Aug 13, 2018 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.
There’s no shortage of writing apps for OS X, for any type of work, and for any budget. You may want to stick with the free TextEdit, or, if you use Markdown, look for a tool that displays.
Mar 05, 2020 A number of free Mac apps designed for writers are worth considering. Manuscripts is a serious writing tool that allows you to plan, edit and share your work. It includes templates, an outliner, writing goals, and publishing features. It has features particularly suited to writing academic papers. Typora is a minimalistic writing app based on Markdown. Despite it being in beta, it is quite stable. Sep 02, 2011 Apple’s Mac App Store has a highlighted app section called “Apps for Writers” which includes a number of good alternative word processing apps called Manuscript Makers, as well as Distraction-Free apps with minimalist interfaces, apps for Journaling & Blogging and apps for saving Notes & Clippings. Mac is considered as the most powerful personal computer available in the current times and if you are a professional writer and have a Mac machine, then you should consider using the below apps. The new generation of writers no longer need pen and paper. Yes, the brain needs to function the same way but the way writers used to put them on. The Mac App Store has a great selection of diverse astronomy-based apps at reasonable prices, many of them have superb 3D models of the planets and contain an astounding wealth of educational and interesting information. This article explores 10 of the best astronomy apps for the Mac.
As a child, I used to read a lot of novels. My fascination for reading kept me glued to books all the time. I used to finish up a Sidney Sheldon novel within days of starting. But do you know how much it takes to write a book? There are authors who take years to finish up writing one. It is for the ease of all those authors and budding writers that writing applications have been developed. If you are in search of the best writing apps for Mac, the buddy, you are in the right place!
The history behind writing…
Contents
So, improve your productivity with the following writing apps for Mac…
Writing began with stone tablets which then moved on to palm leaves and manuscripts. And then when the paper was invented, books started showing up everywhere around the globe. Writing a book with a pen took several months to complete. Typewriters shortened this time by many folds. But with the invention of computers, writing became super-convenient.
In the present generation, writing applications are being developed which will make the life of authors and writers even easier. If you are a tech blogger, the promising writer, author, then a good writing app is a must!
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What is the use of a writing app?
Though a general word file covers the basic needs of a writer, yet for a more convenient experience, you can go for a writing app. It creates the right ambiance in the system for the writer to concentrate just on the content of his write-up.
Additional editing tools, backgrounds, correcting tools etc. will help you create a better story or article in lesser time. When you write a book, you add various chapters or sub-sections to it.
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Managing all these documents can turn quite messy; in these times writing apps come to your rescue.
So, improve your productivity with the following writing apps for Mac…
Mac systems are widely used all over the globe and if you are a writer or author, then this app is god’s gift for you. This ultimate writing application can be used for focused writing sessions encouraging immersion with the text.
The app also helps you organize your write-up related documents and daily blog posts. It works on iPhones and iPads and you can also sync up your work with iCloud through this application.
It has got a 14-day free trial and after that, the monthly rental price is Rs 299.
Microsoft Word 2016
Really guys? Do you even need an introduction to this app? Popular across the globe for its simplicity yet abundant features, Microsoft Word 2016 can be used in Mac as well as Windows systems.
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Though it is tailor-made for Windows systems, yet it works more than fine in Mac ones. Available at a price of Rs 454, you can find cheaper alternatives of this in this list.
Even the name of the app has got an ‘I’ in it indicating it is made for Apple products. Listed as the best-selling text editor in the Apple store, it is a minimalistic writing application used for focused writing experience.
It is also used by famous author Augusten Burroughs. Though some users complain about its missing settings of preferences, it is this very feature that makes the app help writers focus on their content.
The item is prized at Rs 590.
Just like Microsoft Word is for Windows systems, Apple pages are for Mac systems. But it is not only limited to Mac users. If you have any other PC, then you can download pages and use it through iCloud. And the best part about this writing app for Mac? It is free of cost!
It is certainly one of the best free word processors for Mac. Though it has got an impressive user interface and features, it is not very popular as every user with whom you would like to share or collaborate would have to install Pages in their systems too.
Released back in 2007, it is one of the bestnovel writing software for Mac. It is also supported by systems running on Windows and Linux. You can now easily organize your documents and notes with the help of this content managing app. The app also offers various templates for creating screenplays, fictional, and non-fictional manuscripts.
The split-screen mode and drag-drop feature of virtual index cards make it a top choice for various writers.
TextEdit
The Mac word processing app SimpleText was replaced by TextEdit. It uses the Cocoa text format to read and edit documents in various formats like Rich Text Format, plain text and HTML.
Though it is not a very advanced tool, it can be used for applying various text edits to your content, adding multimedia inputs to it and writing different character encodings. And the best part? It is a free novel writing software for Mac.
A top-notch text editor and writing app for Mac is Byword, available on Mac and Apple app store. You can easily use this app anywhere to edit your stories, blog posts, and school projects.
There are various features like on-the-tip keyboard shortcuts and syntax highlighting that help the user achieve better productivity.
