# Software For Writers



## aquablue (Aug 8, 2010)

Do you use a program to aid in your writing?

I am thinking about getting Whitesmoke. Do any of you use Whitesmoke? Is it worth the cost?

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## Ilasir Maroa (Aug 8, 2010)

Never heard of Whitesmoke...

I've never had much use for writing programs in general, but why not use one of the many free programs out there?

Liquid Story Binder
yWriter5
etc.


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## aquablue (Aug 8, 2010)

Hmm. Are they good?


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## badjoke (Aug 8, 2010)

I just use Word, or Wordpad, or actual pen and paper. Usually if I'm in the mood to get all fancy, I just buy a pretty notebook. Because the prettier the notebook, the better the story, am I right or am I right?


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## Ilasir Maroa (Aug 8, 2010)

Like I said, I don't use writing software.  But since they're free, what do you lose by downloading them and giving 'em a test drive?


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## Rosette (Aug 9, 2010)

I don't use anything except for Microsoft Office Word 2007. It gets the job done.  That or I use pencil and paper. I don't like to use Notepad because it's just not as organized to me.


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## Waste. (Aug 10, 2010)

badjoke said:


> Because the prettier the notebook, the better the story, am I right or am I right?


 
I use Word for all of my main writing and do small snippets in notebooks, and I completely agree. Pretty notebooks make my snippets sound so much better >.<


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## naaz (May 7, 2018)

I personally use grammar checker and it has given me amazing results so far.


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## Theglasshouse (May 7, 2018)

I tested white smoke. If you insist use the web version. But for some, the dealbreaker is that it doesn't work in Microsoft word which can have read out loud programs. I'd use it with caution since it didn't help me. Depending on what people say on the clarity of your writing as in diction, syntax, or any problem area. Don't rely upon it. Grammar problems don't check for diction or syntax. Nothing beats a human.

edit: I didn't notice this was a very old thread.


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## Terry D (May 7, 2018)

You realize you are replying to an 8 year old post, right?


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## Theglasshouse (May 7, 2018)

Yes, I didn't notice, sorry about that.


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## moderan (May 7, 2018)

Theglasshouse said:


> Yes, I didn't notice, sorry about that.


Word.


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## Jack of all trades (May 7, 2018)

Terry D said:


> You realize you are replying to an 8 year old post, right?



It's an old thread, but with the newer programs out there, a relevant topic.


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## Jack of all trades (May 7, 2018)

Open Office is free and has a fairly decent spelling and grammar check.

Sure humans can catch things that software misses, but asking someone to read your stuff without running a basic check, unless you excel at that sort of thing, is pretty rude.

I, personally, use WordPad for my books, then run a spelling and grammar check using Open Office at home. When ready to begin formatting, I take it to the library and run another check using Word. Then I format and give it to beta readers.


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## Sir-KP (May 11, 2018)

I write using my android tablet using a free app called WPS Office. Opening in word causes the paragraph to be messed up though.


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## Cephus (May 13, 2018)

Jack of all trades said:


> Sure humans can catch things that software misses, but asking someone to read your stuff without running a basic check, unless you excel at that sort of thing, is pretty rude.



I hate it when the software can't decide what it wants.  I find this problem in Word a lot, where it will flag a perfectly valid usage of, say "it's", then it will try to get you to change it to "its" and still flag it as wrong.  It doesn't matter what you change it to, it's always wrong.


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## Jack of all trades (May 13, 2018)

Cephus said:


> I hate it when the software can't decide what it wants.  I find this problem in Word a lot, where it will flag a perfectly valid usage of, say "it's", then it will try to get you to change it to "its" and still flag it as wrong.  It doesn't matter what you change it to, it's always wrong.



That's funny. I don't recall ever having the problem.

Even if this is a problem, refusing to use a software spellcheck is throwing out the baby with the bath water! It's just no excuse for posting/submitting/sending something riddled with typos or plain misspelled words! I've seen many things posted here with spelling problems that even Open Office would catch. It's annoying!

As I said before, I write in WordPad, which doesn't have a spell check. Then I copy the document to Open Office and run a spelling and grammar check, updating the WordPad version. When I'm ready to format, I take it to the library and run a spelling and grammar check using Word, which is slightly different than Open Office. I note any changes required, and update my WordPad document at home.

