The reviewer's reading room.
TextShelf for Mac is for the reader with a stack of PDFs to get through. Highlight, comment, and score against a rubric, with or without a network connection. Your files stay in your own iCloud. The app is free and needs no account.
TextShelf for Mac is on the Mac App Store. Get it on the App Store.
Made for reading.
A shelf is a document you own
Each shelf is a .textshelf bundle in your iCloud Drive, holding the PDFs along with your highlights, comments, and scores. Drag files in to add them. TextShelf never receives a copy.
Highlights that stay put
Highlights and threaded comments are tied to the text itself and sorted into five categories, so they stay in place when a document is revised. If the passage under a note is gone, the note is kept and flagged for you.
Score against a rubric
Build the rubric once, link highlights to criteria as evidence, and move each submission through your review states.
Your documents stay with you
There is no account to create, and the app has no tracking or analytics. Your Macs sync through your own iCloud account, and TextShelf runs no server that receives your documents.
The program lives on the web.
Calls for entries, entrant sign-up, reader assignments, blind review, decisions, and billing all happen on textshelf.com. The Mac app is a personal reading tool. Few panels are all on Macs, and judges who read in a browser can highlight, comment, and score there.
See the panel's scores next to your own.
An organizer exports a review packet
From a shelf's Export menu on the web, an organizer downloads the review packet: every submission's file, named so the app can match them later.
Drop the files on a shelf
Unzip the packet and drop the files onto a shelf. From there you can read, highlight, and score without a connection.
Read the panel alongside
The organizer can also export the web judges' reviews as a review inbox file. The app imports it as read-only reviews, so you can read the rest of the panel next to your own notes. This works in one direction for now: scores given in the app stay in the app, so a judge whose scores need to count on the web should score there.
Free, with or without a web plan.
Download TextShelf for Mac from the App Store, or see the web plans.