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Sync up your work in iCloud or Dropbox so that you can work on them from any device, anywhere, anytime.
The finest in the industry, it has been used by various authors and movie script writers in the entertainment industry. All have given rave reviews about this app. Tailor-made for the entertainment industry, it offers more than 100 templates for drafting screenplays and stage plays.
You can also collaborate with a partner for real-time writing, outline act, scenes and sequences easily. Apart from these, there are several other text editing features that make it one of the best word processor for Mac.
It also works on Windows systems.
Write!
Yet another free writing app for Mac is Write! Though currently, only its Windows version is available, its Linux and iOS versions are on their way for release. If you get quite distracted while writing your blog or story or even school essay, then use this tool for a distraction-free writing session.
Features like automatic spell-check, tunable autocomplete (completes your word before you end), multiple keyboard shortcuts, support for Markdown, Wiki, and Textile syntax, unlimited undo etc. make authors prefer this over the others.
Storyist
An advanced writing app for Mac preferred by various novelists and screenplay writers is Storyist. Talk about focused writing environment, more organized writing, easy access to all documents…Storyist covers them all.
It supports Mac systems and also works on iPhones and iPads.
With the help of this app, you can now create stunningly formatted manuscripts and screenplays and get a customized high-level view of the story with the help of index cards.
Experience a distraction-free writing session with app Whiteroom which creates a full-screen writing environment. It was developed as an alternative to Microsoft Word to provide a more convenient writing environment. It has got spell check and auto-save feature in addition to basic features of Word.
More the features more the distractions; that is why Whiteroom has stuck to the basics.
Writing a movie script or screenplay? Go for one of the best writing apps for Mac named Slugline. It is a simple and elegant writing application for Mac and iOS systems. Its outline navigator helps you write sections and sub-sections of the write-up in a more organized way.
Just like other writing apps in the list, you can sync up your documents in iCloud and Dropbox and then work on them on other devices too.
The dark mode of the app helps you work in low light conditions. You can also pair a keyboard to your iPad and then write using it.
Tinyword:
Work on multiple document types like DOC, DOCX, PDF, HTML, RTF etc. and create amazing stories with the help of Tinyword. Featuring multiple editing tools like inserting tables, symbols, footnotes, hyperlinks, page numbers etc., it is highly preferred by budding writers and authors.
You can also protect your content with a password and also put editing restrictions on your content.
Focus on your story or write-up with the help of this amazing writing app for Mac. With quick note feature, easy to use interface, advanced markup editor with knowledge of over 20 programming languages, multiple work themes, cross-note links, focus mode, hashtags, smart data recognition, multi-device sync…and many more,
it is certainly one of the most feature-rich writing apps for Mac.
We hope the above writing apps for Mac help you create your dream story or screenplay in time. If you want a better work space, do take a look at free time tracker apps for Mac and Calendar apps for Mac.
Just the way above-mentioned tools will help you improve your writing productivity, these apps will help you achieve more work in less time.
Apple’s Mac App Store has a highlighted app section called “Apps for Writers” which includes a number of good alternative word processing apps called Manuscript Makers, as well as Distraction-Free apps with minimalist interfaces, apps for Journaling & Blogging and apps for saving Notes & Clippings. Let me recommend what I consider the best choice for each of the four categories.
Manuscript Makers
Apple highlights five apps they recommend for this category, including their very own Pages ($19.99). However, I also recommend either Scrivenor ($44.99) or Mellel ($28.99). The other two apps are Movie Draft SE ($29.99) and Ulysses ($29.99).
Scrivener
One of our editors, Tobias Buckell swears by Scrivener, calling it the “gold standard for writing anything larger than 4,000 words.” He also said that he “adores it. It’s the #1 go to app on my machine.” At nearly $45 it is the most expensive app in Apple’s list of recommendations. However, it seems like a case of “You get what you pay for!” It has overwhelmingly good reviews in the app store.
More than a word processor, Scrivenor helps you organize your work and also offers a distraction free interface, even though it didn’t make that list in Apple’s recommendations (see below).
The Corkboard feature helps you gather all of your reference material and ideas so that you can organize your thoughts and create your masterpiece. My college English Composition professor taught me to research and write this way using 3×5 cards. No longer needed with Scrivener.
Mellel
If $45 seems a bit rich, maybe $28 fits your budget better? One of my pastor friends swears by this app because of its handling of Hebrew, thanks to its Israeli developers. Designed for working on long documents like a book or dissertation, it too includes powerful organization functions. For desktop publishers, you will like the layout features and control.
Distraction-Free Writing
I’m not a fan of distraction-free writing. But a few of our writers here at GottaBeMobile and our sister site Notebooks.com use them. Scrivener stands out as the app of choice, as I said above. Strangely, Apple didn’t include it in this category of recommended apps.
The two highest rated apps are Byword ($9.99) and OmmWriter Dana II ($4.99), with WriteRoom ($24.99) the most expensive of these apps just behind them. They also included iA Writer ($9.99) and Writer ($2.99) the cheapest of the apps.
