Scrivener is a powerhouse of writing tools and is a popular favorite among Mac users. One of Scrivener’s strongpoints is that it gives you the freedom to compose the way you think, using various components and pieces that you can easily combine into a cohesive whole. Writers are always looking for new tools to improve their writing and their writing habits. If you own any form of the Mac computer and Apple devices like I do, it can often be difficult to determine what tools are excellent and which aren’t, judging purely on what other people say. Write beautifully on iPhone, iPad, and Mac Bear is a beautiful, flexible writing app for crafting notes and prose. Mac App Store Subscribe. Get updates on Bear progress. Bear's simple tools take the effort out of writing, whether you need to hit specific word counts and reading times.
Some tools have been making it easier for me to write lately, and I thought I'd share them with you. Over the course of the last three weeks, I've found them indispensable. They're all free, and all worthwhile.
FlyCut
Flycut is a dead simple clipboard utility that puts what you copy to the clipboard into a stack. This way, you don't have to go back and find where that link was when you copied it, you can just get to it through the keyboard. I've used a bunch of highfalutin' keyboard managers in the past, but this is the one that has stuck with me the longest. To access your clipboard history, you just press shift when you want to paste, and you can flash through your entire history. It's free.
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MOU
MOW is a markdown editor for the Mac. Markdown is a text syntax that lets you get straight to writing, rather than worrying too much about formatting. The Information Diet was written originally in Markdown, and this blog is written in Markdown. MOU is a very simple editor that lets you see how your markdown will look as you type it in real time. What's useful is that it also allows you to assign a stylesheet to the editor preview. So as I'm writing this blog post, it looks exactly how it will look on InformationDiet.com.
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BetterTouchTool
Better Touch Tool allows you to take full advantage of the multitouch trackpad on your mac. I set up two gestures that have made my life a lot easier. For me, it does for the trackpad what Divvy does for the keyboard. A three finger swipe to the left makes my current window maximize to half the screen on the left, and a three finger swipe to the right puts another window on the right. So if I want to write something, and have a browser window open to reference it, I never have to worry about resizing a window.
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DashExpander![]()
DashExpander is a text expander — you type in an abbreviation, and it expands the text to what you want. I never type in http://www.informationdiet.com, for instance, when I'm typing. I just type in 'id.c'. This is useful for other things too, like always having links that you want to constantly share on-hand, like links to my Amazon page (which is 'booklink'). It also sync with Dropbox which is very useful.
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Other free tools I use that I can't live without these days (and that I've mentioned before): Dropbox and Alfred. Of course there's also the recommended tools for a good Information Diet — but those are more focused on the consumption side than the production side.
Now if there was only a free copy-editor..
Free Mac Tools That Make Writing Easier | The Information Diet
Author Clay Johnson believes that, much like junk food leads to obesity and health problems, junk information is killing our productivity, efficiency, and worse, feeding ignorance. His new book, The Information Diet, discusses this problem in depth. He was formerly the director of Sunlight Labs at the Sunlight Foundation and founder of Blue State Digital - the technology company behind Barack Obama's web site.
Mac Writing App
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Want to see your work here? Send an email to [email protected]!
Available free on the Mac App Store, iBooks Author is an amazing app that allows anyone to create beautiful textbooks — and just about any other kind of book — for iPad, iPhone, and Mac. With galleries, video, interactive diagrams, 3D objects, mathematical expressions, and more, these books bring content to life in ways the printed page never could.
Download iBooks Author free from the Mac App Store
You might want to begin with a blank page and let your imagination guide you. But if that’s a little intimidating, just start with a beautiful Apple-designed template. Choose from a variety of styles, like classic textbook, cookbook, or photo book, in both landscape and portrait orientations. And you can choose from a number of page layouts in each template or create one of your own.
iBooks Author makes it simple to add text, graphics, movies, and more, so your book looks exactly the way you want. Drag and drop a Pages or Microsoft Word document to the Book pane to add it as a new section. Then, when you drag and drop in images, your text automatically flows around them. You can even import Adobe InDesign and EPUB files and edit them to perfection in iBooks Author.
iBooks Author has everything you need to create a great-looking book — beyond the written word. Add shapes, charts, tables, text, and widgets anywhere on the page with a single click. Style your text down to the letter with custom fonts, write elegant mathematical expressions using LaTeX or MathML, and add video or audio elements to liven up the read.
Widgets add Multi-Touch magic to books on iPad, iPhone, and Mac. They bring your reader swipe-friendly photo galleries, animations that burst off the page, scrolling sidebars to linger over, Pop-Over widgets for an element of surprise, and engrossing 3D objects that are entertaining and interactive. And widgets can be set to play automatically, offering your readers a fun surprise when they turn the page. With iBooks Author, it’s easy to create a book that’s as much fun to explore as it is to read.
Add beautiful, interactive elements to your book with just a few clicks. See all widgets
iBooks Author lets you create books that people with disabilities can read and experience. The table of contents, glossary, widgets, main text, and more are built to automatically take advantage of VoiceOver technology. Add accessibility descriptions to any widget or media — including movies and reviews — so those with vision impairments can use them.
Free Writing Apps For Mac
As you’re editing, use iBooks Author to preview your book on iPad, iPhone, or Mac. When you’re ready to publish, iBooks Author walks you through a step-by-step process to help you submit it to iBooks for purchase or free download. And to keep your work current, add updates by publishing new versions of your original title. iBooks will automatically notify your readers that a new version of your book is ready to download.
Writer Software For Mac
You can also export your book to share on iTunes U or to give to anyone with an iPad, iPhone, or Mac. Learn how to publish to iBooks
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