting, and even then, I have to export it back into Word to tweak it. Others here have questioned the four and five star reviews, and I can’t help but agree. Since writing the above paragraph, I have tried to use the formatting functionality, and that is just more work and effort than simply using styles in Word. I hated using this software, but I must praise Atticus for giving me a refund with no questions asked. Vellum is a far superior product for formatting or hell, send it to me and I will do it for $80 in good old Microsoft Word styles

Like other commenters, I want to love Atticus - and for my first two books, I did - but with the most recent one, heck, the slow syncing is driving me crazy. A friend sitting with me as I made edits said, how on earth are you dealing with this?! The slow syncing means it's not saved changes and I haven't realised so have to go back and make them again. It's incredibly frustrating waiting for it to sync as I move from chapter to chapter, wanting to see the preview to check page breaks, etc. I don't know what can be done about it, but I really hope it can be fixed. It used to be GREAT and I'm not a Mac user so please, Dave Chesson, fix it!

I've used Atticus for over two years and Scrivener before that. Have also evaluated Living Writer and Reedsy quite extensively. I am currently writing two novels in Atticus. One as of this moment is 109,825 words and estimate the other around 50,000. The reason I started with Atticus was for its formatting prowess, not the word Prosser. At the time Atticus was relatively new, with the promise of fast coming enhancements. The word processor is not only rudimentary but also very unstable. Also, the promised improvements were an empty promise to sell the software. There have been zero meaningful improvements. No one realistically expects the massive, author specific, features of Scrivener, of which I only used a fraction. Or even all the basic features of other mainline word processors like MS WORD and GOOGLE DOCS. For two years I've repeatedly suggested specific every day simple features with zero forthcoming. And reported the unstable word processor problems. Yet, they keep occurring.