What is the best software for writing a book on a Mac? Write is great and has OS X and iOS versions. It syncs with Dropbox and Google Drive. It supports Markdown and tagging. What is the best writing software program for business writing? What is the Best trading software for Mac? Ask New Question. Still have a question? Ask your own! The best paper formatting software available PERRLA for APA is the easiest APA formatting software to learn and use - AND we support it like crazy ferretsif crazy ferrets were computer-savvy and really cared about your customer experience.
Writing a book requires something major. It requires the right attitude, some solid, and the best writing software out there. And we know which writing software is best for you – and more importantly, why it matters. With the best writing tools, you can write faster and more effectively.
You’ll be more focused, with fewer distractions, and you can actually learn a thing or two from some of them –. And just as importantly, you’ll have an easier time keeping your outline and notes organized. But even if you have and an imagination that won’t quit, you can’t do either without the right book writing software.
You’ll have to make some choices. Nowadays, authors have so many options when looking for the best book writing software.
There are 9 things to consider when deciding which program to use for your book. Depending on your needs, some of these questions may be more or less important to you:. How easy is it to format text the way you want?. Does it have templates available?. How much does it cost?.
Is the program simple & easy to use?. Does it offer any extra features or other bells & whistles?. How about a distraction-free writing experience?.
Is the program user-friendly?. Can you access your files no matter where you are?.
How easy is it to collaborate with editors & team members?. Is there distribution capabilities when it’s time to publish?
In the end, the truth is that there are many great writing tools out there. It isn’t really a question of which tool is BEST. What it comes down to is: which tool works best with YOUR unique writing process? The Top 3 Book Writing Software Programs Writers everywhere flock to these specific tools and claim them to be the best book writing software for them.
We’ll break down each so you can decide for yourself if their features are the best fit. #1 – Microsoft Word Before any other writing tools came along, Microsoft Word was the only option available. Everyone used it. Today, even though there are many other word processors out there, Word is still the most widely used book writing software in the U.S. Millions of people continue to use it for their writing needs.
And it’s easy to see why. Word has a lot going for it!
It’s been around a long time. It’s trusted, reliable, and gets the job done well. It also provides a relatively distraction-free writing experience; much better than working on Google Docs in your browser, for example, where you’re only an errant mouse-click away from the entire internet.
If you just need to wake up in the morning and by keeping your head down and getting those words pounded out onto the page, then Word is an obvious choice of book writing software. No fuss, no muss.
It’s about as simple as it gets. Word also offers some simple organization.
Using headers, you can organize your book into chapters—and then you can navigate through them quickly using the Navigation pane. You can also create your own.
And if you start writing your book in Word and don’t begin with the correct formatting, it’s pretty easy to to make it “book ready” with a few simple steps. If you’re a Word user and you’ve got your own system in place for writing books, then perhaps you need to look no further.
But as a writing tool, Word does have some downsides. For starters, it doesn’t always play well with Macs. If you use a Mac, then Word might cause you a lot of frustration with crashes and formatting. Thankfully, Apple offers a comparable program called Pages, for you.
Word is also pretty vanilla. That’s part of its appeal, sure, but it also means Word lacks some of the more advanced features you get with other programs like Scrivener and Google Docs. For example, Scrivener offers more functionality. And Google Docs makes it easier to share and collaborate on your files. All in all, Word is a solid contender for best book writing software. But there are many other choices out there. Book Writing Software Cost: $79.99 if purchased separately.
#2 – Scrivener You just learned that Microsoft Word is the most widely used word processor in the world. But does that mean it’s the best book writing software? Think about it this way. The fact that Word is so prevalent means that it has to cater to all sorts of users—students, businesspeople, writers, teachers, marketers, lawyers, the list goes on and on and on. But Scrivener was created for one type of person only: Writers.
Blogger and author, Jeff Goins, swears by Scrivener after giving up Word. He says: “I wasted years of my life doing all my writing on Microsoft Word. But that’s all over now. I have finally seen the light.” Entrepreneur also praises Scrivener: “I now begin every piece of content—no matter what it is—with this tool. It has simplified my life and enabled me to focus on the most important aspect of my job—creating new content. I am more productive than ever.” Here are some of the top takeaways of this book writing software:.
Helps with. Easily export your data to other digital platforms such as Kobo, ibooks, etc. (this is one of the best features). Provides outlining functionality that keeps your content organized. Powerful composition mode with distraction-free writing environment.
Easily drag and drop to move sections around. Provides a collection of robust templates.
