The former tend to be more formatting heavy, but said formatting is handled by some manner of web markup language, and so I don’t even need italic type anymore. For the latter, I need the ability to enter text, and maybe italic type. My writing output for the moment is mostly blog posts and the occasional story. By which I mean, briefly, that (1) there are more features than I really need and (2) ease-of-use comes at the cost of usability.Ĭomplexity: What sort of capabilities you require of your writing tools depend, obviously, on what sort of stuff you write. You get a page, you can type words on it, and you can format those words in various ways and add images, tables, footers, headers, references, cover pages, shapes, textboxes and macros, all using an intuitive interface that assures you that What You See Is What You Get.īut I have two big problems with Word and programs like it: complexity and hidden complexity. The most obvious choice for a writing tool on a modern computer, and the one you’ll find most people using, is Microsoft Word or its free, open-source clone, LibreOffice Writer.

1 And in the time I’ve been writing like that, I’ve tried a number of different writing programs of different descriptions. There was a time when I did the bulk of my writing physically, with a pen and stacks of paper (sacrificed three pens to Nanowrimo ‘08) but as my typing ability has improved and my handwriting further deteriorates (and it was pretty awful to begin with) I’ve moved to writing exclusively on the PC. As a technical person who enjoys doing various types of writing, I’ve got some strong opinions on the tools I use to write.

Writemonkey focuswriter