When our species first looked up from the primordial soup, we probably wrote a blog about it in a word processor called WordStar. Then came fire and WordPerfect. For word processing I click on the icon that looks like white papers with a big 'A' and a yellow pencil. This is labeled 'Appleworks 6'. When I click on it, a blank sheet of 'paper' appears on the screen. However if you need a fully bodied word processor such as MS Word, there are many alternatives available. Anything from free on-line applications to Apple's Pages app (about $20) to MS Office for Mac which includes Word, Excel & Powerpoint. Next came civilization and the dawn of unrecoverable documents with (From $70/year). At each stage, there was one word processor everybody used and which we all used for everything. Those days are gone and we wave them goodbye very happily. For in at least the last ten years and most certainly since the App Store, our options for writing tools have ballooned. It is brilliant. Whatever you write, there is a tool that is not only right for you but which you will relish. Mac for dental office waiting room. If you spend a lot of time writing, having great tools is superb but also have a bit of relish helps. Today we have several word processors that aim to do everything but then we also have specialized ones for screenwriters. We've got text editors that suit your shopping list or your writing in the Swift programming language. We've got apps that will let you make a sleepy note on your iPhone in the dead of night and have it there waiting for you on your Mac in the morning. If you're just now looking to write on Macs or iOS, start here. If you're a decades-long old hand, start again here anyway. For until you see what's possible now, you won't imagine just how much has been done to making writing better, faster and more delightful. It gets no more basic than this To make that shopping list or to jot down a phone message, you need a note-taking app and you've already got one. On your Mac, there's TextEdit (free) which is so simple and basic that you'd think you've stepped back to computers of the 1980s. However, it's so simple and basic, it so very much does not add complexity or Microsoft Word-like formatting that TextEdit is also beloved of a certain type of programmer. They're specifically the programmers who have not yet heard of ($49.99). Only, look at that. We're barely a pixel into this and we've just gone from the most basic, free note taking app to one that is paid-for and incredibly powerful for specialized users. You're going to see this throughout the range of writing apps available as every one of them tries to add more features in order to get your custom. You're also going to see Apple coming bounding up behind them with new or improved features in its own apps. So much so that it's possible you didn't even know TextEdit was on your Mac: Apple is never going to make a presentation about it. Whereas they have made presentations about Apple Notes (free). This was a mildly handy iPhone app for writing stray thoughts down before you forgot them but now it's moved up to the next level. Note-taking apps Apple Notes, (from free), (in Office 365 subscription from $70, (free), (from free), ($49.99) and steadily more make up this next class of app. They're still not Word replacements, they're still not for writing your novel or your medical textbook. Yet you could use them for that. Don't do it, and especially don't listen to the developers who insist people have written their novels in these apps. While it's possible to do so on literally any tool, it's also a slog and we're supposed to be about making writing better and easier, not something that's possible with slogging. Take it, though, as a measure of how powerful this class of app is. You can type anything into any of them, you can do a certain amount of formatting to make the text look nice. You can't do indexing, you can't do cross-referencing, you can't write twenty chapters and easily move five of them around. What these note apps bring you that is crucial, though, is the ability to write on whichever device you happen to have nearest. Turn to your Mac to type thousands of words and every one of them is also on your iPhone and iPad. With the exception of Google Keep, which is more a visual tool and suited to a few short notes, each of these offers the same core features. They're on both platforms, they're fast, they mean you can have all of your work with you wherever you go. If this is the class of writing app for you, you could pick any of them and you'd be happy. However, if you use Microsoft's apps a lot for writing or anything else, go with Microsoft OneNote because it fits in particularly well. Today it's a little harder than it was to pin down the people Evernote is best for because it's broad and the competition is great. We use Evernote primarily because we have used it for years but we are moving away. That's not a criticism of Evernote, though: it's more that Apple Notes has proved handier.
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