Last Updated: July 18, 2018 Even in 2018, there is still less statistical analysis software for Mac as there is for PC but we’ve taken a look at the best statistical software for Mac available. Being able to effectively interpret statistics and market research is essential in making better business decisions or predictions no matter what field of work you are in. Statistical analysis is becoming increasingly important to the global economy with one study by McKinsey Global Institute estimating that by 2018, demand for skilled workers in analytics may outdo supply by 60% – that’s approximately 1.5 million jobs. The most popular number crunching software for Windows and PC for statistical analysis is of course.
Dec 14, 2018 Software Reviews Check out PCMag's latest hands-on reviews of Security, Mobile, Photos & Video, Personal & Home, Utilities, Music, Networking, Business, Windows 10. Microsoft Windows 10. Top 16 Qualitative Data Analysis Software 4.3 (86.05%) 86 ratings With the increase in competition in the business world, the need for business research has also increased.
However, there is some excellent Mac statistical software for analyzing statistics and research on macOS, a few of which are cheaper, easier and better to use than Access in our opinion. Here then is our selection of the top 7 statistical software for Mac of 2018 in order of ranking. Is easily our favorite statistical analysis software for Mac simply because it makes it easy without skimping on power and features. The look and feel of Wizard is a world away from Microsoft Access but it can do pretty much everything you can do in Microsoft Access, but it’s far easier and more user-friendly.
Not to mention at $79.99 for the Standard version or $199 for the Professional version, it’s considerably cheaper than Access and Stata. Stata can import Access MDB files along with DBF, Excel XLS/XLSX, RData/RDS, JSON, SQLite among others. Note that if you want to work with SPSS, SAS and Stata files you can although you must upgrade to the Pro version for this (you can buy or buy the and upgrade in-app by going to the Wizard Menu and selecting “Unlock Pro Features”). We’ve looked at Wizard in more detail in our Wizard for Mac review in the and if you’re looking for a statistical analysis software for Mac that’s both a pleasure to use on OS X but as powerful as Stata, it ticks all the boxes.
You can see what Wizard can do in the video below. Stata for Mac is the most widely used and well-known statistical software for both Windows and Mac. Stata has a powerful point-and-click interface, intuitive command syntax and is extremely fast to process and represent data.It’s impossible to cover all the features of Stata for Mac but they include everything from basic tabulations and summaries, case–control analysis, ARIMA, ANOVA and MANOVA to linear regression, time-series smoothers and generalized linear models (GLM).
The problem is it comes with a heavy-duty price too although Stata does come with a. Depending on which version of Stata you require, starts at $595 per year or $1195 for a perpetual license but depends on the size of dataset and whether you need a business or individual license. However, Students can get Stata for as little as $89 for a perpetual license. You can watch Stata in action below. XLStat is actually a clever plug-in for Microsoft Excel which allows you to analyze stats within Excel on a Mac.
If you’re a big Excel user, then it’s a powerful tool for extending the functionality of Excel to include statistical analysis. XLStat integrates with it seamlessly and adds a further 200 functions and features to Excel. XLStat is time-saving because it allows you to modify and automate in VBA routines and dialog boxes and prompts guide you to make it surprisingly easy to use. Note that XLStat works with version of Excel 2011 to 2016 on Mac and is also compatible with PPC Macs.
Both the number of versions and the pricing of XLStat is a bit bewildering. When it comes to versions, there are 7 different versions of XLStat – Sensory, Marketing, Forecast, Biomed, Ecology, Psy and Quality which as the names suggest, are tailored for statistical analysis of different fields. It’s impossible to list all the different features and differences here but all versions include these base features: To compare the differences in features between the various versions, we recommend going to the where you can interactively compare features. You can also extend the features of all of them with optional functions such as 3d visualization, Latent Class Cluster models and Correlated Component Regression. The is also a bit complex but you’ve basically have to choose a Private/Company, Academic, Student or Campus plan.
You then need to decide whether you want to pay for a perpetual (i.e. Unlimited and permanent) license, an annual subscription license or an annual concurrent license (for network admins to deploy to multiple users). Pricing for annual licenses starts at $50 per year for students, $165 for academics and $275 USD for other users. Perpetual licenses are not available for students but start at $395 for academics and $695 for other users. You can and when the trial expires, if you don’t upgrade you can continue to use a very limited basic version of XLStat. JMP is made by SAS, one of the biggest providers of statistical software on both Mac and Windows.
