Contents
Bookshop · Discover books The Guild · Find a professional Opening title01 The turn02 Chapter I  ·  The typesetting engine03 Chapter II  ·  Print04 Chapter III  ·  The world beside the book05 Chapter IV  ·  The series06 Chapter V  ·  Certainty07 Chapter VI  ·  Proof of authorship08 Chapter VII  ·  The margin notes09 Chapter VIII  ·  Inkia, your operator10 Chapter IX  ·  Working together11 Chapter X  ·  The bookshop12 Index13 The honest comparison14 Editions15 Questions16 Colophon  ·  Begin17
Alhora  ·  The book-formatting studio
Founder offer  ·  lifetime for €114.99, not €164.99 29 of 150 claimed

Make it a book.

Alhora is book formatting software for authors. It turns your manuscript into a beautifully typeset ebook and print edition — on Mac, Windows, Linux and ChromeOS.

Try Alhora Web Beta Download free Watch tutorials →
Free to format and preview  ·  €114.99 lifetime — founder price  ·  v1.36.1
Ember
fall
E. M. Voss
The Alder Cycle · V
Emberfall · Voss
drag the book
Scene one
It begins as a manuscript.
Scene two
It becomes a book.
❧
Chapter One
The morning light fell through the attic window in dusty bars, illuminating rows of forgotten manuscripts. She hadn't expected to find anything useful. But then she saw it — the letter.
It was addressed to her.
* * *
The envelope was yellowed with age, the ink faded to a pale sepia. She turned it over in her hands, tracing the wax seal.
— 12 —
chapter-01.docxDRAFT 4
Chapter One
The morning light fell through the attic window in dusty bars, illuminating rows of forgotten manuscripts...
She hadn't expected to find anything useful. But then she saw it -- the letter.
It was addressed to her.
***
The envelope was yellowed with age, the ink faded to a pale sepia.
Alhora
Keep scrolling — turn the page
Chapter I The typesetting engine

Type that sets itself.

Your fonts, embedded with real metrics. Justified lines with proper hyphenation. Widows pulled home. Drop caps that bloom in print — not just on screen.

Justify & hyphenate
Widows & orphans, gone
Drop the cap
Ornament & folio
Chapter One
The morning light fell through the attic window in dusty bars, illuminating the rows of forgotten manuscripts that crowded every shelf and corner of the narrow room.
She hadn't expected to find anything useful among them. But then she saw it — the letter, resting on the
desk.
❧
Chapter One
The morning light fell through the attic window in dusty bars, illu­mi­nat­ing the rows of for­got­ten manu­scripts that crowded every shelf and corner of the narrow room.
She hadn't expected to find any­thing useful among them. But then she saw it — the letter, resting on the desk.
— 12 —
Newsreader · embedded · subset
hover the page — see the setting
She read it twice, then a third time, the words refusing to settle. Outside, the wind moved through the alders, and some­where below a door opened and closed. The house had kept this from her for thirty years. It could keep it no longer. She folded the letter along its old creases and slipped it into her coat.
14The Alder Cycle
The station was nearly empty at that hour. She bought a ticket south with the last of her notes and stood at the far end of the plat­form, where the light didn't quite reach. If any­one had asked, she could not have said what she was afraid of. Only that the letter felt warm through the wool of her coat, like a coal carried from an old fire.
Emberfall15
trim 6 × 9 in
bleed 0.125 in
Chapter II Print

Know it will print.

Live spine width from real pagination. Trim, bleed and gutter checked as you design. A proof simulator that flags problems before the printer does.

spine width0.0 mm
pages · paper312 · cream 55lb
est. print cost£3.41 / copy
gutter narrow for 312 ppFix my margins
Interlude Your turn

Set it yourself.

Three of Alhora's style profiles, one paragraph — yours, if you like. Content never changes; only the profile does.

Everything you type stays on this page.
❧
Chapter One
The morning light fell through the attic window in dusty bars, illuminating the rows of forgotten manuscripts. She hadn't expected to find anything useful — but then she saw it: the letter, resting where someone had meant for it to be found.
— 12 —
Chapter III The world beside the book

Every book carries a world.

Emberfall's people, places and years live beside its manuscript — linked to the very sentences that mention them. Type @ while you write, and the book knows who you mean.