Supports for bullets and numbers Because Scrivener was designed for writers, it’s super easy to lay out scenes, move content around, and your story, article, or manuscript. Instead of keeping all your content in one big file, Scrivener allows you to create multiple sub-files to make it easier to organize and outline your project. But as awesome as Scrivener is, it’s not perfect. And the biggest downside to using Scrivener is the steep learning curve involved.
You aren’t going to master this program overnight. But if you’re serious about your writing career, then investing the time to learn this specific writing tool will be worth it. You’ll save time and energy in the long run. And if you want to learn how to use Scrivener as quickly & easily as possible, we can help! Here’s a full Scrivener tutorial so you can easily maneuver this program. If you want to dig even deeper, you can also download the, or watch the tutorials they’ve put together at Literature & Latte.
Long story short: Scrivener is an investment, but one that’s worth it. It will take some time to master. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll never go back—it’s the single most powerful book writing software out there. I f you like what you see from Scrivener, you can buy it here: Book Writing Software Cost: $45 #3 – Google Docs We’ve looked at the appealing simplicity of Word and the in-depth power of Scrivener, but there’s another book writing software that more and more people are starting to use for various reasons: Google Docs. Essentially, is a stripped-down version of Word that you can only use online. It’s a simple, yet effective writing tool. The beauty of this program (and in general) comes in the ability to share content, files, and documents among your team.
You can easily communicate via comments, for example. This program keeps a complete history of all changes made to a document, so if you accidentally delete something you wanted to keep, simply click the link at the top of the screen that says, “All changes saved in drive.” That will bring up the version history, where you can review all the changes that have been made to your book file and revert to a previous version if you so choose. Google Docs doesn’t require any installation and can be accessed anywhere via your browser, or an app on your phone. And here’s one of the best features: everything is saved on the server frequently and automatically, so you never have to fret about losing a version or draft of your work. (Anyone who has ever lost a draft of a book understands how valuable this feature is!) Plus you can access your work when you move from one location or another—no carrying a laptop or thumb drive around with you.
When you share a book draft with others, like test readers or your, they can comment directly on the draft using the built-in comment functionality. Out of the “big 3” book writing software tools, Google Docs is probably the least sophisticated when it comes to formatting and outlining tools. But it makes up for that with easy collaboration, sharing, and online access. Book Writing Software Cost: Free.
Book Writing Software You Might Not Know About Just because you may not be familiar with a specific writing software doesn’t mean it’s not beneficial or even better than what you’re using now. Let’s get to know some of the best book writing tools you can use to up your author game and make some progress. #1 – Pages Think of as the Mac alternative to Microsoft Word. It has a variety of beautiful templates to choose from, has a simple design, and syncs with all devices from within iCloud so you can access it in a number of different places. Personally, I love the ease of Pages.
It works great for creating ebooks or manuscripts with a variety of you can get creative with. Book Writing Software Cost: $28 #2 – Freedom isn’t technically a writing tool, but it sure can help improve your writing. It’s a productivity app designed to help eliminate distractions by blocking certain websites – something more than beneficial for those of us who get sidetracked easily. For example: let’s say you have a tendency to get distracted by social media sites.
All you have to do us start a Freedom session that blocks all your social media sites—and then you won’t be able to visit them even if you wanted to. Here’s what it looks like when you schedule a session. This is a really liberating tool. Once you know you don’t have the option of visiting those distracting sites, you’ll find it easier to keep focused on your writing and you’ll be able to get a lot more done. Book Writing Software Cost: $2.42/month and up, or $129 for lifetime access.
#3 – Ulysses If you’re a Mac owner, this might be the best book writing software for you. While you do have to pay $39.99 per year to use it, the cost to use is completely justified. One of the best features has to be the distraction-free capabilities. As a writer who gets distracted easily, this is definitely a feature I look for in a good book writing software. This one is also great for exporting. Meaning, you can do all your writing in-app and then export it in relatively any format you’d need in order to, critique partner, or even beta readers.
And if you’re someone who has a hard time keeping all of your notes and ideas organized for your book, this app also has a feature that helps you keep all of it straight! Say goodbye to forgetting what you wanted to add in that obscure scene you wrote two months ago!
Overall, this is one of the best book writing software programs out there for Mac users. But if you’re not sure if it’s worth the price, you can actually try it for free for 14 days. Book Writing Software Cost: $39.99/year Free Book Writing Software There’s not much we love more than getting stuff for free – especially when it comes to our aspirations. You don’t have to doll out a ton of cash just to use highly beneficial book writing software. In fact, there are many best free book writing software programs. #1 – FastPencil is a nice little platform with lots of tools. You can also use it for distributing your ebook.