JMP actually stands for “John’s Macintosh Project” as it was created by John Sall, one of the co-founders of SAS. Despite being originally created for Macs, the interface of JMP hasn’t really been kept up to date with the latest versions of OS X but JMP is all about pure analytical power than looking slick on Mac. This is because JMP is a very high-end statistical analysis software designed specifically for the needs of scientists and engineers. Some of the most notable features of JMP include univariate and multivariate linear and nonlinear analysis, ANOVA, MANOVA and ANCOVA, time series analysis, multivariate optimization and Monte Carlo simulation and both hierarchical and k-means clustering. JMP includes powerful interactive and visual insights which provide plenty of links for you to drill down deep into stats and data.
There are many aspects to JMP including data cleanup, reliability analysis, statistical modelling and basic data analysis. The range of features and possibilities when it comes to data analysis with JMP are some of the most powerful you’ll find on Mac and it does take quite some time to get to grips with the software. It’s impossible to go through everything you can do in JMP here but we recommend going through the which includes videos and screenshots of everything it can do. For quantitative analysis, JMP is arguably the most powerful statistical software out there for Mac. The interactive design of JMP makes it extremely quick and easy to create powerful theories and spot trends.
The major drawback of JMP is the price as it’s clearly designed for the corporate sector. You now have to to get pricing but expect to pay something in the region of $2000 for an annual license. The other disadvantage is that JMP is nowhere near as widely used as SPSS meaning sharing files with others that don’t have JMP difficult. IBM SPSS Statistics is the most widely used statistical analysis software in corporate environment and SPSS for Mac covers the entire analytical process. This includes everything from planning and data collection to reporting and deployment.
SPSS for Mac consists of different modules to help you spot ways to increase revenue, beat competitors and ultimately make better business decisions. One of the main features of SPSS for Mac is the Temporal Causal Modeling (TCM) technique which enables you to upload multiple time series to see which series are causally related. It can then be incredibly useful in automatically determining the best predictors for each target series. Allow you to explore the relationship between data and places. There’s also a Spatio-Temporal Prediction (STP) technique that can fit linear measurement models in 2D and 3D space, to help predict how areas change over time. You can also create association rules via geospatial attributes using the Generalized Spatial Association Rule (GSAR).
This can combine data such as location, event type and timing to highlight trends in the occurrences of events, such as crimes or contagious diseases. SPSS allows you to program in R using its own integrated development environment. This includes the ability to write R functions with SPSS Statistics functionality and also command syntax within R and then return the results to R.
Although it has to be said the interactive elements of SPSS for Mac aren’t as good as JMP for Mac, the reports have been improved in the most recent releases with added interactivity and web server support. One thing in SPSS’s favor however is it’s generally snappier and faster than JMP. This is partly because SPSS for Mac writes data to a text data file and then a bulk loader script writes the data back to the database which is useful when dealing with large datasets. The Base Plan is cheaper than JMP at $1,170 per user per year but then there’s a big jump of over $1,500 up to Standard and above. All versions feature read/write text, Excel, SAS, and more; no size limits, descriptive statistics, data prep, and graphing, R/Python support, bivariate statistics procedures, factor and cluster analysis, linear and ordinal regression and basic reporting with export to Microsoft Excel and PDF The Standard version includes on top of this linear, non-linear, ordinal, logistic and 2SLS regression, drag and drop interactive tables with export to Microsoft Excel and PDF and generalized linear modeling and survival analysis. The Professional version includes additional features such as advanced data preparation, decision trees and forecasting and single multiple missing value imputation.
Finally the Premium version includes all of the above plus exact tests, complex sampling, bootstrapping and SEM features. SPSS is still the most widely used statistical analysis software in corporate and academic environments on Mac but like JMP, it’s got a steep learning curve and doesn’t come cheap. You can try a 14 day.
Is one of the world’s leading developers of statistical software and is widely used in both academic institutions and corporate environments. Minitab is a good option for anyone intimidated by software such as SPSS and JMP as it retains much of the power of the latter but in a far more user-friendly interface. Minitab guides you through the statistical analysis process to help you maximize the insights and value you get out of your data. Using an interactive decision tree, Minitab helps you choose the right statistical tool for your data and then continually asks you questions about the type of data you are analyzing to help you hone your data analysis.
Analysis are performed at the click of button but the real benefit of Minitab is the way it summarizes the results. It highlights important trends or figures so that you have to do less manual analysis. This includes diagnostic reports and report cards to help identify any anomalies or problems in the data you’ve submitted. The number of graphical outputs in Minitab is limited but they are succinct and to the point. The number of export options is also quite limited but you can export to PowerPoint, Word and Excel. Unfortunately Minitab doesn’t actually have a Mac version but many statisticians comfortably use it by using which is the. Once you’ve installed Parallels, you can then try the.
