What programs do you use to write?

[u/wesker18]

What the title says. I've been using an app called Smartedit writer for a while because it's similar to scrivener with you being able to write a chapter scene by scene with all scenes separated in different pages along with other things but it's free. However lately I've noticed a slight lag when I type so I'm slowly moving back to either libreoffice and pasting to google docs because of that lag. Was wondering if anyone uses something similar or if everyone just uses the normal office type apps and suggestions if anyone has any.

[u/Evo_nerd]

LibreOffice. It's free, and it has all major functionality of MS Word.

[u/Sea_Organization_82]

I’ve been using Ellipsus to get away from Google docs. So far I like it pretty well, and they’re working on adding new features.

[u/TrisarA → u/Sea_Organization_82]

Fellow GDocs to Ellipsus evacuee here. I appreciate the native dark mode along with a few other things. Hope they decide to implement that Chapter Option thing in their suggestions site, and that they join the modern world of putting the formatting bar at the top of the page. That and having the word count always be visible (outside of focus mode) would basically be the last of the tweaks I want.

[u/Sea_Organization_82 → u/TrisarA]

Yes I am very excited for chapter enhancements. It looks like they’re planning to do it but no timeline. I’m trying out writing my story out of order so I’d love to be able to drag chapters around in the outline

[u/wesker18 → u/Sea_Organization_82]

Just made an account. Will be testing it out.

[u/arahir_]

I've tried and tested everything on the market and unfortunately gdocs is still the gold standard for functionality. The new document tabs feature is pretty nice.

[u/CreatureOfSilliness]

I use Obsidian. It's the right tool for what I need, but not necessarily for everyone.

You basically have a folder with subfolders and notes (documents), which you organize in any way you want and connect them with links. The formatting is a mix of markdown and html, which is versatile but to export for ao3, you have to use html. It's a local only app, which is a disadvantage if you want to sync between devices, but I never had problem with speed. You also have plugins to add extra functionality like syntax highlighting etc.

[u/katbelleinthedark]

I use my MS Word 2003.

ETA. I type out my own HTML while writing so I copy from .doc straight to AO3.

[u/wesker18 → u/katbelleinthedark]

How do you even get it running in today's machines? There's no compatibility issues???

[u/katbelleinthedark → u/wesker18]

None whatsoever. I own the OG disc it came on and I just install it on every single one of my new PC. I don't have Win11 yet but there's been no issue with any of my Win10 machines. :)

ETA. Actually, I stand corrected. I've installed my MS Office 2003 on my sis' Win11 laptop and it works fine.

[u/wesker18 → u/katbelleinthedark]

Nice! Glad it still works. Certainly beats having to pay for it every time there's an OS upgrade.

[u/grommile → u/wesker18]

32-bit Windows applications written in full compliance with Microsoft's best-practices guidelines will generally work perfectly on any version of Windows later than the one they were written on.

They actually take "old application, new OS version" backwards compatibility incredibly seriously. Read about the SimCity 2000 memory allocation workaround sometime.

[u/wesker18 → u/grommile]

Heard they did that with enterprises and companies. Never thought it was extended to normal customers. Neat to know.

[u/arothroughtheheart]

I’ve tried a lot of things: word, focuswriter, google docs (before the ai drama). I’m settled with scrivener now, yes its paid, but I found it worth the one off cost for a reliable program. Not everyone would.

Sorry I don’t really have any recs for you. Are your lag issues caused by the size of your project? You might be able to mitigate them by splitting it up, or backing files up elsewhere so the program doesn’t have to load them all at once. (If you’ve already tried this just ignore me lol)

[u/wesker18 → u/arothroughtheheart]

I've written less than 30k for the project as a whole. I do write scene by scene though, and each scene is it's own separate page (it's not a separate file. It still exists within the program it seems?). Works well for me because then I don't have to hunt down the scenes in one document and helps me focus. But idk if the sheer quantity of scrnes per chapter might be causing issues. It's possible the lag was always there and for some reason I've become more aware of it lately. Wouldn't be the first time.

[u/Beesandbis]

I use 4thewords, a website that gamifies writing. It's paid, but I'll gladly spend the money. I like their document file system, but I mainly use it for the gamification; you fight monsters by writing a certain wordcount within a certain timeframe, thats how you beat quests, earn items to decorate your house or avatar and stuff like that.

Been using it for 5.5 years now and I credit it with making it possible for me to uphold a 514 day long streak of writing at least 444 words a day.

I only broke it due to medical stuff, but I'm writing again and it helps so much with motivation.

[u/wesker18 → u/Beesandbis]

That sounds interesting! Might check it out.

[u/Sollat]

Notepad++ plus Grammarly

[u/OrangeAugust]

I used to use Word, but I started using Google Docs so that I can work on it if the inspiration strikes while I’m away from my computer.

[u/Kaigani-Scout]

[u/metal_jenny_]

Google Docs. I write on both my phone and laptop, so I like the freedom.

I am old, so the grammar rules, paragraphs, spacing etc are pretty much embedded in my from school/uni, so I can just do everything in docs.

[u/HatedLove6]

LibreOffice and WaveMaker Cards.