It is free to start writing with, but they offer paid services as well. Everything happens online in your browser, which means you can access your files from any computer (as long as you’re connected to the Internet). Here’s what the word processor looks like.
You can customize the image in the background to suit your project to help inspire your writing. It’s simple and effective. If you need a lot of features, it probably won’t work for you. But if simplicity is your thing, then you may have found your perfect free writing tool. Book Writing Software Cost: Free #3 – yWriter is a really popular word processor (intended mainly for novelists) with some impressive features (especially for a program that’s completely free). It helps keep your project organized by giving you space to include notes on all sorts of things, like character notes, scene notes, scene goals, etc. You can specify whose point of view each scene will be written in, and you can see the word count of your entire novel broken out by chapter—all at a quick glance.
One thing that yWriter does differently than a lot of other writing programs is focus on scenes rather than on chapters. A lot of writers prefer this since scenes are usually fun chunks of story to work on. And using yWriter, you can rearrange all those scenes to compose a compelling novel.
I’d call it a Scrivener alternative that’s free to use. But one downside is that it only works for Windows (at least, for now). Book Writing Software Cost: Free #4 – Evernote is a note-taking app.
It’s a great way to keep track of your thoughts—like brainstorming ideas, outlining chapters, and jotting down inspiration when it strikes. The mobile app is particularly useful for capturing new ideas when they strike, since most people have their phone with them 24/7. Here’s what Evernote looks like on a phone: While you can use Evernote to write content—I’ve used it for writing blogs and other small sections of books—you wouldn’t want to use it as your main word processor. Its functionality is a bit too limited.
But as a way of keeping track of ideas, it’s a great find. Book Writing Software Cost: Free, but there is a cool upgrade for $5 a month that gets you #5 – Hemingway Editor The is a unique kind of writing tool. It’s a style checker that’s designed to help tighten up your prose and make your writing clear and bold. Simply paste your writing into the editor and scroll through. You’ll notice that the program highlights certain words & passages—like long, hard-to-read sentences, passive verbs, and phrases with simpler alternatives. It’s basically your own personal editor rolled into a writing software.
Here’s an example of what it looks like. #6 – Dropbox Reading this, you may be wondering: Dropbox? How is that a writing tool? Trust me—it is! While it’s true that Dropbox isn’t a word processor like Scrivener or yWriter, it is a very helpful writing tool. Especially for writers who write on more than one computer, who need to collaborate with other writers or editors, or who want an easy way to back up their work. Here’s how it works: When you set up Dropbox and install it on your computer, it will create a new “Dropbox” folder on your machine.
Any files that you save in this folder will be automatically backed up to Dropbox’s servers in the cloud, which will be automatically downloaded to any other computers that are synced to that same Dropbox account. A lot of writers choose to save their book on Dropbox, so that it will be automatically backed up. And as you can see, it looks the same as any other folder on your computer. Using this strategy, you can make it easier to share and collaborate on your files—even if you aren’t using Google Docs.
Book Writing Software Cost: Free for a basic plan, or $9.99/month for extra storage. #7 – Open Office You may know of this software, you may not. Essentially, it’s a free version of a word processor much like Word or Pages. If you don’t have Word on your computer and can’t afford to buy it, this is a great alternative that’ll get the job done. Here’s what this book writing software looks like.
The capabilities are pretty limited with Open Office but if you really only need the basics and don’t want to spend any money, this is the perfect writing software for you. Book Writing Software Cost: Free How Much Does Book Writing Software Programs Cost? I would recommend not worrying too much about the cost of these programs. After all, dropping $100 or less on a program is not that big a deal if it is going to help improve your writing for years to come. That said, I know you work hard for your money—and you want to get the best deal you can!
#2 Try a few different options Don’t just pick one of these writing software options and be done with it. Sometimes you really need to try them out before you can determine which will fit your needs with your current project.
Make some notes as you work through a few and be sure to put together a pros and cons list to ensure you’re choosing the best option to propel you forward on your writing journey. #3 Nail down your book information I know it might seem fun to get started once you have a super helpful writing platform to use, but you need to nail down your book idea first. Have you created your? How does look?
Without these two necessities, you won’t get very far – even with some beneficial writing software. Do you use one of these writing software programs? Let us know how they are below!
Most of my stuff comes off of OpenOffice. If you buy your ‘puters, new, they might have MS Word on them, but if you don’t, you might not want to fork over the cash for a copy. Then you go OpenOffice. Before PDF got to be the go-to format for publications, I used Adobe PageMaker, which used to be the standard for professional publishing.
