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12 languages · every format

Download arc42

Build your download — pick a language and a format, plain or with help. Twelve languages, every common format, free and open source.

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2 · Choose format

Your download

arc42 · English · AsciiDoc

Version 9.0 (Jul 2025) · free & open source

Plain .zip With help .zip

With help embeds the official arc42 explanations in every section — ideal when you're new to the template. Plain gives you the bare structure.

These formats are generated from their AsciiDoc sources in the GitHub repository. Not sure which to pick? See the format overview below.

Specialised & tool formats

Confluence

Confluence versions are generated with help and come in two flavours:

  • flat — all sections on a single page
  • structured — one Confluence page per arc42 section
Language flat structured
DE .zip .zip
EN .zip .zip

These are based on an older template version — generating Confluence from AsciiDoc for the latest versions is technically difficult. For an up-to-date workflow we recommend authoring in AsciiDoc and syncing to Confluence with the asciidoc2confluence script. (We no longer run a public Confluence instance, and the former Atlassian Marketplace plugin has been discontinued by Atlassian.)

Legacy versions (arc42 v6) for Confluence 4/5. Provided by arc42 users; we can’t support these ourselves.

Confluence version Language With Help
5.x EN .zip
>4.3 EN .zip
5.x DE .zip
>4.3 DE .zip
Doxygen

Doxygen is the de-facto standard for generating documentation from annotated C++ sources (and C, Objective-C, C#, PHP, Java, Python, IDL, Fortran, VHDL and more) — see doxygen.nl.

Doxygen
arc42 Doxygen template: arc42_doxygen_template.zip

Available in EN only. Contributed by Stephan Lessing, February 2023.

Enterprise Architect©

Enterprise Architect© is a commercial UML modelling tool by SparxSystems. This template covers the complete arc42 structure (based on version 8.2) using UML diagrams and text, with the official arc42 explanations included as notes in the diagrams. It uses only Professional-Edition features, so it works across all editions. Updated versions contributed by Raphael Dumhart, May 2024.

Language / version Download
DE — with help, EAPX (EA < 16.x) .eapx
DE — with help, QEA (EA ≥ 16.x) .qea
EN — with help, EAPX (EA < 16.x) .eapx
EN — with help, QEA (EA ≥ 16.x) .qea
Legacy short v6 .eap.zip

File formats. QEA (introduced in EA 16, SQLite3-based) or EAPX (older default, JET 4). For EA 15 and below use EAPX; before EA 14, rename the extension to .eap. To only view a model, the free EA Lite edition is enough.

IBM Rhapsody©

Rhapsody© is a commercial IBM modelling tool, primarily for embedded systems. This version contains the complete arc42 structure with minimal help text, modelled in UML/SysML, and includes the profile, an RPE report-generation template, and a worked example. Created and tested with Rhapsody 8.2.1, EN only.

IBM Rhapsody arc42 template
arc42-v1-rhapsody.zip

Contributed by Niranjan SK (Robert Bosch GmbH) — thank you!

Other modelling tools

We don’t support additional modelling tools yet, but we’d love to. If you use arc42 with one, please consider contributing!

Format overview

docx
Microsoft Word, also usable with LibreOffice or OpenOffice.
asciidoc
Powerful yet simple markup, used by arc42 itself — ideally suited to architecture documentation. See docToolchain or the AsciiDoc quick reference.
markdown
Widespread, simple markup — documented here by its inventor. The strict variants restrict it further; the multi-page (MP) variants split every chapter into its own file.
gitHubMarkdown
GitHub Flavored Markdown, used on GitHub.com and GitHub Enterprise — see the guide.
latex
The document preparation system — for those who need beauty and are willing to invest some effort.
rst
reStructuredText, heavily used by Read the Docs and in the Python world.
textile
Another simple markup language, documented at textile-lang.com.
html
For viewing the template only, not for working with it.
Confluence
The commercial wiki by Atlassian.
Version history & translation credits

Version 9 adds a Chinese (ZH) translation — thanks to Chris (Gentle) Y杨 and DannyGe — and Hungarian (May 2026) by László Séra. German is currently at 9.1 (December 2025).

Version 8 was released February 2022; UA August 2022, CZ October 2022, FR June 2023, PT October 2024.

Nous sommes heureux d’annoncer la disponibilité de la version française d’arc42 — merci beaucoup à Damien Lucas. Bon travail !

We are so happy to announce the Czech version of arc42 — thanks to Jakub RC. You rock!

We are incredibly happy to announce the Ukrainian version of arc42 — thanks to Ivan Bulyk and support from Larysa Visengeriyeva.

Thanks to Guilherme Weizenmann for the Portuguese translation, and to Pedro Mattiollo for the constructive review. Você é incrível!

Training on arc42

Want to go deeper? The creators of arc42 run iSAQB-certified architecture trainings, on-site and remote. Upcoming dates:

Hands-on architecture training — most classes taught by Peter Hruschka and Gernot Starke, the creators of arc42 (dates with other trainers say so):

Next dates

All courses and dates: trainings.arc42.org · as of 4 Aug 2026

See all dates & register → Training details