>>620 Uhhhh Wordpad?

>>625 Wordpad sucks, notepad is the superior choice.

>>629 Use Notepad++ Yes it is made by a weird leftist, but it is honestly one of the best programs to keep track of notes

>>632 >Yes it is made by a weird leftist To be fair that's true of most tech related stuff.

>>636 Yeah, but he's genuinely weird even by commie standards for inserting his politics in the patch notes. Still though, it's objectively the best note-taking tool on the market and the coding plugins are pretty nifty.

Why are any of these programs better? I use Word over Notepad because I can do some basic formatting, but I don't need anything beyond that for writing prose. The only things I've found that seem more useful are programs that make it easier to automatically format scripts, plays/screenplays, etc.. But those are for specific uses. What makes Notepad++ or Scrivener more useful for writing things other than notes?

I’ve been using my notes app and google docs. Convenience over everything as long as it is functional.

>>620 I use novelWriter and its fine

>>647 I use Scrivener and it's awesome. You can make independent notes per chapter, there's room to storyboard, you can do so much. My absolute favorite feature is that you can write chapters and drag them around. I plan a skeleton plot then just kinda connect the dots as I grow a novel, so it's really helpful to be able to see the superstructure of the plot as it develops. Relevant notes pop up in the chapter where I need them, and I keep a whole separate section with character details, motivations, relationships, etc. It's so good at keeping everything organized, which is a challenge while growing a novel. It's leaps and bounds better than using a simple word processor, and you won't really understand until you use it why that is. I've only been using it for my last six books, but it's changed the way I write and plot. I'm sure I use it in a very simple way, and that there's much more you can do, but it's transformed my workflow. Oh, and if you do nanowrimo, it has built in integration that syncs with their website and keeps you on track for your monthly wordcount, but now that nano is dead you'll be on your own, but that was cool. Honestly just get Scrivener and watch a tutorial on it. It's fucking amazing.

>no linux Shame. I'll keep using AbiWord

>>620 Emacs, plain text file, git. Literally all I need. When the work is done, I move the words to a Google Doc so the editor can make suggested changes and leave comments/questions.

>>867 if you want a neat trick look at how to automatically convert org files to html. use magit to up, you're gold. html is already what every ebook format sans pdf is under the hood so let's say it's quite literally all you need. that said the real reason to use emacs is that it's the only text editor with i-ching rolls a single command away.

>>876 > if you want a neat trick look at how to automatically convert org files to html. use magit to up, you're gold. I already know about converting org files to HTML and use magit daily (one of the greatest plugins ever made). Thanks for the suggestion, though.

>>620 Vim is the only real option.With a plugin or two like Goyo it's pretty much perfect for writing literally anything ever.

>>620 I use Notepad++. If you want a simple program similar to Notepad, or if you need to work with plain text and plain text only, it's ideal. The name is very accurate; it feels like an updated version of Notepad with a bunch of important bug fixes. It has new features as well, but they never get in the way of the basic experience and you'll only ever know they exist if you seek them out. If you use Notepad, there's really no reason not to upgrade; some of the changes like autosave on exit are absolute lifesavers. The biggest downside if you want to use it as an all-in-one writing tool is the lack of text formatting (bold, italics, etc.) and spellcheck. I'm a translator and the company I work for requires me to use plain text and the company spellcheck, so for me it's absolutely perfect.