There is however a lighter, cheaper version of Minitab called which lacks some of the more advanced analytical components of Minitab. If you’re looking at complex and varied ways of representing statistics graphically on Mac, GraphPad Prism may be your answer.
GraphPad Prism is available for Mac and Windows which turned complex statistics into scientific graphing, curve fitting (nonlinear regression) and data organization. GraphPad Prism was originally aimed at biologists in medical schools and drug companies in pharmacology and physiology. However, Prism is now used more widely by biologists and biology students as well as social and physical scientists. Prism is user-friendly and you can go from data to a graph for presentations, posters or publications in a matter of a few clicks.
You can export GraphPad Prism to PowerPoint, Word, TIFF, EPS, JPG or PDF. If you’re in the medical or biology field, GraphPad Prism is a far more user-friendly, cheaper and tailored statistics analysis software for Mac than any of the above.
It costs $20 per month/Academic $150 per year/Standard $200 and there’s also a. Conclusion As we’ve seen, although the PC market still leads the way, there’s a lot of statistical software for Mac to mean you don’t have to go back to Windows. Which one you choose depends on how complex you need it to be, how much time you’ve got to invest in learning it and how popular it is in the industry you’re working in.
We hope this look at the best statistical software for Mac helps you in that decision. If you have any questions, comments or experiences with the statistical software featured here, let us know in the comments below. You May Also Like:.
Writing a book requires something major. It requires the right attitude, some solid, and the best writing software out there. And we know which writing software is best for you – and more importantly, why it matters. With the best writing tools, you can write faster and more effectively.
You’ll be more focused, with fewer distractions, and you can actually learn a thing or two from some of them –. And just as importantly, you’ll have an easier time keeping your outline and notes organized. But even if you have and an imagination that won’t quit, you can’t do either without the right book writing software. You’ll have to make some choices. Nowadays, authors have so many options when looking for the best book writing software. There are 9 things to consider when deciding which program to use for your book.
Depending on your needs, some of these questions may be more or less important to you:. How easy is it to format text the way you want?. Does it have templates available?. How much does it cost?.
Is the program simple & easy to use?. Does it offer any extra features or other bells & whistles?. How about a distraction-free writing experience?.
Is the program user-friendly?. Can you access your files no matter where you are?. How easy is it to collaborate with editors & team members?. Is there distribution capabilities when it’s time to publish? In the end, the truth is that there are many great writing tools out there.
It isn’t really a question of which tool is BEST. What it comes down to is: which tool works best with YOUR unique writing process? The Top 3 Book Writing Software Programs Writers everywhere flock to these specific tools and claim them to be the best book writing software for them. We’ll break down each so you can decide for yourself if their features are the best fit. #1 – Microsoft Word Before any other writing tools came along, Microsoft Word was the only option available. Everyone used it.
Today, even though there are many other word processors out there, Word is still the most widely used book writing software in the U.S. Millions of people continue to use it for their writing needs. And it’s easy to see why. Word has a lot going for it! It’s been around a long time.
It’s trusted, reliable, and gets the job done well. It also provides a relatively distraction-free writing experience; much better than working on Google Docs in your browser, for example, where you’re only an errant mouse-click away from the entire internet. If you just need to wake up in the morning and by keeping your head down and getting those words pounded out onto the page, then Word is an obvious choice of book writing software. No fuss, no muss.
It’s about as simple as it gets. Word also offers some simple organization. Using headers, you can organize your book into chapters—and then you can navigate through them quickly using the Navigation pane. You can also create your own. And if you start writing your book in Word and don’t begin with the correct formatting, it’s pretty easy to to make it “book ready” with a few simple steps. If you’re a Word user and you’ve got your own system in place for writing books, then perhaps you need to look no further. But as a writing tool, Word does have some downsides.
For starters, it doesn’t always play well with Macs. If you use a Mac, then Word might cause you a lot of frustration with crashes and formatting. Thankfully, Apple offers a comparable program called Pages, for you. Word is also pretty vanilla. That’s part of its appeal, sure, but it also means Word lacks some of the more advanced features you get with other programs like Scrivener and Google Docs. For example, Scrivener offers more functionality. And Google Docs makes it easier to share and collaborate on your files.
