Atticus running slow? Here’s a fix…

Being able to include full-spread maps and chapter start pages were important to me when formatting my debut novel.

In 2024 I had finished writing my debut novel and knew nothing about formatting it for print. After serious research and discovering the “go-to” program, Vellum, is solely offered on Mac, I settled upon purchasing Atticus, a windows-compatible alternative.

(If you’re like me and operate only on Windows,
you’ll find your options heavily limited when it comes to
book formatting focused software.)

At the time of purchase, Atticus did everything I needed (and more.)

But when I came back to the web-based program a year later in 2025 to format my second book… a lot had changed.

It ran worse than dog shit in a downpour.

Pages didn’t load.

Certain settings were busted altering numerous things throughout the manuscript (e.g., breaking lines mid-sentence, sometimes mid-word with an unnecessary line break, headings weren’t being displayed, etc.)

What went from a 1-2 hour venture in formatting a 485 page book, increased to a 9-12 hour endeavor with the latest update.

At some point between the formatting of my debut and my second novel, Atticus decided to rollout a collaborative update. In essence, the feature enabled a manuscript to be worked on simultaneously with one or more people (editors or co-authors).

Firstly… no one asked for this.

And if they did, find a means to implement it better.

(Sidebar: As an avid gamer who built her PC herself, it’s certainly not the desktop hardware lacking here. It’s poor optimization on the developers’ part.)

Secondly… if a company decides to integrate a feature, it shouldn’t completely break the initial design.

I can’t remember exactly what I paid for lifetime access to the program (it was something to the tune of $150 USD, which isn’t cheap), but the collaborative update rendered the software completely unusable.

Following hours of frustrated fighting and researching, I came upon a solve: log into your Atticus account, head over to your settings, and opt-in to using the limited version of the program.

You’ll get an email to confirm your decision, and a special link you’ll have to use to log in going forward. But this immediately negated all the issues I was experiencing with Atticus.

And now, here we are in 2026 and I’ve opened Atticus once again to start formatting book 3 in The Fated Celestials Trilogy and the limited version is working as intended.

Is it frustrating to spend a decent amount of change on a program you have to “roll back” to a previous iteration? Yes, absolutely. But the $150-ish price tag is far more affordable than migrating over to Mac for a singular program.

(Sidebar: I have a Macbook I bought in 2020 for my photography business that I’ve used less than a dozen times. While I own an iPhone, I can’t get behind Mac’s ridiculously limited OS and UI.)