Retroprose
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Markdown text. Press Alt and equals for the menus, F3 or Control and slash for help. To leave the text, press Escape, then Tab.
Markdown text. Press Alt and equals for the menus, F3 or Control and slash for help. To leave the text, press Escape, then Tab.
The text of the footnote. Press Escape or F7 to go back to your document.
Use the arrow keys to choose. Press 1 or Enter to open, 2 to delete, 3 to rename, 4 for a new folder, 5 for a new document, 6 to upload Markdown or text files into this folder, 7 to download the chosen document, 8 to switch between long and short names, 9 to move the chosen file or folder, 0 to open the trash, and F2 to search by name. After 9, choose a folder and press 9 again to move it there, or press Esc to cancel. Star or Space marks the chosen file or folder, Shift with the arrow keys marks as you move, and Control+A marks them all. When files are marked, 2 and 9 act on all of them, and Escape unmarks them. Shift+F10 or the Menu key opens a menu of actions. Backspace goes up one folder. The trash is also in the top level, after the last folder. Esc goes back to your document.
The files and folders you deleted, deleted last first, each with the folder it was in. Press 1 or Enter to restore the chosen item to where it was, 2 to delete it for good, and 3 to empty the trash. Star or Space marks the chosen item, and Control+A marks them all. When items are marked, 1 and 2 act on all of them. Shift+F10 or the Menu key opens a menu of actions. Esc, 0 or Backspace goes back to your files.
Use the arrow keys to choose an action. Press 1 or Enter to change its classic key, 2 to change its modern key, 3 to put back its standard keys, and 4 to put back every standard key. Esc goes back.
This demo keeps your documents in this browser tab only. They are still here when you reload the page, and they are gone when you close the tab. Nothing you type is sent to our server. To keep a document, choose File, Download, or press 7 in List files: it saves on your computer as a Markdown (.md) file.
Everything in the menus and on the key bar works here. What needs our server is left out: export to Word, PDF, OpenDocument, HTML and plain text, print preview, revisions, uploads of Word files, and downloads of a folder or several files at once.
With a free account, Retroprose has all of these. It saves as you type and keeps your documents for you on every device you use. Choose File, Create account.
You have changed some keys in Tools, Key settings. The table shows your keys. The notes below name the standard keys.
| Classic key | Action | Modern key |
|---|
Retroprose saves your writing as Markdown. Type the marks, or use the Layout menu.
# Heading, ## Heading and ### Heading for headings. Ctrl+Alt+1, 2 or 3 makes the line a heading, and Ctrl+Alt+0 makes it normal text again**bold** for bold and *text* to underline it on the blue, green and amber screens, the way screens of the time showed italic. Paper and every export show it as true italic- item for a bullet and 1. item for a number, or Ctrl+Shift+8 and Ctrl+Shift+7. Enter starts the next item, and Enter on an empty item ends the list| cell | cell | for a table. Tab goes to the next cell, and Tab in the last cell adds a row[text](https://example.com) for a link. Shift+F8 or Ctrl+K, or Layout, Link, opens a box for the text and the address. With the cursor on a link, it changes the link or removes it and keeps the text> text to indent, or F4 or Ctrl+], --- on its own line for a line, and \newpage for a page break, or Ctrl+Enter::: centre on the line before some text and ::: on the line after it to centre it. Use ::: right to line it up on the right, or ::: justify to make the lines fill the width. Shift+F6 centres the paragraph at the cursor, or a block, Alt+F6 aligns it right and Ctrl+F6 justifies it. The same key again takes it away, and a different one changes itAlt+F3 or F9 opens a pane under your text that shows the formatting as codes, such as [BOLD] and [bold], [Head 1] and [HRt]. The solid block shows where the cursor is. Press Delete on a code, or Backspace just after it, to remove that format and keep the text. Deleting [BOLD] also deletes [bold]. Click a code to move the cursor to it.
F2 asks for the text to find and searches forward from the cursor. Shift+F2 searches backward. Press F2 and then Enter to find the same text again. Search ignores the formatting marks, so "bold words" finds **bold** words. Alt+F2 replaces: answer Yes to Confirm to be asked at each match, or No to replace them all at once. A match that crosses a change of format, such as the end of bold text, is skipped. The Search menu has Match case and Whole words only.
A line across the text shows where a page is full, and a double line follows each \newpage. The number in the middle is the page that starts there, the same as Pg on the status line. View, Page numbers turns the lines and numbers off, and the text then shows as if they were not there.