Now I'm not saying that everyone needs to do it my way! 

But I think most software allows you to write without "autocorrect" on. And there's a button to click when you want the document checked. It's simple. If it flags something you think should be kept, simply click on the "ignore this one" button and move on.

Bottom line, I'm not going to flag a half a dozen misspellings every hundred words just because a writer doesn't like Word. I've seen documents that bad. It's rude, lazy and unprofessional.


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## Jack of all trades (May 13, 2018)

Sir-KP said:


> I write using my android tablet using a free app called WPS Office. Opening in word causes the paragraph to be messed up though.



All word processing software puts in stuff behind the scenes. Sometimes those behind the scenes commands are not compatible with each other. Sad, but true.

Saving your document as an RTF may help with that problem. RTF files are supposed to be universal.


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## Chainspell (May 14, 2018)

Since I write on about three to four different computers depending on the week, I use a fairly new software program called Dabble. It becomes just a page with what you're writing when you hit a groove, it lets me set word tracker goals, and it has some basic outlining tools. 

The biggest seller for me, though, is its ability to back everything up without me worrying about having to save it. I do backups of my own, of course, but being able to easily switch between machines without the backups has been a blessing.


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## SueC (May 14, 2018)

Ha ha -- I read them all too. Never noticed the dates until it was mentioned. You are not alone, Theglasshouse.


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## Ralph Rotten (May 14, 2018)

Sir-KP said:


> I write using my android tablet using a free app called WPS Office. Opening in word causes the paragraph to be messed up though.



I used to use this app when I was travelling with my android tablet. It worked well enough (for free I think it was) but I had trouble going back and forth between Word and WPS office, it would cause formatting issues, font substitutions, and other wierd things.  I finally switched to a windows 10 tablet and just ran the same version of Word on both.


As an Indie I use quite a bit of software to write.
MSWord
PhotoImpact 12
Mepub by Wondershare  
SmartDraw
Dropbox
MSFrontpage
NookReader
and sometimes Sigil


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## Cephus (May 14, 2018)

Jack of all trades said:


> That's funny. I don't recall ever having the problem.
> 
> Even if this is a problem, refusing to use a software spellcheck is throwing out the baby with the bath water! It's just no excuse for posting/submitting/sending something riddled with typos or plain misspelled words! I've seen many things posted here with spelling problems that even Open Office would catch. It's annoying!



I never said I refused, obviously I don't, it's just a bizarre problem for a spell-checker in a major word processor to have.  I just wish people would learn how to spell and use proper grammar in the first place, which judging by even these forums, definitely needs to happen.


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## Ralph Rotten (May 14, 2018)

---awkward---


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## MzSnowleopard (May 18, 2018)

Cephus said:


> I never said I refused, obviously I don't, it's just a bizarre problem for a spell-checker in a major word processor to have.  I just wish people would learn how to spell and use proper grammar in the first place, which judging by even these forums, definitely needs to happen.



I've had this same conflict with Word. When I want to say it's as in 'it is' the program red lines it to change to its, when I do, it still read lines it to switch it back. It's annoying at the least. Can't say if it's on their to-do list to fix.

In my experience I've used several programs and tried one or two others.

The worst for me was ywriter, I could not figure it out for the life of me, could not find a user manual, and when I tried asking for help- people who were well versed in the program were like "LOL" I thought their responses were rude, and unfriendly.

What I've learned and come to accept over the years is that it all depends on you and what you want, what you're looking for in a program.

For me, I like the word / page count and formatting, I was surprised to learn that not all of the programs out there have word / page count. When you're writing for academics these are important.

In my case- with college, my teachers might say "I want a five page paper." With Long Ridge the lessons are based on word count. "Up to 3,000 words."

Budget-wise I need something that's a 1 time purchase price or free.

So, I use Word 2003, even though it's got that quirk, LOL.

I also use templates, documents that have been preformatted which I copy my text onto.

My advice- think about your needs and search for a program that has what you're looking for.


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## moderan (May 18, 2018)

I use word of various vintages and an obsolete thing called QuickPlot (not the same as the current open-source app) that separates the chapters and such. The last thing I need is software complicating the process.


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## Cephus (May 19, 2018)

MzSnowleopard said:


> I've had this same conflict with Word. When I want to say it's as in 'it is' the program red lines it to change to its, when I do, it still read lines it to switch it back. It's annoying at the least. Can't say if it's on their to-do list to fix.



