Need a new writing tool: help?
I’m a no frills guy. I can write with just about anything and don’t think the tool matters much. The tool is not the hard part. I write in Word, WordPress and now and then Notepad.
But at the moment I have 3 different writing projects going on at the same time – and I find it blocks me to have to sort out which project I’m writing for in a given moment before I start writing. And I write less. I want to be able to write first, and sort it out later without copying and pasting or doing other medieval type things.
I want to be able to write in one tool, and just tag each post afterwards. Then a month later I can just filter on the right tag and get all the “posts” that fit that project.
Any suggestions?
I’m a fan of Microsoft OneNote for jotting quick notes and organizing information. It is a fairly no-frills writing application, it doesn’t get in the way too much.
You have have different notebooks and tabs to organize information. Also works well for research, pasting URLs into it, etc. You can tag blocks of text with “todo” or “important” type stickies to go back to that later. I’m not sure if it has much web integration, though, I don’t know if you can publish directly to WordPress, etc from it.
I wish they would port it to Mac! I used it heavily back when I was on a windows laptop.
Hey Scott – check out Simplenote. Sounds like it meets your recs – notes, and tags for those notes, and that’s pretty much it. It’s awesome. JustNotes is a great desktop client and syncs automatically with the free iPhone app.
why don’t you just set up a private wordpress.com blog that only you access?
write a post (i.e., “a chapter” or “a note”), tag it with the appropriate tag, and then publish it? and you can always change/add the tags if the purpose changes.
access via any browser, any computer.
you’d probably find this a pretty easy way to get into 5-10 topics/tags for each writing project and keep it pretty clean.
real publishing, however, might require some of those Cmd-C/Cmd-V skills. :)
Cyn: problem is I can’t work offline.
LaTeX. Steep slope, big rewards.
Antoine: Surely you jest.
Google Docs was excellent for this, but they don’t currently offer offline editing. I should be coming back any day now.
Windows Live Writer is a great blogging tool and also let’s you write posts offline. It has decent editing but is pretty straight-forward and supports tagging. All synced with your blog. I’m a fan :-)
Have you tried Evernote? I think it fits with the description you gave of what you need. Plus, you can synchronize between different computers and have different options to work with: standalone client, browser plugin, web client, send an email to an address the system assigns to you, twitter, etc.
I’m a fan of OneNote myself. Simple way to keep multiple things organized…in my case my clients. :)
Scott I use a tool called TiddlyWiki for this purpose. From their website: “TiddlyWiki is a single html file which has all the characteristics of a wiki – including all of the content, the functionality (including editing, saving, tagging and searching) and the style sheet. Because it’s a single file, it’s very portable – you can email it, put it on a web server or share it via a USB stick.”
Scott
Have you seen Scrivener (http://www.literatureandlatte.com/)? Was Mac only (which is fine if that’s what you use anyway) but there is also now a Windows version … it IS offline, though (but a great writing tool).
If you insist on online, I’d probably echo the earlier recommendation for Evernote – plenty of scope for tagging etc, and synchs to offline clients if needed.
Have you tried using emacs and org-mode?
http://orgmode.org/
The Mac product, now or soon on Windows, is Scrivener. It’s probably worth a try for you although I’m not sure it works exactly as you specify. But sort of. It’s designed for big writing projects. Give it a shot.
I second TiddlyWiki. Great for offline work.
Like @Logan : org-mode in Emacs is exactly what you need.
Scott, I agree with Raquel’s suggestion of Evernote. Based on your description of what you need, it fits the bill exactly and it works across platforms.
Hi Scott,
Ever tried EverNote? I think that might be just what you’re looking for: accessable from anywhere from any device.
Or maybe a bit of an odd solution: dropbox. You can just add any document you want (from anywhere from any device). And it’s great place to store images or links as well.
I agree with Raquel and Jeff – Evernote is exactly what you’re looking for. The free version would almost certainly be enough for what you’re looking for, but the premium account version is not very expensive.
Hi Scott,
If you don’t care about formatting and would like to concentrate on ideas, I’d strongly recommend Scrivener for Mac. It let’s you work without affecting your flow. Everything (chapters, text parts, etc…) is very easy to rearrange, divide or merge… by just dragging things. Full-screen mode also proves very helpful. Once you are done, you can export everything you need (everything, parts, chapters, etc…) to several formats for final editing. It also has version control, if you need it.
I also use TiddlyWiki for scientific work, organizing papers, etc… but I wouldn’t recommend it for general writing. Wiki syntax, format, linking, editing vs. non-editing mode, etc… is really a hassle when you want to concentrate on ideas.
Have a look at Scrivener’s website. I think it’s worth it. It lets you concentrate on writing.
Best regards.
Emphatically echoing some of the early posts, onl with more verbiage.
The ideal solution depends somewhat on how reliably you write from the same place. if you are always on the same computer, I suspect the suggestion of OneNote is probably the strongest as it’s the best combination of features and freeform organization.
If, however, you write from many places, then Simplenote (http://simplenoteapp.com/) is probably your best bet. The web service is available anywhere in a pinch, but more usefully it has numerous applications (http://simplenoteapp.com/downloads/) that sync with it.
In fairness, Evernote can technically do many of the same tings as Simplenote, and more, but in my experience, Evernote is better designed as a catchall than as a writing environment.
Anyway, any of these should fit your criteria of easy tagging and writing. Good luck, and I hope you let us know what ends up working for you.
-Rob D.
Just because it keeps coming up, I will absolutely agree that Scrivener is awesome – it’s the single best writing App I’ve ever used, and I’m a huge proponent of it – but based on your criteria, it would be swatting flies with a cannon. While it does include tagging, that’s not its primary organizational method, and I think you would find yourself fighting Scrivener to make it do what you want (at least as you describe it).