OmmWriter II Dana II
When you judge an app you look at the features and screenshots and then read the reviews. If the first two look good, but the reviews wildly vary as to the quality of an app, it makes it hard to want to download and check it out. Of these apps, two stand out in this third evaluation category – reviews. OmmWriter II Dana II has 249 ratings with 224 of them being 5 star and 13 4 star ratings. That means that of the 249 users only 12 users think it rates 3 stars or below. That led me to download it first.
Aside from the very annoying music or environmental sounds in the background and the ridiculous noises you get from each keystroke, the app is beautiful. You can also change the backgrounds. I was puzzled as to why the developer included these distractions in a distraction free app is puzzling, but once you turn them off and pick a more subdued background, the app measures up to the user reviews.
I like the concept of this app and, if I preferred distraction free writing, I could see how this app would benefit me. I write mostly shorter form content like blog posts, letters and outlined notes for my preaching. But for a long document that doesn’t require a lot of formatting, this style of app would be perfect. I do wish it had one paragraph formatting option – the ability to either indent automatically or to have a small amount of space between paragraphs. You have to do this manually, which annoys me.
Scrivenor and Pages
My recommendation would be to go with Scrivenor if you need a powerful writing and formatting tool but also want an option for distraction-free writing. If you upgraded to OS X Lion, then use Pages if you don’t want to spend as much. You can use Pages in a full screen mode in Lion (see below) but still have access to the formatting tools by mousing to the top of the screen.
Journaling & Blogging
In this category, one app stands out for bloggers – Mars Edit ($39.99). However, the other four apps do something totally different. They let you record your thoughts in a digital personal diary, something I do not do a lot.
Mars Edit
For bloggers who want to write offline, format offline and then upload to their blog, Mars Edit offers the only really good solution on a Mac that I’ve found until Microsoft ports Windows Live Writer. Don’t hold your breath. At $39.99 Mars Edit is expensive, but also clearly the best. It contains a powerful image insertion tool. You can set up the options for your blog to post as a draft or publish write away. It also handles categories and tags quite nicely. If you post to multiple blogs, Mars Edit will let you set them all up and switch easily between them.
I wish that the formatting options were available on a toolbar instead of one drop down menu. You can use keyboard shortcuts for many of them, but not all.
Day One
The Interface of Day One ($9.99) and the recommendations in the app store give this app the nod. The Menu Bar quick entry tool encourages you to write a journal entry quickly and easily. The reminder system also nudges you to journal each day. You can quickly find your entries based on the calendar view or the list view, each of which shows entries according to the date.
The app syncs with DropBox so that you can then access entries on the iOS app ($1.99) as well. You can set a password to keep your thoughts private. The simple interface offers a few formatting tools, but not so many that you get distracted.
If you want to listen to what you wrote, select it, right click and choose either Speech or Add to iTunes as a Spoken Track. That last feature might be worth the price alone if you want to create spoken word documents quickly for someone who likes to listen to your writing or someone who cannot read for some reason.
Notes & Clippings
Of the four apps here, Evernote has to be the most useful for one reason – more people, apps and services use it than any other note taking, gathering organizing or snipping app available on any platform. The other two note taking/clipping apps are Yojimbo ($38.99) and Together ($39.99). I can’t recommend them due to the cost and lack of ubiquity that Evernote provides.
Evernote
With Evernote you can do a few things:
clip info from various sources like the Internet or from email
organize info in folders and with tags
sync info between multiple devices including smartphones, tablets, and computers
take notes, record audio and snap images
I primarily use Evernote as a shoebox for my information and as a notebook. I save things like tax receipts in one folder. I keep meeting notes from my job in another. I tag these so that I can quickly find them. When I take a trip I save things like hotel receipts and itinerary information to a folder made for that trip. When I have a special project, I create a new folder and save notes to that folder that I need to remember.
Mac Os X Apps For Writers Free
I use iPad apps that allow me to make meeting notes with my stylus and import them into Evernote, either by sending them via email or in some cases directly from the apps.
One of my most used apps, Bible Reader from Olive Tree, incorporates Evernote by saving all of the margin notes I take on verses in the Bible to an Evernote folder.
The web interface, iPad app, Android app and computer app all work together to sync all of my notes. I paid for the premium membership ($5/month or $45/year) which gives me all the bandwidth I need (up to 1GB/month). However, even as a heavy user, I seldom go past the allotted bandwidth given to users of the free edition.
Below you can learn how a dairy farmer uses Evernote to help him organize his business.
MindNode Pro
If you like to use mind maps to organize thoughts and brain storm ideas, MindNode Pro ($19.99) might help you become more productive. Mind mapping software lets you visually organize thoughts. For example, if you make presentations, you can set up a mind map with your speech. Put main ideas with supporting ideas connected to the main idea in a visual patter. Create a flow chart of the speech with each point in order and with an introduction and conclusion and all of the supporting material in each of those.
Writers might create a mind map to organize a story or article. MindNode Pro lets you put together mind maps with visual tools. It has plenty of tools for quickly and easily creating charts and organizing your mind maps.
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