Bindery · by The Owlery Works
You wrote it in Markdown.
They asked for a Word document.
Bindery turns your Markdown into Word, PDF, EPUB or a Kobo e‑book — one file, or a folder of chapters bound into a single book. The whole converter is inside the app, so nothing you convert leaves your device.
Finishing final touches. It is not on the App Store yet. The download link will appear on this page the day the listing goes live.
What it is for
Markdown is lovely to write in and awkward to hand over.
It is the best way there is to write something long without fighting your tools. Then you finish, and the person waiting for it wants a Word document they can comment on, or a PDF they can print, or something their e‑reader will open — and suddenly you are looking for a converter, pasting your work into a website you have never heard of, and hoping the headings survive.
Bindery is that step, done properly and done on your phone. Point it at a file, or at a folder of chapter files, choose a format, and it produces the document. The headings become a table of contents that actually navigates. The diagrams are drawn. The equations are typeset. The code keeps its colours.
And because the converter is an ordinary part of the app rather than a service somewhere, the manuscript you have not published yet is never uploaded to anybody — including us.
On an iPhone
Five screens, start to finish.
Nothing on these screens is a mock‑up. The documents are the two sample files that ship inside the app, and every number shown is its own output for them.
Scroll sideways, or use the arrow keys, for all five.
On an iPad
The document on one side, the controls on the other.
On an iPad the file you have selected is shown beside the settings instead of behind them, so you can see what you are about to convert while you choose how. It is a reading pane and not an editor: Bindery converts what you wrote, it does not try to become the place you write it.
In detail
What it actually does.
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Four formats, one reading
Word, PDF, EPUB and Kobo's KEPUB. Your Markdown is read once into one document, and every format is written from that — so the same input cannot come out one way in Word and another in the e‑book.
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A table of contents that navigates
A real contents field in Word, a proper outline in the PDF, and both the modern and the older navigation in EPUB. Not a list of headings that happens to look like one.
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A folder of chapters becomes a book
Bind up to 500 files in the order you choose, with a page break at each seam and internal links that still point at the right place once everything is in one document.
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Diagrams and equations, drawn
Mermaid diagrams and both kinds of maths are rendered into the document rather than dropped or left as source. The renderers are inside the app; nothing is fetched to do it.
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Code that keeps its colours
Fenced code blocks stay highlighted in all four formats, which is usually the first thing a converter loses.
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Nothing you convert leaves your device
The converter is part of the app, not a service. There is no account, no upload, and the app asks for no permissions at all.
Privacy
Nothing you convert leaves your device.
That sentence is meant literally, and it is worded carefully. The converter — an entire document engine — is inside the app and runs there. There is no account, no server, and no code in the app that could send a document anywhere.
Nothing you convert. The one thing that does reach the outside world is the purchase, and it goes to Apple rather than to us, exactly as it does for every paid app. We never learn who bought it.
The app asks for no permissions of any kind — no microphone, no camera, no photos, no contacts. You hand it a file through the system picker, which gives it that file and nothing else.
One thing it deliberately does not do: it never deletes your work for you. The files you add and the documents it makes stay on your device until you remove them.
| Devices | iPhone and iPad, iOS 26 or later. |
|---|---|
| Languages | English only, for now. |
| Permissions | None at all. Files are chosen through the system picker. |
| Network | Not required, and not used to convert anything. Works with it switched off. |
| Account | None. |
| Stored on disk | The files you add, the documents it makes, and a small monthly counter. Nothing is deleted for you. |
| Limits | 10 MB of Markdown and 500 files in one conversion — roughly 1.7 million words. |
| Free | 20 pages a month, where a page is 4,000 characters. |
| Bindery Pro | A one‑off purchase that removes the monthly limit. Not a subscription: nothing renews and there is nothing to cancel. |
The price for your country is shown in the App Store and in the app before you buy. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation. Restoring the purchase on another device is a button on the same screen.
Something not working?
Support requests can be raised without giving us your email address. You get a case number instead, and you look up the answer yourself.