People, places & lore
Maps, calibrated to scale
A calendar of your own invention
Checked against your own facts

The world stays private to Alhora — nothing of it appears in your EPUB or print PDF unless you typeset it on purpose, as a dramatis personae, a gazetteer or a map plate.

The Alder Reaches calibrated · 1 in = 40 leagues
measure · ≈ 240 leagues N 40 leagues The Pale Sea The South Road The Alderwood Emberfell Heights Mirrormere
Select Pin Region Route Measure
Alderwood
Emberfall Ridge
The Silent Court
Alderwood → Emberfall Ridge · six days by cart — her calendar allows four Open the timeline
Person · @marta
Marta Vane
Blue eyes · b. 412, Year of Alders · keeper of the letter
appears in 31 passages → ch. 1, p. 12
Place · @alderwood
Alderwood
Seat of the Silent Court · burned in The Long Winter
The Alder Cycle · years 396–431 a calendar of five seasons
The Long Winter The letter is sealed Emberfall
Emberfall's world, as Alhora keeps it
Chapter III · continued The world's rooms

Wiki, graph, board.

Every entry is a page. Every connection can be drawn. Every stray idea has a wall to live on — and all of it links back to the manuscript, never into your exports.

World → People → Marta Vane
Marta Vane
also “the Letter-Keeper”
EyesBlue
Born412, Year of Alders
HomeAlderwood
Relationsgranddaughter of Old Halloran · rival of Wren Tally
appears in 31 passages → “She turned the envelope…”, ch. 1, p. 12
the wiki — type @marta anywhere in the manuscript
Graph Family tree
granddaughter of rival of home keeper of Marta Vane Old Halloran Wren Tally Alderwood the letter
the graph — your words on every connection · export SVG or print PNG
❧
the attic window
What does the wax seal show? Sealed the same night as the fire — ask ch. 4.
her coat — this wool
pinned to @marta
the board — polaroid, taped or pinned · cork, linen or parchment grounds

Vellum and Atticus set beautiful pages. Neither knows who Marta is.

See the honest comparison →

Chapter IV The Series Command Centre

Your whole backlist. One command.

Register every book in your series. Push a new style across all of them. Batch re-export the lot while you make tea.

Alderwood
The Long Winter
Crown of Smoke
The Silent Court
Emberfall
The Last Tide
Homecoming
Pushing style “Ember Serif” to 7 books… ✓ series re-exported · 41s
Chapter V Certainty

Ship with certainty.

Every export is validated offline against each store's rules — before you upload, not after you're rejected.

Ready · KDP
Ready · Apple Books
Ready · Kobo
Ready · Google Play
3,412 checks · 0 errors · 4.2 s · fully offline

And the Time Machine keeps every version of your book on your own disk. Restore any of them in one click.

today 14:02 Pre-export snapshot Restore
yesterday Style switch — “Ember Serif” Restore
tuesday Reimport review — 14 chapters merged Restore
12 jun First import — draft-4.docx Restore
Chapter VI Proof of authorship

Prove a human wrote it.

Authors are losing deals to accusations they cannot answer. So your book now carries its own evidence — a private record of how it was written, sealed when you say so, and checkable by anyone.

i. It writes itself. From your first sentence, Alhora keeps a private record on your own machine — when you wrote, what changed, what you pasted, and the exact scope of every AI check. Never your words. The record cannot hold them.
ii. You seal it, or nobody does. When the book is finished, Alhora shows you exactly what would leave your machine — counts and dates, nothing else — and sends it only when you approve. Then it signs it.
iii. Anyone can check it. The certificate gets a public page. Put the line and the code on your copyright page or back cover, and the proof travels with the book — to an agent, a publisher, a reader.

It attests your process — an organic history over real time, with AI limited to checks that never compose a word. It does not claim to prove the absence of AI everywhere, and we will never say it does.

Proof of Authorship
The Salt Road
A. N. Author
Written over
9 months · 61 active days
Sessions
214 sittings, 3,904 entries
Words
91,438 added · 24,110 removed
AI
checks and flags — never composition
Verify at
alhora.app/verify/9f2c…
Chapter VII The margin notes

AI that reads. Never writes.