Now, if you were to take Scrivener for a spin, you might find it changes your workflow because for many writers it’s really that kind of program, but that’s a more general endorsement, not a solution to your problem.
-Rob D.
I echo the “cloud based services” like Evernote, simplenote or Google Docs. They allow you to write from any device, anywhere and they are centrally stored. Google Docs allows you to collaborate, so you can also share with your editor. Evernote and simplenote allow you a private spot to gather your thoughts.
Scott…have you tried Evernote? It’s free and there are a number of ways you could use the tool (create a separate notebook for each writing project, use tags for each post in one central notebook, etc.). Of course, you would have to cut/paste at the end before you publish, but the Evernote indexing system would help you find exactly what you’re looking for. There’s even an Evernote tip blog at http://evernote.tumblr.com/ and Evernote routinely features people using the tool in creative ways…perhaps ones that would help you organize your writing. Good luck.
I think Evernote is an excellent tool for writing projects. Here are a few of the things I love about it:
– Write, tag and save from my laptop or iPhone
– Sync and review from any platform
– Capture pictures or articles as reminders for later
– Archive source material by tagging online references
– Collaborate with others by sharing notebooks in Evernote
– PC and Mac desktop apps for working offline
I only recently started using Evernote, but it seems to me to be the perfect tool for pulling together all of the material for a big writing project. I love it!
Only if you’re using a Mac…
Saw this review of writing tools on The Brooks Review. Out of all the writing tools Ulysses looked really interesting. Otherwise there’s a great list of writing apps on the post.
Looking at Different Writing Tools for Macs
http://brooksreview.net/2010/11/writing-tools/
Ulysses 2.0
http://www.the-soulmen.com/ulysses/index.html
Evernote for me. Easy tagging and no-touch sync on my laptop, web, phone and iPad. Every bit of writing is ready-at-hand wherever I am.
Another vote for Emacs + org-mode. Great tool. Supports outlines, tags, todo-lists.
If you scared to start using Emacs try http://ergoemacs.org/ for any OS.
It sounds like what you need is some type of “personal wiki”. What I mean is a place where you can just dump all of your thoughts about everything and then sort it out later when you need to. I use my personal wiki for *all* of my writing – my journal, my blog, my project tracking – you name it.
The question is which personal wiki do you use? A lot of people use TiddlyWiki for this purpose, but the downside is that you need to edit all of your documents in a simple text box in a web browser.
Both Vim and Emacs offer Wiki plugins that make it easy to keep a local text-based wiki. I use Vim + the Vimwiki plugin to accomplish this task for me. It works offline and it is *very* easy and robust.
Good luck!
Another vote here for Simplenote. I like that it’s available anywhere through a dead-simple online interface, and that there are also multiple desktop clients for using it (and backing it up) offline.
Relying entirely on the cloud or your own computer to save documents is a mistake. Relying on both is a good idea.
For a powerful writing tool, MS OneNote is much better than Evernote.
If you want to be able to jot down your ideas ‘on the go’, then Evernote may be the best option.
If you want a powerful personal wiki for writing and research, our tool PpcSoft iKnow may be the best option.
For simpler needs, Notepad++ with each document in a separate tab can also be sufficient ?
A quick comparison:
– http://www.ppcsoft.com/blog/iknow-onenote-evernote.asp
Maybe Zim or Rednotebook:
– http://zim-wiki.org/index.html
– http://rednotebook.sourceforge.net/
TiddlyWiki is awesome – but formatting isn’t always the easiest (uses Wiki formatting) There are plug-ins to help it do other things – can be available offline or hosted
OneNote – amazing for jotting quick thoughts and allowing organizational quirks, but not an intuitive and easy tagging system per se, but everything is indexed to the word – so “tagging” your pages could be as simple as typing it out at the beginning of a page; 2010 allows web-snycing with SkyDrive allowing for easy access across people but also available offline — has some awesome OCR technology behind.
Evernote: Does tagging better, organization not as much–everything lives in different notebooks, but the formatting is ugly, a bear, and not compatible with copying into/out of word while maintaining formatting (might seem like a small thing, makes me scowl every time). Not as familiar with the sharing capabilities of evernote, but all “notes” live on the evernote website.
Liquid Story Binder – Nominal Fee ($50 I think) for software specifically designed around book writing – does a lot of what evernote/onenote do, just with more of a book writing mentality in mind instead of a “catch-all” lined notebook.
I highly recommend Scrivener : http://www.literatureandlatte.com/nanowrimo.html
(you can use the Custom Meta-Data features to tag your sections, then search for them and organize simply with drag and drop).
You might also be interested in one of these :
http://lifehacker.com/5689579/five-best-distraction+free-writing-tools
@ Scott re. LaTeX.
no, I don’t (!). It blends well with all text tools including distraction-free stuff like Scrivener. With simple macros you can include or not notes to yourself, move things around. Plus your are not learning a new tool or version every X years.
This is from experience.
As a really basic solution what about writing everything in Excel?
Put your tags in column A, your paragraphs in column B, and use Autofilter.
What did you end up using?
I’m a former user of OneNote, prior to switching to Mac. It works really well, but I haven’t found an equivalent application in the Mac world.
I’m currently using Vimwiki, which is based on text files (“keep knowledge in plain text”). I put my Vimwiki files in my Dropbox so that they are backed up automatically and available anywhere/anytime. My main issue with Vimwiki is the lack of citation support. That only reason makes me think of LaTex/BibTex (no joke! :-))
Maybe you have solved your thing already, but you could definitely try some zenware ;-)
From time to time I use Writemonkey. These are simple textfiles in a distractionless environment. You will know that you are in a different book.
Give it a try…