I still use it for self-printed works. Unfortunately, PageMaker was created by Aldus, and instead of modifying PageMaker to better handle PDF’s (the PDF exporter in the final ver. 7.2 is not only prone to crashing the whole program, but irretrievably corrupting the file to be converted), they abandoned it and replaced it with their home-grown InDesign–which, to my reckoning, has two fatal flaws: it’s only available by subscription, and it’s Could based (speaking as someone whose writing time is 90% OFF-LINE) There’s also Scribus, with I have on my computer but haven’t really played around with much. So you say that checking out an app that someone suggests, finding out it’s inapplicable to your system, and informing other people of that limitation is “hostile and negative in tone”?
Warning people that there’s a HUGE FLAW in depending on Could-based applications is “negative and hostile in tone”? Telling people that there’s a COMPLETELY FREE alternative to a product that the people who don’t have the money to buy new computers (which would likely have MS Word pre-installed) all the time (and therefore, probably don’t have the money to buy a non-OEM copy) is “negative and hostile in tone”? I’ll tell you what’s “negative and hostile in tone”!
It’s reading a comment that’s pointing out that a product is Apple only, ignoring the follow-up comment EXPLAINING that the comment was referring to the premium prices Apple puts on its hardware, and somehow STILL taking my words OUT OF CONTEXT–concluding that the comment was meant to say that it was an Apple product and ACCUSING ME OF SAYING that I don’t believe people should be paid for their work. I NEVER SAID OR EVEN SLIGHTLY IMPLIED THAT, AND YOU ARE NEGATIVE AND HOSTILE IN CLAIMING THAT I DID. (For the record, OF COURSE I believe in paying people for their work. What I don’t believe in is paying a premium for a brand when I don’t see any quality/reliability advantage over comparable products, especially a brand that emphasizes “the look” over functionality.) And being that this is a writing blog, you should understand the English language better than that.
(Yes, THIS is a hostile comment. It comes out of me when people somehow get the idea I said/typed “turn left” when my exact words were “go straight.” How can someone POSSIBLY twist a meaning that much, and how can you POSSIBLY make your words twist-proof?).
Wow, you’ve really got some serious issues! Maybe an anger management course needs to be in your xmas stocking. Along with a reading comprehension course. Take a chill pill, dude. You’re claiming i accused you of stuff that i didn’t so you’re now just getting ridiculous.
People are going to have different ideas and opinions from you. No need to go ballistic. Anyway, i’m not going to argue with you. I’ve read your unpleasant disqus comment history, and you’re just not worth my time so i’m just going to put you on ignore. Plus also, it’s not fair to other people here to have to read me responding to your nonsense. Hope 2017 goes well for you. Thanks for the terrific link to your instructions for the Book writing template using Word.
I started my first two books – way back in the Dark Ages of Indie-Publishing in 2009 – using Derek J Canyon’s HTML template; Word was a No-No back then; thank heavens it’s changed now. For my next couple I started with the assault course that is Scrivener. I love it, but I teach young writers, and for many of them it’s a technical and financial bridge too far. Just as I was about to publish my latest (which has a section on how to publish) I discovered the Reedsy Book Editor.
Free, easy, fast – and it produces well-formatted files for both ePub/Kindle and Pdf for print. But abandon all hope those that haven’t got easy online access, as it only works there. It’s also not (yet) for complex books – they’re working on it. And, no, I don’t have shares. I just have to say that while so many people use Word (shudder) there IS an alternative not mentioned. Rarely is, except by those who love it. Word Perfect has so many more robust features (Reveal Codes!!) than Word could ever dream of, I simply don’t understand why it is never mentioned.
Word Perfect was the first word processing program where you could simply sit down and type. Word finally caught on. Yes, I come from a legal background, but there IS an alternative to anything mentioned here. Just had to say this. Remember, Reveal Codes.
And easier formatting. Oh, and another thing that might be working against it: Back in the 1990’s, it had more bugs, weevils,and maggots than a ten-day-old corpse. I remember it spontaneously changing fonts (while I was typing), periodically deciding the ONLY font in the library was “Courier New,” and–everyone’s favorite–freezing during the 20-minute autosave (since this was still the DOS era, you’d have to warm-start the computer to clear it, losing all your data.) And I’m not sure about Word, but I know OpenOffice doesn’t have native import capability for WordPerfect files, so you’re always having to convert it for everyone else. Firstly, most of what Scrivener is so lauded for, like drag-drop sections/scenes/chapters, etc., originated in Word. Most people don’t know how to do it because they don’t bother to learn to use the tools of their trade. Secondly, you’ve completely ignored YWriter, one of the BEST writing tools out there, and either FREE or the creator requests a whopping $25 donation, which I’ve gladly given. The creator (and author himself), Simon Haynes, is a terrific guy, and although his software isn’t “pretty” like the typical Mac product, it’s amazingly powerful.
