4 ms·

Do yourself a favour and get Scrivener. Don't use Microsoft Word or any generic word processor if you're writing a book, sure you can do it but god is it a pain

Do yourself a favour and get Scrivener. Don't use Microsoft Word or any generic word processor if you're writing a book, sure you can do it but god is it a painful experience. I have been using Scrivener for a few years now and I couldn't go back to using a generic word processor for writing now. I try not to recommend closed source software but there really isn't anything else that comes close to it.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Plain text editor with a markup language targetable to PDF is all that's needed.
- satysin 8y ago
  I don't disagree but Scrivener is basically writing IDE for me. It allows me to keep all my reference material, notes, documents, pictures, etc, etc. in a single, organised project in a nicely designed project management tool. I guess I would say Scrivener is my Integrated Writing Environment :P
bigtunacan 8y ago
I've looked at Scrivener and Vellum both and they both look like good pieces of software that take a lot of the tedium out of creating a book and let you just ... write a book. The only concern I have with both of them is that neither seem targeted towards technical authors so I'm left wondering how they handle things like code formatting/highlighting and such
- satysin 8y ago
  Grab the trial and see for yourself? I've had no issues writing technical documentation with copious amounts of code and config sections.
ghaff 8y ago
I have Scrivener and have used it. The problem is that, at some point, I need to start collaborating and otherwise sharing copies. At that point I need to switch to a common format anyway. So I'm not convinced that Scrivener helps me a lot given that I'll have to export well before I'm finished (in my case). Maybe if I were working on something solo for a long period of time but that's not how I generally write.
- satysin 8y ago
  Yes I can see the issues in real-time (or near-time) collaboration as that is not something Scrivener really deals with elegantly. I was talking about it more from an individual writers perspective which is how I use it. I export sections/chapters to PDF, ePub, etc. to send to my editors and technical reviewers. Actually you got me thinking about how I would need to approach this should a collaborative project come my way. I need to investigate this further as that is now an itch that needs to be scratched :)
  - ghaff 8y ago
    For work stuff, I use Google Docs as a matter of course and that works well. It's not perfect insofar as the "it's over to you now and I won't touch it any more" handoff isn't baked into the workflow but once people learn to have discipline around that, it works well. I do like Sccrivener. I just don't really do the working on screenplay/novel/etc. over the course of months to years that is really it's sweet spot. The one time I used it which was really useful was assembling a book partly out of a series of previously written pieces. It was very good for moving parts around although I suppose outline mode on a standard word processor could have substituted.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

Plain text editor with a markup language targetable to PDF is all that's needed.

satysin 8y ago
I don't disagree but Scrivener is basically writing IDE for me. It allows me to keep all my reference material, notes, documents, pictures, etc, etc. in a single, organised project in a nicely designed project management tool. I guess I would say Scrivener is my Integrated Writing Environment :P

bigtunacan 8y ago

I've looked at Scrivener and Vellum both and they both look like good pieces of software that take a lot of the tedium out of creating a book and let you just ... write a book. The only concern I have with both of them is that neither seem targeted towards technical authors so I'm left wondering how they handle things like code formatting/highlighting and such

satysin 8y ago
Grab the trial and see for yourself? I've had no issues writing technical documentation with copious amounts of code and config sections.

ghaff 8y ago

I have Scrivener and have used it. The problem is that, at some point, I need to start collaborating and otherwise sharing copies. At that point I need to switch to a common format anyway. So I'm not convinced that Scrivener helps me a lot given that I'll have to export well before I'm finished (in my case). Maybe if I were working on something solo for a long period of time but that's not how I generally write.

satysin 8y ago
Yes I can see the issues in real-time (or near-time) collaboration as that is not something Scrivener really deals with elegantly. I was talking about it more from an individual writers perspective which is how I use it. I export sections/chapters to PDF, ePub, etc. to send to my editors and technical reviewers. Actually you got me thinking about how I would need to approach this should a collaborative project come my way. I need to investigate this further as that is now an itch that needs to be scratched :)
- ghaff 8y ago
  For work stuff, I use Google Docs as a matter of course and that works well. It's not perfect insofar as the "it's over to you now and I won't touch it any more" handoff isn't baked into the workflow but once people learn to have discipline around that, it works well. I do like Sccrivener. I just don't really do the working on screenplay/novel/etc. over the course of months to years that is really it's sweet spot. The one time I used it which was really useful was assembling a book partly out of a series of previously written pieces. It was very good for moving parts around although I suppose outline mode on a standard word processor could have substituted.