In October 1988, WriteNow 2.0 was released on Macintosh,[6] adding dictionaries, character / word / paragraph count, import and export of RTF and MacWrite files, and updated compatibility with recent system enhancements.

[9] WriteNow improved on some of the limitations of MacWrite through the better handling of large documents and the addition of features such as spell check and footnotes.

It was "lean and fast," being written entirely in assembly language,[2] and it was suited for Macintosh users with only 400 KB floppy disk.

The user interface was unusual in that, while the typical word processor had a ruler embedded in the main document window, WriteNow used a separate, fixed window that could be sent into the background, freeing screen space on the compact Mac's small nine-inch screen to display an additional line or two of text.

Due to concerns of third-party publishers such as WordPerfect over the issue of competing with a free word processor, it was unbundled 1 October 1991[5][11] and ownership transferred to Appsoft, which sold it as shrink-wrapped software.

's Apple Applications in 1987 wrote that "WriteNow is the Pegasus of Macintosh word processors—swift, easy to learn and use, and packed with power".