Exporting Your Work

Atlas can export your documents in several formats, whether you're sharing a draft, publishing an eBook, or producing a print-ready PDF. Use Cmd+Shift+E or the Editor menu to start an export. Each format includes a live preview so you can fine-tune settings before finalizing.

Info

Though document level exporting requires a subscription, project exporting is always available, even after your subscription expires. Atlas never holds your data hostage and works in formats that other tools can use.

Choosing a Format

When you open the export sheet, you'll need to pick a format.

For rich formats like HTML, ePub, and PDF, selecting a format reveals a thumbnail grid of available styles in the Formatting Settings popover — a mix of the built-in styles that ship with Atlas and any custom styles you've imported or created. Tap or click a card to select it, and the preview on the right updates immediately.

Tip

PDF style cards in the Settings section include an info (i) button that opens a description popover so you can compare options before committing or see special features / instructions to a theme.

See Custom Export Styles for how to import, duplicate, share, and sync your own styles.

Equations in Exports

Documents containing LaTeX equations export with equations are rendered as images in HTML, ePub, and PDF formats. Markdown export preserves the LaTeX source as-is, and plain text export includes the equation syntax. See Math Equations for more.

Export Formats

Markdown

Export as a standard .md file preserving all formatting syntax. Use this when sharing with other markdown-compatible tools or for version-controlled writing workflows.

Plain Text

A rendered .txt file with markdown syntax stripped, leaving clean readable text. Annotations can optionally be included as inline parenthesized text.

HTML

Web page export with three built-in styles and support for custom styles:

System — Default browser styling, minimal overrides.
Classic — Traditional document styling with serif headings and comfortable body copy.
Minimal — Clean, minimal styling suitable for reading and sharing.

You can also import your own HTML Export Styles, including Ulysses .ulstyle CSS themes, which Atlas supports directly. See Custom Export Styles for the full workflow.

ePub 3

eBook export with three built-in styles — Standard, Serif, and Sans — plus any custom ePub Export Styles you've imported. ePub export includes:

Cover image and author metadata
Chapter modes — single continuous document, or one chapter per document
Footnote placement — pop-up (Apple Books style), end of each section, or end of all documents
Optional annotations rendered as pop-up notes
Ulysses .ulstyle CSS theme import

See Exporting an ePub for a deeper walk-through of ePub-specific options or HTML/ePub Style Reference for the full reference.

PDF

Full PDF export with four built-in styles:

Default — Clean sans-serif body with comfortable line spacing. A good general-purpose choice.
Modern — Airy layout with narrow margins and centered page numbers in the footer. Great for reports and long reads.
Classic — Serif body with justified text and wide margins. Evokes traditional book typesetting.
Novel — Trade-paperback (5"×8") layout with two-sided mirrored margins, justified body, automatic chapter page breaks at H1, and running chapter titles in the header of right-hand pages.

Every PDF style (built-in or custom) supports a deep set of options:

Option	What it controls
Page size	14 presets including US Letter, US Legal, Tabloid, Tabloid Oversize, A3, A4, A5, B5, JIS B5, ROC 16K, Super B/A3, and envelope sizes (#10, Chou 3, DL).
Margins	Style Default, Normal, Narrow, or Wide.
Two-sided layout	Mirrored recto/verso margins for facing-page output.
Heading typography	Per-level (H1–H6) alignment, weight, slant, top/bottom margins, and page-break-before.
Body, blockquote, link, and code	Font, size, color, and spacing per element.
Headers and footers	Page number, running heading, custom text, or blank — with separate content for the first page and for recto/verso pages when two-sided is on.

Custom PDF Export Styles can be created, imported, duplicated, and shared. See Custom Export Styles.

Info

Backslash-escaped characters (for example, \* to keep a literal asterisk) are highlighted in the editor and stripped from the final HTML, ePub, and PDF output so readers see the intended character, not the escape.

Export Preview

Every export includes a live preview that updates as you change settings, making it easy to experiment before committing. When exporting a folder in continuous mode, the preview can scroll to individual documents so you can verify specific sections.

Exporting Folders

When you export a folder, Atlas includes all its contents and offers additional options to control the output. These options apply across all formats, including the PDF pipeline.

Output Mode

Separate files — One file per document, useful when you need individual files for each piece
Continuous — All documents combined into a single file, with configurable separators: none, horizontal rule, or page break

Folder Structure (Separate Files)

Flat — All files exported at the same level
Hierarchical — Preserves your folder structure in the output

Image Location

Subfolder — Images placed in an images/ subfolder
Root — Images placed alongside documents at the root level

Each folder remembers its export settings independently, so you can configure once and re-export without reconfiguring. See Using Folders for more on how folders support your workflow.

Title Token Transformation

Internal atlas:// links reference documents by identifier, which only works inside Atlas. When exporting, you can enable title token transformation to automatically replace these internal references with the linked document's title as readable text. For example, a link to another document would become something like "Chapter 3: The Storm" in the exported file, so readers see meaningful text instead of a broken reference.