Completely optional. Off by default.

Your manuscript is never used to train AI models.

Write, format and export your entire book without AI. If you opt in, AI checks work like a careful proofreader in the margins: flagging possible problems and suggesting corrections to your own words. You choose which checks to run and which suggestions to accept.

i.It never writes your book. There is no compose feature — not hidden, not premium. It doesn't exist.
ii.You approve every change — one by one, each backed by a snapshot you can undo.
iii.Your words stay yours. Neither Alhora nor our AI providers use your manuscript to train models.
iv.What the AI did stays private to you — a local tally, nothing embedded in your exports.
v.AI starts switched off. Every core editing, formatting and export feature works without it.

Assisted is not generated. Stores such as Amazon KDP currently treat AI-assisted editing of your own words differently from AI-generated content — review each store's policy before you publish.

Read our AI principles →
❧
She turned the enevelope over in her hands, tracing the wax seal. Whatever the the letter held, it had waited thirty years to be read; the gray light of the attic made the ink look older still.
— 12 —
SPELLING · P. 12
enevelope → envelope
REPEATED WORD · P. 12
the the → the
CONSISTENCY · P. 12
gray → grey · used 14× elsewhere
3 flags · 0 decided — tally kept on this machine, never in your book
Chapter VIII Your operator New

Meet Inkia.

Your operator, built into Alhora. Local guides and commands help with supported app tasks. Conversational planning through Alhora Cloud is a separate AI-plan feature, subject to service availability. Inkia never writes your book.

i.She plans the steps, walks you through the pages, and says what she's doing as she goes.
ii.You approve before anything changes — one click, one undoable step, a snapshot taken first.
iii.Stop her the instant you want. A sparkle traces the app's borders whenever she's at work.
iv.Everything she does is a real Alhora action from a fixed list — never a sentence of her own.
Download & meet Inkia Local guides and commands are free. Cloud conversation requires an available AI service and an active AI plan.
✦Inkia working…
Get me Kindle-ready
Here's my plan — 2 steps:
✓Run every check
42 checks · 3 findings
✓Export Kindle EPUB
Emberfall.epub · pre-flight passed
✓ Done — 2 steps complete. Anything else?
Ask Inkia to do something…
Send
Chapter IX Working together Beta

A second pair of hands.

Invite whoever you trust — an editor, a co-author, an assistant. A code and a link, and your book opens live in their Alhora: what they type lands under your hands in about a fifth of a second, and what you type lands under theirs. No seat count, no per-editor fee.

i.Their copy is a window, not a book. Nothing they do writes a file on their machine, and when the session ends the book stays yours alone.
ii.Your Undo covers their work, and the Time Machine marks the moment the session began.
iii.Notes hold conversations in the margin, each signed in its writer's own colour — settled threads step aside.
iv.The session shows its workings — keystrokes picked up, changes that landed, the round trip in milliseconds.

Starting a session comes with any paid plan; joining one needs only Alhora installed. Sessions travel through Alhora's own relay, which carries your words without keeping them.

Emberfall — ch. 9 session · live
The lamp guttered as Marta crossed the landing. She counted the doors the way her grandfather had taught her — two from the stairs, one shut fast against the cold. Somewhere below, the house settled on its heelsElla and was quiet.
EllaIs she still holding the lamp here?
YouFixed in the next paragraph.
Settled
typing picked up 68 · landed 4 · did not land 0 there and back · 363 ms
a live session, in Beta
Chapter X The bookshop

Sell it from your own shop.

The last page of making a book is selling it. Your ebook, paperback, hardback and special edition go direct to readers from a shop page that is yours. Set up, customise and manage your shop in Alhora on desktop or in your browser.

You source printed copies from your own printer or supplier and arrange packing and shipping. Alhora does not print, supply, store or ship physical books.

i.Every edition you offer — each with its own price, in pounds, dollars or euros.
ii.Postage is charged to the reader — never taken out of what you earn.
iii.Switch the ebook off and sell print only, if that is the shop you want to keep.
Open your bookshop Explore and preview for free. Publish and sell with a paid Alhora plan, on desktop or web.
E. M. Voss — the shop alhora shop page
Emberfall
The Alder Cycle · Book V
Ebook£4.99
Paperback£12.99 + postage
Hardback£24.00 + postage
Special edition foil · sprayed edges£39.00 + postage
Buy the hardback postage at checkout
this week · 14 copiesseen in the app, as they happen
prices are the author's to set
Behind the pages

The real studio. Your turn.