Since it still exists in my Word 2013, and I've seen it in Word 2016, obviously not.  But when I'm writing, I hate seeing words underlined, it just bugs me, especially if I'm not making any mistakes and it's the word processor that's screwed up.  Having to go back and click "ignore" constantly gets in the way of the work flow.



> The worst for me was ywriter, I could not figure it out for the life of me, could not find a user manual, and when I tried asking for help- people who were well versed in the program were like "LOL" I thought their responses were rude, and unfriendly.



I've tried a lot over the years, including Scrivener, which everyone seems to love, but I never found it all that useful.  It's great for converting formats, but for the actual writing process, there's nothing there I can't do just as well or better in Word.



> For me, I like the word / page count and formatting, I was surprised to learn that not all of the programs out there have word / page count. When you're writing for academics these are important.



I just want to sit down and write.  I have a formatted template that approximates published books and so long as I can just put words on the page, I'm happy.  Every other program I've tried has so much set up that it gets in the way of just producing words.



> Budget-wise I need something that's a 1 time purchase price or free.



I refuse to pay a monthly fee for anything.  But for a one-time purchase, I don't care.  I've bought $1000 software packages, but the second they want me to keep paying them over and over and over again, I stop upgrading.


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## Ralph Rotten (May 19, 2018)

Word does it best, and I've been using word processors since they were called 'Text Editors'.


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## MzSnowleopard (May 21, 2018)

It's like my Daddy used to say - "if it works, stick with it."

If you've found a method that works for you, stick with it.


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## tracy18 (May 25, 2018)

I recently stumbled upon this app for making flashcards and I thought it would be an interesting experiment to create character outlines with the help of flashcards. To my surprise, I found flashcards to be extremely useful in detailing of characters. Since my story has multiple POVs, it was really helpful to have character traits, their likes and their dislikes written in easily accessible flashcards. Thanks to this trick, I remember traits of all my characters like the back of my hand!


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## MzSnowleopard (May 25, 2018)

I have full blown profiles on most of the characters in The Zodiac Chronicles. I need to do this for the other series. Flashcards sound like an awesome resource, especially for quick references.


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## Bayview (May 26, 2018)

I think the usefulness of software varies depending on how you write. Most people I know who love Scrivener are non-linear writers - they outline, then write a scene from here, a scene from there, and Scrivener helps keep things organized and glues everything together. Most people I know who stick with simple word processors are linear writers who start at the beginning and write straight through to the end. If you don't need Scrivener's organizational tools, they just get in the way.

And most people I know who insist on Word are writers who are at a stage when they're frequently sending versions back and forth to their editors and want to avoid any glitches with the Track Changes function that may come up if you're switching between programs. Word may or may not be the best tool for the job, but it's definitely the industry standard.


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## Pete_C (Jun 14, 2018)

I’ve always used Word for text and OneNote for organising and notes. I create. A notebook for a projects and everything goes in there. Each chapter is a separate word file and I build a table with each version saved so I can always track back.

Today I was loading up a new laptop for writing and decided to take a look at Scrivener. I liked the options but found the software very unstable. The laptop is i7 and with virtually nothing on it but Scrivener either refused to launch or stopped responding. A quick google showed the issue to be well documented over several years and clearly hasn’t been addressed. I know a new version is planned, but I found reported issue over a four year span. These included several people who had lost their work.

For the same cost of Scrivener for a PC and mobile device I can have Office 365 for three devices. Scrivener looks good in theory but I can’t trust software that has been using workarounds for four years, plus I didn’t see anything that OneNote can’t do better.


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## sigmadog (Jun 14, 2018)

I'm in the "just getting started" phase of outlining/writing. I use Scrivener 3 (Mac) and have not had any problems.

I like the outlining tool and the index card functions because, like Bayview said, I'm one that likes to jump around a bit and Scrivener makes that easy.

I also use Dropbox to keep the files up to date on both my desktop and laptop so I don't have to worry about copying things over, it just happens automatically.


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## Pete_C (Jun 15, 2018)

sigmadog said:


> I'm in the "just getting started" phase of outlining/writing. I use Scrivener 3 (Mac) and have not had any problems.


From what I’ve read and my experience, the isssue is with the Windows version, which is still V1.


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