Is the app that I use to write almost all of my articles at TNW. I wanted a word processor for Mac that was fast, lightweight and beautiful to look at. Games like episode for mac. Word for mac recover unsaved documents. Since I grabbed it from the, I’ve never looked back. The minimalist design is timeless; I prefer the light color scheme, although I’ve switched to the dark one for a few night-time writing sessions. The typefaces are stellar and the three text width options offer some flexibility for different writing styles.
About this Site Open Source Mac is a simple list of the best free and open source software for Mac OS X. We aren't trying to be a comprehensive listing of every open-source mac app, instead we want to showcase the best, most important, and easiest to use.
I enjoy crafting news stories with the narrow setting – it reminds me of the column width used in newspapers – but usually revert back to the medium and wide options for long-form pieces. Documents can be written in, a plain text formatting syntax created by, or rich text, before being saved locally or to an iCloud account. The app also offers a full screen mode, which gives you a distraction-free space for when you need to hit deadlines.
➤ iA Writer (£6.99/$9.99) iA Writer is similar to Byword, with a minimalist design that prioritizes a clean, focused writing experience over advanced formatting features. It’s difficult to recommend one over the other, as they’re both tremendous word processing apps. You’ll be happy with either one, although it’s worth experimenting with both to see which one suits your writing style and workflow best. IA Writer has a few special tricks that are worth considering, such as Focus Mode, which dims everything but the last three lines that you’ve been working on. The app also supports Markdown formatting, which you can preview at any time in a separate window. I’m also a fan of Reading Time, which shows not only your word and character count, but how long it would take for an average person to read your completed text. Documents can be saved to iCloud and also exported as a, PDF, HMTL and.docx file for.
➤ Need an alternative? Google Docs (Free) I’m fairly invested in Google’s expansive portfolio of products and services, which makes it all the more difficult to ignore.
A cloud-based storage solution and a set of productivity apps all rolled into one, it’s never more than a few clicks away – especially if you’re a Chrome user. Its accessibility and non-existent price-tag is what makes such a compelling word processor. Regardless of what device you’re on, you can just navigate to your Drive and begin typing straight away. You don’t have to worry about native apps and all of your progress is saved and synced automatically. I’m often in a rush and need to save some text so that I can pick it up later on another device.
While plenty of services solve this problem, Google Docs is the one that I often fall back on. As a word processor it’s also incredibly capable, offering most of the features found in. Best of all, it’s completely free. ➤ Scrivener (£31.99/$44.99) If you’re writing a dissertation, novel or script, it can be difficult to organize your workflow. References, notes and ideas are often contained in separate documents, which result in a long-winded back-and-forth scenario while you write.
In short, it’s just not very productive or intuitive. Scrivener cleans up this mess with a well-designed, straightforward interface tailored to anyone working on a long-form piece of text.
The app’s document hierarchy is shown on the left, split into three default folders called Draft, Research and Trash. Draft allows you to split your document into separate sections or chapters, before compiling them into one long document at the end. Media, meanwhile, supports a wide variety of file types for you to reference as you write, similar to, and Trash is pretty self-explanatory. The right-hand side of the app is the main text editor, which you can use to change the current file. There aren’t many formatting options though: Scrivener recommends that you take your finished draft into another word processor, such as or, for final adjustments. ➤ Storyist (£39.42/$59.00) Scrivener has a fairly difficult learning curve and some advanced features that many writers shy away from.
Is a popular alternative that offers a similar experience – the ability to write and review multiple documents in a single window – but with a simpler design to wrap your head around. It’s geared heavily towards novelists and screenwriters though, which could be a problem if you’re writing for another purpose. In the left-hand panel you can create and edit your stage play, manuscript and film script pages, as well as unformatted text files.