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Word alternatives

The New York Times’ Virginia Heffernan has written a great (and amusing) account of her attempt to follow in the footsteps of author Steven Poole by ridding herself of MS Word. The article is well worth reading in its entirety. However, should you prefer to do your own exploring or comparison shopping, I’ve provided links to the various Word alternatives that Ms. Heffernan deemed worthy of a mention or more:

Mac users might consider any of the following: Scrivener, Ulysses, Nisus Writer, CopyWrite, Avenir, Jer’s Novel Writer, WriteRoom.

For PC users, options include NewNovelist, StoryView and Liquid Story Binder, all of which “get raves,” according to Heffernan.

Beware that costs for these software range from nearly free to just under $200, so you’ll want to shop with value in mind.

Heffernan pays particular attention in her piece to Scrivener and WriteRoom. Just by virtue of its name, Scrivener, Heffernan writes, “roots for the writer and not for the final product — the stubborn Word.” Heffernan uses Scrivener to introduce her favorite feature of the best Word alternatives: full-screen composition mode, which Heffernan suggests comes to full fruition with WriteRoom. WriteRoom is described by its developers as “distraction-free writing” for “people who enjoy the simplicity of a typewriter, but live in the digital world.” The program’s retro features include green type on a black background. I imagine that not all users will consider that feature a plus.

Maybe six years ago, I tried another Word alternative, Mariner Write. While using it, I encountered an issue that Heffernan’s article doesn’t tackle: file compatibility. If memory serves, to produce documents in Mariner Write that were readable by those who use MS Word, I had to save all my documents as Rich Text Files (.rtf), a practice that, in professional settings, can produce embarrassing formatting surprises. Using Word, you have some reasonable assurance that what you send is what they see, and that surety may be more important than it may seem upon initial consideration. Perhaps the happy medium is composing in a Word alternative of your choice, then sending it out to the world in the format that, rightly or wrongly, nearly everyone uses.