All in all, Word is a solid contender for best book writing software. But there are many other choices out there. Book Writing Software Cost: $79.99 if purchased separately. #2 – Scrivener You just learned that Microsoft Word is the most widely used word processor in the world. But does that mean it’s the best book writing software?
Think about it this way. The fact that Word is so prevalent means that it has to cater to all sorts of users—students, businesspeople, writers, teachers, marketers, lawyers, the list goes on and on and on. But Scrivener was created for one type of person only: Writers. Blogger and author, Jeff Goins, swears by Scrivener after giving up Word.
He says: “I wasted years of my life doing all my writing on Microsoft Word. But that’s all over now. I have finally seen the light.” Entrepreneur also praises Scrivener: “I now begin every piece of content—no matter what it is—with this tool. It has simplified my life and enabled me to focus on the most important aspect of my job—creating new content. I am more productive than ever.” Here are some of the top takeaways of this book writing software:.
Helps with. Easily export your data to other digital platforms such as Kobo, ibooks, etc.
(this is one of the best features). Provides outlining functionality that keeps your content organized. Powerful composition mode with distraction-free writing environment. Easily drag and drop to move sections around.
Provides a collection of robust templates. Supports for bullets and numbers Because Scrivener was designed for writers, it’s super easy to lay out scenes, move content around, and your story, article, or manuscript. Instead of keeping all your content in one big file, Scrivener allows you to create multiple sub-files to make it easier to organize and outline your project. But as awesome as Scrivener is, it’s not perfect.
And the biggest downside to using Scrivener is the steep learning curve involved. You aren’t going to master this program overnight.
But if you’re serious about your writing career, then investing the time to learn this specific writing tool will be worth it. You’ll save time and energy in the long run. And if you want to learn how to use Scrivener as quickly & easily as possible, we can help! Here’s a full Scrivener tutorial so you can easily maneuver this program. If you want to dig even deeper, you can also download the, or watch the tutorials they’ve put together at Literature & Latte. Long story short: Scrivener is an investment, but one that’s worth it.
It will take some time to master. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll never go back—it’s the single most powerful book writing software out there. I f you like what you see from Scrivener, you can buy it here: Book Writing Software Cost: $45 #3 – Google Docs We’ve looked at the appealing simplicity of Word and the in-depth power of Scrivener, but there’s another book writing software that more and more people are starting to use for various reasons: Google Docs. Essentially, is a stripped-down version of Word that you can only use online. It’s a simple, yet effective writing tool. The beauty of this program (and in general) comes in the ability to share content, files, and documents among your team.
You can easily communicate via comments, for example. This program keeps a complete history of all changes made to a document, so if you accidentally delete something you wanted to keep, simply click the link at the top of the screen that says, “All changes saved in drive.” That will bring up the version history, where you can review all the changes that have been made to your book file and revert to a previous version if you so choose. Google Docs doesn’t require any installation and can be accessed anywhere via your browser, or an app on your phone.
And here’s one of the best features: everything is saved on the server frequently and automatically, so you never have to fret about losing a version or draft of your work. (Anyone who has ever lost a draft of a book understands how valuable this feature is!) Plus you can access your work when you move from one location or another—no carrying a laptop or thumb drive around with you. When you share a book draft with others, like test readers or your, they can comment directly on the draft using the built-in comment functionality. Out of the “big 3” book writing software tools, Google Docs is probably the least sophisticated when it comes to formatting and outlining tools.
But it makes up for that with easy collaboration, sharing, and online access. Book Writing Software Cost: Free. Book Writing Software You Might Not Know About Just because you may not be familiar with a specific writing software doesn’t mean it’s not beneficial or even better than what you’re using now.
Let’s get to know some of the best book writing tools you can use to up your author game and make some progress. #1 – Pages Think of as the Mac alternative to Microsoft Word. It has a variety of beautiful templates to choose from, has a simple design, and syncs with all devices from within iCloud so you can access it in a number of different places.
Personally, I love the ease of Pages. It works great for creating ebooks or manuscripts with a variety of you can get creative with. Book Writing Software Cost: $28 #2 – Freedom isn’t technically a writing tool, but it sure can help improve your writing.
It’s a productivity app designed to help eliminate distractions by blocking certain websites – something more than beneficial for those of us who get sidetracked easily. For example: let’s say you have a tendency to get distracted by social media sites. All you have to do us start a Freedom session that blocks all your social media sites—and then you won’t be able to visit them even if you wanted to. Here’s what it looks like when you schedule a session. This is a really liberating tool. Once you know you don’t have the option of visiting those distracting sites, you’ll find it easier to keep focused on your writing and you’ll be able to get a lot more done.
