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I'm using Papyrus Autor because I write in German [1,2]. It's expensive but superior to everything else for the German language. They're expanding to English us
by jonathanstrange 6y ago
I'm using Papyrus Autor because I write in German [1,2]. It's expensive but superior to everything else for the German language. They're expanding to English users, but only offer a super-expensive subscription model for them [3]. If I wrote novels in English, I'd probably use Scrivener [4].
I'm very familiar with markdown, pandoc, and LaTeX, but none of these are relevant or important for writing novels. As a novelist, you need grammar and style correction features, pinboards for ideas, databases for characters and sources form the Net, easy snip management, advanced typography (especially quote correction and automatic quote conversion), name generators, non-continuous selections, selection by font, search & replace of formatting, automatic backups over network and advanced data integrity features, excellent ebook and PDF export, different views for writing/editing/correcting, etc.
[1] https://www.papyrus.de/ https://www.papyrus.de/
[2] https://talumriel.de/ https://talumriel.de/
[3] https://www.papyrusauthor.com/ https://www.papyrusauthor.com/
[4] https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview
- vidarh 6y agoIt's interesting to see differences in desired features here, because I'm currently writing my third novel, and ditched my previous editors because I realised I needed basically no features - I need a clean canvas without distractions, and ability to do some basic tagging for cross-references. That's it. So now I'm writing in my own editor, in windows with nothing but the text - not even a menu or title bar - and literally not a single one of the features you list. Some of it because I don't want to focus on it while writing and/or because it's something my editor or proofreader handles (grammar and style correction, typography, selection by font, search & replace of formatting, ebook export). Some of it because I'd rather pick and choose separate tools (name generators, backups, data integrity). Some because I've never had a use for it (pinboards, character databases beyond a folder of plain text files by name, snip management). To be clear, I'm not at all disputing that these features can be useful or essential for you. I just find it fascinating how different our expectations are. There's room for a lot of very different editors for the writers market, as people have very strong and contradictory ideas about what you need... The UI for Papyrus Autor looks like something I might have nightmares about, for example...
- jonathanstrange 6y agoYou can define arbitrary work views in Papyrus Autor, including distraction-free fullscreen mode, and there are plenty of reasonable "view" templates to chose from, too. It even has a special "typewriter mode" scrolling. I don't want to advertise the expensive subscription (don't think it's really worth it), but this program has been sold commercially since the 80s for a reason.
- vidarh 6y agoIt does seem like a fantastic tool for those who want more functionality. I'm absolutely not surprised there's a market for it - as I said, there's clearly a huge span in terms of what writers want.
- progx 6y agoYou can use zettlr.
- vidarh 6y agoThanks for the suggestion, but zettlr has too much UI for my taste. I use an editor I've written myself, with no UI at all by default.
- app4soft 6y ago> I'm using Papyrus Autor because... Proprietary?!