Open a sample book in Alhora’s actual editor. Shape a chapter, explore the reader preview, and find the style that feels like your book.

The Alhora studio Live sample Open full screen
The current Alhora editor: the book outline, manuscript and a live reader preview, using the real Paper and Ink interface.
Try the real editor A sample book. No account needed.

The same editor and Style Studio as Alhora, ready for you to explore.

Edit a chapter, see it on a reader’s device, then make it yours in Style Studio. Your sample edits stay in this tab and reset when you refresh.

Try Alhora Web Beta

Index

Everything else that shipped in v1.36.1 — no feature left un-listed.

Drafts — two drafts, one book118
Working together — a second pair of hands (Beta)123
Import fidelity — Word, Scrivener, Google Docs129
Reimport Review — see every change before it lands134
Typography Sweep — curly quotes, clean dashes139
Verse, tables & text conversations145
Sources, bibliography & a real index150
Living Back Matter — an Also-By that updates itself156
Custom fonts — license-safe embedding161
24+ trim sizes — plus custom167
Edition room — foil, sprayed edges, the cover wrap172
Release Pack — every format, one click178
Publish Packages — upload kits for KDP, Ingram, D2D183
Accessible EPUB — certified, audit-gated189
Metadata & ISBN — the right number on every edition194
ARC copies — stamped per reviewer200
Reading rooms — beta reads that report back205
Audiobook narration — measured for what Audible asks211
Rights — every grant, term & reversion, in one place216
Estate Archive — a file that outlives the app222
The honest comparison

Alhora, Vellum, Atticus.

Alhora
Vellum
Atticus
Platform & pricing
Operating systems
Mac · Windows · Linux
Mac only
Mac · Win · Web
Interface languages
15 English · French · German · Spanish · Portuguese · Italian · Dutch · Polish · Norwegian Bokmål · Nynorsk · Swedish · Danish · Finnish · Icelandic · Czech
Not documented
Not documented
Your book’s own language
15 English · French · German · Spanish · Portuguese · Italian · Dutch · Polish · Norwegian Bokmål · Nynorsk · Swedish · Danish · Finnish · Icelandic · Czech — proofed and typeset in it, never corrected into English
Not documented
Not documented
Price
€10.99/mo · €114.99 lifetime charged in GBP
$249.99 once
$147 once
Free tier — the full app
✓ 8-page sample
—
—
Typesetting & design
Real print typesetting engine
✓
✓
✓
Custom fonts — license-safe embed
✓
—
—
Typography styles
17 + custom fonts
Presets only
Presets only
Drop caps & ornaments
✓
✓
✓
Verse, tables & text-message chats
✓
Limited
—
Trim sizes
23 presets & custom
18
12
Print production
Print-ready PDF — bleed, crop, ICC
✓
✓
✓
Live spine width from pagination
✓
—
—
Trim · bleed · gutter proof simulator
✓
—
—
Print cost estimate
✓
—
—
Publishing & validation
Offline store pre-flight validation
✓
—
—
Accessible EPUB — audit-gated
✓
Basic
Basic
Publish packages — KDP · Ingram · D2D
✓
—
—
Metadata & ISBN per edition
✓
Basic
Basic
Stamped ARC copies
✓
—
—
Workflow & series
Series batch re-export
✓
—
—
Version history on disk — Time Machine
✓
—
—
Reimport review — see every change
✓
—
—
Living back matter — auto Also-By
✓
—
—
Import — Word · Scrivener · Google Docs
✓
Word
Word · Docs
AI — optional, assist-only
Inkia — AI operator that runs the app
✓
—
—
Cloud AI checks — your words only
✓
—
—
Never writes prose · never trains on your text
✓
n/a
n/a

Read the detailed comparisons: Alhora vs Vellum · Alhora vs Atticus · Vellum alternatives for Windows

Alhora v1.36.1. Competitor capabilities as publicly documented, July 2026 — check each vendor for the latest.