You want drag-drop scene and chapter manipulation? Piece of cake. YWriter tracks characters, locations, times, props–you name it. (By props I mean things like murder weapons, cars, anything you can think of.) One of its absolutely fabulous features is that if you provide times and characters for your scenes, it will construct timelines for you, which almost none of the others do. I can highly recommend it for the creation of your book.
There are also programs like Power Structure (excellent), Truby’s Blockbuster (eh.I have it, but it’s clunky as HELL, and refuses to run on my Win8.1 laptop), and others. I love PowerStructure. If you are an outlining fool, Power Structure is for you.
I like to use it to outline, and then use YWriter to write. WONDERFUL, both of them. I’ve got a Mac. I’ve got Word and despite what it says above, it doesn’t crash on me. I’ve also got Pages and Scrivener. I’ve also got a pen and a pad of paper. I like Pages, but it is a bit short on formatting ability.
I like Scrivener for certain things, especially non-fiction, but all the things it can do can become cumbersome if you let it. So I’m torn between Word and Scrivener. That said, I think Scrivener has the edge for original writing. I then export to word for final layout of the whole. So, for a start, as well as Scrivener, you can try Plume and YWriter. They both have a collection of tools for writers. Second, there is more than Word.
The obvious is LibreOffice, for many the successor to Open Office. In some ways, it’s better. It’s been recoded recently. It has a ton of plug-ins. If you don’t want to use that, there are dozens of alternative word processors you can use.
Some of them, like Jarte and Write Monkey, concentrate on distraction-free writing. Or you can go for a fully-functional word processor like Softmaker’s Textmaker, or WP Office. None of them cost as much as Word, and all can create doc or docx documents for you. I haven’t found anything yet in Scrivener that I can’t do for myself in Word, using simple folder organization. It is the opposite to intuitive.
If you have the patience to learn it, or if you don’t need to collaborate, or if you need to be organized, then pick it up. It’s worth it. And apart from the poor handling of Track Changes, the word processor in it is perfectly adequate. Pity Scrivener doesn’t have a cloud-friendly solution. I love Scrivener’s features, but I need access to my docs from my PC, my Mac, and my Android phone. I need the docs to be sync’ed reliably.
If Scrivener’s makers, Literature & Latte, are listening: embrace the cloud! I’d happily pay more for Scrivener rather than use any other tool. But as it’s currently engineered, Scrivener would be fighting against me. FYI to people about to say that they use Google Drive, Dropbox, or some other cloud service for their Scrivener files: Literature & Latte specifically warns against doing this as it can lead to complete and unrecoverable loss of your work. If it’s cloud-friendly you want, I recommend you check out the Ulysses App. I find it to be the most intuitive, simple, and user-friendly writing App available. You will never lose anything you write, because they store everything on the cloud.
One of its (several) exporting options is Docx. The only draw-back is that it only works on apple products.
But, on the bright side, it works cross-platform, so whatever you write on your Ipad will automatically appear on your Mac or Iphone, so you don’t need to “search” the cloud for it. If i have a thought I want to record while I’m out-and-about, I can insert it into a paragraph on my IPhone, but for long writing spells, i prefer typing on a keyboard. The neatest feature (which i love to use) is customizing your writing environment (page).
My personal favorite is white text on a black page. It helps preserve my night-vision by drastically reducing blue-light. It also keeps me more harmonized with my melatonin/ serotonin balance. Check it out. I agree John. Ulysses is almost perfect; as long as you’re into the Apple ecosystem.
The biggest plus for me is the capability of dragging and dropping the order of your “sheets”, be they chapters, sections, or whatever you desire. You can do the same in Scrivener, and in Word’s Navigation pane, but not as efficiently.
Other good points for Ulysses: the iPad version is almost identical to the MacOS program, and the distraction-free and dark modes are great. The new subscription model is a bit pricey compared to other apps, but if you’re a serious writer it’s more than worth the price of a coffee a month. I use yWriter5 (upgrading to yWriter6) It is free. Mainly for Windows, but I use it quite well in Linux. It does a lot of what Scrivener does, I use it with my work files on Dropbox, so I can continue from many devices. YWriter6 is being developed for Android, Fire, IOS, and other platforms. Still in Beta for those.