Ctrl+G, or Search, Go to page, asks for a page number and moves the cursor to the start of that page. With Block on, the block grows to there.
F12 turns Block on, and the arrow keys then grow the block. F6 or F8 makes it bold or italic, Delete deletes it, and Ctrl+X, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V cut, copy and paste. F12 or Esc turns Block off. Shift with the arrow keys, or the mouse, also makes a block.
Ins turns Typeover on and off. In Typeover, each letter you type replaces the one at the cursor.
F1 shows the last text you deleted at the cursor. Press 1 to put it back there, 2 to see the deletion before it, or 0 to cancel. Retroprose keeps the last three deletions in each document until you close it.
Shift+F5 types today's date, for example 27 September 2026.
Ctrl+F7 adds a footnote at the cursor and opens the footnote screen. Type the note and press Esc or F7, or choose Done, to go back. To change a footnote, put the cursor on its mark, such as [^1], and press Ctrl+F7. The notes are kept at the end of the document, and exports number them in order.
Shift+F3 switches between Doc 1 and Doc 2, so you can have two documents open. To move text between them, copy or cut a block, switch, and paste.
To bring in Markdown or text files (.md, .markdown or .txt, up to 2 MB each), press 6 in List files, choose File, Upload, or drag the files onto the screen. They go into the folder open in List files, or the folder of the document you are writing. If a name is already used, press 2 to keep both, or 3 to skip.
To save a document on your computer as a .md file, press 7 in List files or choose File, Download.
In List files, choose a file or folder and press 9, or choose Move. Then choose the folder to put it in, opening folders as usual, and press 9 again, or choose Move here. Choose the .. row to move it up a level. If a document is chosen, it goes into the folder on screen. Esc cancels.
Ctrl+F9 or Ctrl+Alt+P, or File, Properties, opens the document's properties in four tabs: File has the name, word goal, size and dates, Export has the title, author and date, Templates has the details the Article and Letter templates use, and Copyright has the licence and year. On the tabs, the left and right arrows move between them. Change what you need and press Enter, or Esc to cancel.
Everything from the title to the sign-off is kept in a YAML block at the start of the document, which fills in the templates. You can also type the block yourself. It sits between two lines of three dashes:
--- title: The name of the piece author: Your name date: 2026-09-27 standfirst: A line or two under the title (Article) from: | Your address (Letter) to: | Their address (Letter) signoff: Yours sincerely ---
To keep the block out of sight while you write, turn off View, YAML block. It is still in the document, and File, Properties still changes it.
Alt+F1 or Ctrl+Alt+T, or Tools, Thesaurus, shows words that mean the same as the word at the cursor, in British English, grouped by meaning. Press a letter, or choose a word, to put it in place of yours. The right arrow looks up the word you are on, the left arrow goes back, and Esc closes the box. If the thesaurus does not have a word, it looks up the word without its ending, so running finds run, and you may need to change the ending of the word you choose.
Browsers keep some keys, such as F5 and F11, for themselves. If a key does nothing, use the modern key, the menus (Alt+=) or the key bar, or choose your own keys in Tools, Key settings (press K here).
The key bar at the foot of the screen works like the key template that sat over the function keys: first the keys on their own, then the keys with Shift, with Alt and with Ctrl, each in order from F1. It shows one group at a time, with Shift+, Alt+ or Ctrl+ at its left. Press More at its right-hand end for the next group, or hold Shift, Alt or Ctrl for a moment to see the keys that use it.
Alt+= lights up the menu bar. Type the letter shown in a menu's name to open it, or use the arrow keys. In a menu, each item has a letter of its own, shown in colour and underlined: type it to choose the item at once. An item with ► opens a smaller menu beside it, for example Layout, Heading. The Right arrow opens it and the Left arrow or Esc closes it. Esc or Tab closes the menus and takes you back to where you were in your text.
RETROPROSE 1.0
A free word processor for writers, with the look and keys of a word processor from the late 1980s. Your words are saved as Markdown and kept private.
Retroprose is built on the work of other people, who share it freely. Thank you to all of them.
Once this page has opened, the demo works with no connection: it keeps everything in this browser tab and sends nothing. Only the thesaurus needs a connection, the first time you look up a word that starts with each letter.
You can keep writing when your connection drops, and when our server is unavailable. The status line says "Offline" or "Server unavailable". Your work is kept on your device and sent, in the order you did it, as soon as the server can take it. You do not need to do anything.