Tabularia compared with Ellipsus

Branching drafts, in both

Writing software rarely lets you branch. Most of it gives you one version of a paragraph and leaves you to manage the alternatives yourself, which is how a folder ends up holding seven files called chapter-three-final-v2. Ellipsus is the other place a writer will find a real answer to that: try the braver version of a piece of writing and merge the result back. Since both of them branch, what matters is the size of the thing being branched.

For Ellipsus that is a document. Its editor is deliberately close to a familiar shared word processor, with comments and in-document chat alongside and a collaborative tone that suits fanfic and co-writing, and the branch-and-merge works on that document.

In Tabularia it is the manuscript. A draft can be scoped to anything from a single paragraph to the entire continuous composition, and the merge takes you through the differences one at a time with the surrounding writing on the page, or takes them all at once when you are sure. What it is branching is a project rather than a document, so everything around the page is built for a book-length draft — down to a series, where each book keeps its own front and back matter and its own page numbering inside one manuscript.

Merging, and what is left afterwards

Ellipsus merges in one step. The draft replaces the main document, and the draft itself turns read-only. Its compare view sets a draft beside the main text, green for what was added and red for what was taken out, but two drafts cannot be compared with each other, and one draft cannot be laid over another.

In Tabularia drafts nest, and a draft shows in the page on top of the one it came from, so you read the change where it happens. A merged draft is either filed under Archived or kept open to go on working in, and an archived one comes back with Unarchive. Ellipsus has no trash: deleting a document deletes its drafts with it, and only its support team can bring one back within thirty days.

Working with a collaborator

Ellipsus collaborates in the moment: two people in the same document, in-document chat alongside, which suits co-writing and the communities built around it. Its Document editor role can merge into the main text and restore an earlier version, and the record of who did what is the list of names under each moment in version history.

Tabularia collaborates in turns, and that turn-taking is one of the things it is built for. You invite a collaborator by link; they open the manuscript, work in a draft of their own, and write real prose into it — not just comments in a margin. Their changes come back as a redline you read in place, and you accept or reject them a difference at a time or all together, so nothing lands in your manuscript that you did not agree to. Only you merge. They need no paid account of their own. What is not in it yet is two people typing into the same paragraph at the same instant.

Pictures and the finished file

An Ellipsus image can be up to 512 KB on the free plan and 5 MB on Plus. It resizes from a corner and aligns left, right or center, but it cannot be dragged to a new place. A Tabularia picture can be up to 25 MB, a larger photograph is shrunk to fit rather than refused, and it goes anywhere on the page, the margins included, with the text wrapping around it.

Ellipsus downloads one document at a time, and only its main text: the drafts stay behind, and so do the page numbers. Word, PDF and Markdown are the formats, with a paste-ready copy for AO3. Tabularia exports EPUB and a print PDF among eight formats, numbers the pages itself, and can save the whole project as one archive and restore it from that file.

Why to switch

Ellipsus is a familiar document editor with branching, and two people can be in the same paragraph at the same time. Its pricing is subscribe-to-own: keep paying for two years and Plus is yours for good, or buy it outright up front. Tabularia divides it differently — the local writing application is a one-time Local plan purchase. The Cloud plan is optional and pays for hosted backup, sync, and sharing.

Switch if the thing you are branching is a project rather than a document, and you need to find your way around all of it while you revise. The Outline reaches any scene in a click, and an anchor keeps a place you will need again. With the cast in Sheets beside the page, what you check is never in another tab. A long manuscript stays as quick to type in as a short one. Switch too if you need to write without a connection: a project you have opened once goes on writing and saving with no signal, from the first day of the free evaluation. The PDF and EPUB come marked as proofs until you buy the Local plan or subscribe, and if the evaluation runs out first, the book is still yours to download as DOCX or Markdown. And if you are writing a series, Tabularia holds every book of it in one project and manages them as one composition. Ellipsus runs in the browser and can be installed, but its offline syncing is still to come.

Ellipsus is ahead in places. Its spellchecker covers eighteen languages, British, Australian and Canadian English among them, where Tabularia's knows US English. Links go straight into the text. The free plan has no cap on documents or collaborators, and fan-fiction writers get an export made for AO3.

Neither puts generative AI in the editor. Ellipsus has promised it never will. Tabularia leaves the choice to you: nothing is built in, and if you want an assistant beside you for revision, the connector lets one you already use read the manuscript and write in whichever draft you hand it. Name none and it gets a draft of its own, which only you merge.

Downloading from Ellipsus

Share and export in the right sidebar downloads a .docx with the headings intact. Only the current text goes: drafts are not exported, so merge the one you want kept before you download. Comments and pictures come across in the file; page numbers do not, and Tabularia sets its own.