Scrivener released a slightly older edition for Linux. No longer supported, but seems to work pretty well and is also free. I’ve worked with it a little. I like Celtx for writing plays. The free-standing pc version was free and can still be found I think, although they have been moving everything over to their cloud service for a fee. I also use Celtx with Dropbox.
I love Evernote for quick notes. Again, free and cross-platform. It is awesome to be able to access the work from laptop, tablet or smart phone! I have used Word, and before that really loved Wordperfect. It was a case of having to pay to upgrade WP or use the Word that was free on the pc I had at the time. I’m also a cheapskate! My first computer was the Radio Shack Color Computer (Pre Tandy I think.) Back when you had to store programs and work on audio casettes.
It was incredible when I upgraded to floppy disk! The word processing program to use there was called Telewriter-64.
You had to type in the special codes to get a lot of formatting and characters. Even with all that it was still pretty productive. I wrote several plays on that system back in the early ’80’s. I miss PageMaker. It made it easy to handle multiple text streams, you could set chunks of text off to one side (technically not in your document, but still in your file in case you want to put it back later), and kern and lead your text until it fit just right. Unfortunately, the PDF export was unstable, the graphics would get automatically downsampled to something like 50 dpi, and instead of fixing it, Adobe dumped the whole package and replaced it with its in-house-developed (PageMaker was developed by Aldus), on-line only, subscription-only InDesign.
(I don’t have home internet, so anything Cloud-based is automatically “out.”) So if you want a desktop publisher that works offline, you have to learn Scribus (I’ve got it, but haven’t played around with it much.) And to say MS Word is “the first” is a misnomer. There used to be an awful lot of word processors around, but Word had the advantage of being pre-installed with the vast majority of new PC’s and basically shoved all the other processors out of the market. (Is Corel’s WordPerfect still around?).
About the only challenger left to Word is Apache OpenOffice (I believe it was originally written for Linux, then a Windows version was released), which has the advantage of being open source (and free). My books are born in OpenOffice. I began using the unsupported Linux version of Scrivener, but it would not work with my current distro. As i didn’t want to re-enter the work I had done I installed the paid Windows version under Wine and it mostly works, apart from media, which I don’t need. Other tools I’ll look at for the next project will include Manuskript, oStorybook, Bibisco, and yWriter. If your package includes MS Office, that’s fine, but don’t waste your money on buying it or on the annual charge for Office 365 – get Libre Office.
Before we start talking about the writing apps for Mac, let me make it clear, no writing app can improve your writing magically, that can only be achieved with a lot of practice. Having said that, using a good writing app will assist you in writing, so that you can get the words out of your mind and onto the proverbial paper. A good writing app does that by providing a writer with an aesthetically pleasing and easy to traverse work environment. It is also distraction free and helps you focus on what are you writing.
Most importantly, it has all the essential features which are hidden when you are writing and only show up when you need them. It also makes exporting your text as easy as writing them. Basically, it lets you focus on the art of writing itself and handles the rest. Now, no one app can fulfil all these criteria for everyone as each one of us follow a different form of writing.
Some are bloggers and dabble in small-form writing while others are looking to write full-fledged novels. Some of us are aspiring scriptwriters while others are trying to complete their thesis and papers. That is why we have tried to include different apps which will suit different requirements. So, let’s find out the best writing apps for macOS you can get today: Best Apps for Novel or Blog Writing 1. Ulysses Some apps are best suited for short-form writing while others focus more on the long-form content creation.
Ulysses is the only app which is equally good at both of them. You can as easily write a novel on Ulysses as you can a blog post.
Ulysses achieves this feat by creating a perfect amalgamation of features and usability. When you launch the app for the first time, you are greeted by an interface which is simple and yet so powerful. The interface is divided into three major panes. The left pane is called the Library which houses your main navigation area including folders, trash, and storage options. You can choose to save the files on either iCloud drive or locally on Mac. You can even store files on other cloud storage spaces such as Dropbox using the external folder. The Middle pane is called sheets and holds all your individual documents.
The right pane is the text editor and it’s where all the magic happens. At any given time, you can hide the panes and only use the text editor to get a distraction-free environment. The text-editor supports markdown formatting, meaning you can use certain symbols to format your text. The idea here is that a writer does not have to use anything other than the keyboard to interact with the app.
You can use different themes to customize the look and feel of Ulysses, I personally love to use it in the dark mode. One of my favourite features of Ulysses is its exporting capabilities.