From the authors Verbatim

In their own words.

These are authors who publish their own books. We share their words — and take them down the day they ask.

I thoroughly appreciate the thought and care that has been put into Alhora. It's becoming a one-stop shop for everything, from the writing process, to the styling, to the formatting and export. The more you dig, the more you discover how much control of the writing and formatting process the author has. I've yet to find a platform designed specifically for indie authors that can do everything that Alhora can do. This is worth its weight in gold!

Kathleen Solis The Maesopica series @kathleen_themermaidauthor

Alhora is a great new formatting software that answers a lot of problems that other softwares currently are failing in. It's very nice to use with nice graphics and the developer is amazingly considerate and responsive in fixing things that make it easier to use. A great new tool and I can't wait to keep discovering more about everything it can do!

Arya Walton @aryawalton_author

I have always struggled with formatting my books. It’s been a constant battle with things moving around whenever I uploaded them to KDP. I would literally spend weeks trying to get everything lined up properly, and I was never in a position to buy other formatting software. So, when I was offered the opportunity to use Alhora, I knew I couldn’t miss it. Honestly, it has reduced my formatting time to hours, and my book looks so much more professional. I love all the little details I can add to my books and if there is something I want and it's not an option James will try to add it.

Ana Martin Crown of Earth and Ember @anamartinauthor
Editions & additions

Choose a plan for complete exports.

Format and preview your whole book free. Export a sample to check the files, then choose a plan to export the complete book. AI add-ons and Publisher plans are separate subscriptions. See all plan benefits.

Three editions To export the whole book
Show prices in £ GBP$ USD€ EUR
Monthly
€10.99/month

billed as £8.99

For one book at a time.
Unlimited clean exportsComplete EPUB and print PDFCancel anytime
Get started
AnnualSave 17%
€104.99/year

billed as £89.99

For the working author.
Everything in MonthlyPriority supportEarly access to new features
Get started
Lifetime29 of 150 claimed
€114.99once

billed as £99.00

€164.99 — founder price, first 150 only.
Everything in AnnualAll future updates, foreverNo recurring fees, ever
Pay in 3 with Klarna
Get lifetime access

Your first plan purchase: request a full refund within 14 days. See refund terms.

Free sample export: your front and back matter plus the first eight pages, with a small mark in the margin · No card required

All prices in GBP · Nothing here is ever required to format, preview or keep your book.

Questions, answered.

What platforms does Alhora run on?+

macOS, Windows, Linux and ChromeOS — natively. Every platform gets the same features and the same updates, at the same time. On a Chromebook it runs in the built-in Linux environment.

Is there a free trial?+

Alhora is free to download and use, no card required: import your manuscript, format it fully and preview every page exactly as it will publish. Exporting the finished EPUB and print PDF needs an account with a plan — monthly, annual or lifetime.

Can I import from Word, Scrivener or Google Docs?+

Yes. Footnotes, endnotes, tables, lists, links and images survive the trip — from .docx, Scrivener projects, Google Docs exports, Markdown and RTF.

What does the Lifetime plan include?+

One payment of €114.99 while the first 150 founder licences last — €164.99 after that, charged in pounds sterling. All platforms, all current features, all future updates — forever, with no recurring fees.

Does Alhora use AI?+

AI is optional. Local Inkia guides and commands are separate from Alhora-hosted Cloud AI. Cloud AI checks and conversational planning require an active AI plan and service availability. You review suggestions before applying them; AI does not write your book. Core editing, formatting and export do not require Cloud AI. Read our AI principles.

How does it compare to Vellum?+

Vellum is Mac-only at $249.99. Alhora runs everywhere, costs less, and adds what Vellum doesn't have: custom fonts, store validation, series batch re-export and version history.

Suggestions board

What Alhora builds next is up to you.

Every feature on the board came from an author asking for it. Read what others have suggested, add your voice to one, or put up something new — it is all in the open, including what we have already shipped.

Open the suggestions board

“Some stories wait thirty years to be told. She meant to tell this one properly.”

— EMBERFALL, CHAPTER ONE

Begin.

Download Alhora free and format your first book tonight.

Download for Mac Download for Windows
Also for Linux & ChromeOS · v1.36.1 · Free to format and preview