You can export any document into Text, PDF, HTML, ePub, and Docx formats. You can even link your WordPress and Medium account and directly publish your articles without living the app. Other features include goal setting, photo attachment, keyword search, and inbuilt notes. What makes Ulysses also good at long-form writing is its organisational structure. You can create a multi-hierarchal structure by nesting folders inside the folders.
The easy drag and drop tool to arrange the sheets is another feature which really comes in handy. There are a lot more features which we cannot cover, as this is not a full review, but know this, even though it is a costly software, it is worth every penny.
I write all my articles on Ulysses and have no qualms in recommending this to anyone. Install: 2. Scrivener While Ulysses does well in the long-form writing arena, Scrivener is surely the reigning king here. Don’t get me wrong, Ulysses does come really close but for someone whose sole focus is on creating lengthy content such as novels, Scrivener still remains the go-to tool.
I will be the first to admit that Scrivener is not as intuitive as Ulysses and has a little bit of learning curve attached to it. You will at least need a couple of hours to get familiar with the interface while unlocking its full potential will require some serious usage. The inbuilt tutorial does help a lot to learn the basics. When you launch the app, you will be asked to create a project. There are a few templates which can help you get started.
A project is where everything will take place. For this article, I chose the novel template. Now, I cannot go deep into all the features of Scrivener but I will cover some cool features which make it best suited for long-form writing. The first feature which Scrivener does better than any other app out there is the organisation of your documents.
You can create folders and nest folders inside other folders to create multi-layered organisational structure. But the best part is how easy it makes managing and finding your content. You can search your text by tags, characters, and keywords. You can use the outlining feature to create an outline.
The cork board view helps in getting the essence of your work. There’s also a separate section for research, where you can keep all your research (texts, links, pictures). There’s a place where you can create your character’s sketch.
Lastly, Scrivener allows you to export your work in different publishing format, which is really helpful, to say the least. You can export your work as a simple manuscript, a hardcover novel, ePub for iBooks, and MOBI for Kindle. You just have to feed the required information and it will take care of the formatting for you. If you are a long-form content writer especially focusing on novels, this is the best tool you can get today. As Ulysses, it is also costly but worth every penny. Install: 3.
IA Writer If you are looking for an option which is similar in functionality to Ulysses but does not cost as much, give iA Writer a try. IA Writer gets the basics right. It has a fluid and good looking interface which helps you avoid distractions and focus more on the writing itself.
![Best Best](http://thesweetsetup.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Ulysses-Pro-Writing-Hero-4.jpg)
You can use the syntax (Markdown) to format your text. You can also create sheets and search between the sheets using keywords. When you launch the app, you will only see a single editor window and you can start typing immediately. To get to the navigation pane, just slide from left to right. Sliding from right to left will give you a view of how your text will look in an actual document. One cool feature is that when you are writing only the current line is highlighted while the rest of the text is greyed out.
This helps you focus more on what are you writing. This feature is also present in Ulysses but is not enabled by default. It also has a dark theme to go with it. Where iA Writer falls behind Ulysses is in its organisational features. The export feature is limited to text formats only. The goal setting feature is also missing. However, whatever it does do, it does best.
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The writing environment is fabulous and the app is very light and never lags. IA Writer can be a great alternative to Ulysses if you are ready to give it a try. Install: 4. Bear Just when you start to think, there’s nothing left to innovate in a certain category of app, there comes a new player which changes the game and Bear has earned its place among them. It combines note taking and small prose writing and put them into an interface which is not only fun to use but is also very effective. Maybe that’s why Bear has won the Apple’s best design award for 2017. Just like Ulysses, the interface is divided into three panes.
One houses your groups, one your notes and one acts as your editing panel. However, Bear’s organisational structure is a little different from Ulysses’.
You don’t create folder rather you organise your notes using tags. Any note can have n number of tags. This is a free form organisation and best when you need to show a single note in multiple groups. Probably the best feature of Bear is its iOS client. Although Ulysses also has an iOS app, Bear’s app is more intuitive and easy to use. At first glance, Bear might feel like that it’s a note taking app which is not wrong but at the same time it is much more than that.
Bear handles writing and editing short-form content like articles and blog posts like a breeze. It also has better theming capabilities than any other app on the list.
The only major drawback is that it follows a subscription model. It will cost you $15/year to unlock the pro version, which unlocks its best features like theming, exporting and cross-device syncing. Still, it’s a small price to pay for what you are getting.
Don’t just listen to me, try the free version and then decide if it is worth your time or not. Install: (, Pro version for $14.99/year) Best Apps for Screenplay Writing 1. FadeIn I don’t claim to be an expert in screen-writing, however, I have my fair share of experience in it. For the most part, I have found FadeIn to be the best screenwriting app out there. The interface is easy to understand and you can start as soon as you launch the app. You will learn the pro features along the way. The best part about FadeIn is its predictive typing experience.
Most of the times it figures out correctly if you are about to write a scene heading, a character or a dialogue. In cases, if it does fail to predict correctly, you can use the tab key to simply move between the options. This makes formatting your screenplay very easy. Our main theme for picking apps today has been selecting the apps which help you getting your words onto the paper and FadeIN does just that. Install: 2. Final Draft 10 Final Draft is the most popular screenwriting software out there.
However, I have kept it at second place because of two specific reasons. Firstly, it costs a lot and every new version will set you back additional $99 to upgrade, which is just absurd. Secondly, over the years it has borrowed a lot of features from its competitors which have made it really complex.
Hence, it has a steep learning curve associated with it. However, if you get over these shortcomings and I am not sure that I can, at its heart, it is a great piece of software aimed at professional scriptwriters. Like FadeIn, it also supports keyboard shortcuts to change the different script writing elements.
In fact, I have found its prediction to be more accurate than FadeIn. However, the premium it demands over FadeIn is not justified in my opinion. Install: Best Apps for Journal Writing 1. Day One Day One is one of those few apps which make the experience of using the app more powerful than the purpose it serves. The app just looks beautiful. From its design to its UI and its colour scheme to its typography, everything induces a sense of calm.
The feature set is also huge. You can create multiple journals and each journal can hold infinite pages.
Not only you can write inside the app, you can even attach photos to support your memories with visual cues. My favourite feature is the addition of geolocation data. It helps you to see the places where you have recorded your journal entry. Day One serves as a multi-purpose tool.
Apart from recording your days, you can use this as a dumping ground for your ideas. You can create tags and stars to sort your notes.
It also has an inbuilt search feature which is lightning fast. The app is also password protected which helps in keeping your thoughts safe.
The fact that it has apps for both iPhones and iPads makes this one a must for on the go journalism. There is so much to love here.
If you are a regular journal writer, this one is a must have. Install: 2.
Journey If you are looking for a journaling app which is truly cross platform, Journey is where your search ends. It has an app for all the major OS platforms including Android and Windows. The app is powerful and has a feature set which is comparable to that of Day One. It syncs across devices, supports photo attachment, markdown, and syntax editing and so on. However, I have two main problems with Journey which pushed it down to second place.
First, it only uses Google Drive to sync your notes. I hope they add other popular cloud storages such as Dropbox in the future.
Also, even when you buy the full app, there are certain features for which you still have to pay for, which is just outrageous. Other than that, it is a perfectly good app and you will not enjoy using it. Install: Best Writing Apps for Students 1. Pages If you are a student, you don’t have to look any further than the app which comes preinstalled with every Apple Mac, Pages. There used to be a time when Pages felt like a cheap rip off of Microsoft Word.
Now, things have changed and Pages has become one of the best word processor apps present in the market. The best thing about Pages, apart from the fact that it is totally free is that Apple keeps on improving releasing updates every few months. At the time of writing this article, Pages has received yet another big update. Now, you get a library of over 500 shapes, which are also customisable. The auto-correction and text replacement features also get some needed improvements. But for me, the best new feature is the inclusion of threaded comments while collaborating with other people. All the comments can be seen in a threaded conversation format, which is updated on real time basis.
Now you will be able to collaborate with your friends on a document without having to wait for your conversations to load. That is a huge improvement in my opinion. If you are a student, Pages is the software for you. It’s good looking, it’s feature packed and it’s totally free. Install: 2. Microsoft Word Microsoft pretty much invented the modern word processor and Microsoft Word is still the best. Don’t get me wrong, over the years, Pages did catch up with Microsoft Word but it still has some distance to cover. In my opinion, Microsoft Word is still the easier of the two software while packing more features.
The menus and sub-menus are easier to navigate and the inbuilt search functionality is also better. There’s pretty much nothing more I have to say about it, it’s Word.
If you have the cash to spend, this will be a purchase you will never regret. Install: SEE ALSO: The Best Apps for Writers on Mac As I said earlier, these writing apps can not improve your writing, however, what they can do is to assist you in improving your efficiency while writing. They create an environment where you can forget about technical stuff like formatting and focus more on the art of writing itself. They are more like tools, which in the hands of right person can create wonders. Give these apps a try and let us know in the comments below which is your favourite.
Also, do tell us which writing software do you use currently on your Mac and why.