Book Writing Software Cost: $2.42/month and up, or $129 for lifetime access. #3 – Ulysses If you’re a Mac owner, this might be the best book writing software for you. While you do have to pay $39.99 per year to use it, the cost to use is completely justified. One of the best features has to be the distraction-free capabilities.
As a writer who gets distracted easily, this is definitely a feature I look for in a good book writing software. This one is also great for exporting. Meaning, you can do all your writing in-app and then export it in relatively any format you’d need in order to, critique partner, or even beta readers. And if you’re someone who has a hard time keeping all of your notes and ideas organized for your book, this app also has a feature that helps you keep all of it straight! Say goodbye to forgetting what you wanted to add in that obscure scene you wrote two months ago! Overall, this is one of the best book writing software programs out there for Mac users. But if you’re not sure if it’s worth the price, you can actually try it for free for 14 days.
Book Writing Software Cost: $39.99/year Free Book Writing Software There’s not much we love more than getting stuff for free – especially when it comes to our aspirations. You don’t have to doll out a ton of cash just to use highly beneficial book writing software. In fact, there are many best free book writing software programs. #1 – FastPencil is a nice little platform with lots of tools. You can also use it for distributing your ebook. It is free to start writing with, but they offer paid services as well.
Everything happens online in your browser, which means you can access your files from any computer (as long as you’re connected to the Internet). Here’s what the word processor looks like. You can customize the image in the background to suit your project to help inspire your writing. It’s simple and effective. If you need a lot of features, it probably won’t work for you. But if simplicity is your thing, then you may have found your perfect free writing tool.
Book Writing Software Cost: Free #3 – yWriter is a really popular word processor (intended mainly for novelists) with some impressive features (especially for a program that’s completely free). It helps keep your project organized by giving you space to include notes on all sorts of things, like character notes, scene notes, scene goals, etc. You can specify whose point of view each scene will be written in, and you can see the word count of your entire novel broken out by chapter—all at a quick glance. One thing that yWriter does differently than a lot of other writing programs is focus on scenes rather than on chapters.
A lot of writers prefer this since scenes are usually fun chunks of story to work on. And using yWriter, you can rearrange all those scenes to compose a compelling novel. I’d call it a Scrivener alternative that’s free to use. But one downside is that it only works for Windows (at least, for now). Book Writing Software Cost: Free #4 – Evernote is a note-taking app. It’s a great way to keep track of your thoughts—like brainstorming ideas, outlining chapters, and jotting down inspiration when it strikes.
The mobile app is particularly useful for capturing new ideas when they strike, since most people have their phone with them 24/7. Here’s what Evernote looks like on a phone: While you can use Evernote to write content—I’ve used it for writing blogs and other small sections of books—you wouldn’t want to use it as your main word processor. Its functionality is a bit too limited. But as a way of keeping track of ideas, it’s a great find.
Book Writing Software Cost: Free, but there is a cool upgrade for $5 a month that gets you #5 – Hemingway Editor The is a unique kind of writing tool. It’s a style checker that’s designed to help tighten up your prose and make your writing clear and bold. Simply paste your writing into the editor and scroll through. You’ll notice that the program highlights certain words & passages—like long, hard-to-read sentences, passive verbs, and phrases with simpler alternatives. It’s basically your own personal editor rolled into a writing software. Here’s an example of what it looks like. #6 – Dropbox Reading this, you may be wondering: Dropbox?
How is that a writing tool? Trust me—it is! While it’s true that Dropbox isn’t a word processor like Scrivener or yWriter, it is a very helpful writing tool.
Especially for writers who write on more than one computer, who need to collaborate with other writers or editors, or who want an easy way to back up their work. Here’s how it works: When you set up Dropbox and install it on your computer, it will create a new “Dropbox” folder on your machine.
Any files that you save in this folder will be automatically backed up to Dropbox’s servers in the cloud, which will be automatically downloaded to any other computers that are synced to that same Dropbox account. A lot of writers choose to save their book on Dropbox, so that it will be automatically backed up. And as you can see, it looks the same as any other folder on your computer. Using this strategy, you can make it easier to share and collaborate on your files—even if you aren’t using Google Docs. Book Writing Software Cost: Free for a basic plan, or $9.99/month for extra storage.
#7 – Open Office You may know of this software, you may not. Essentially, it’s a free version of a word processor much like Word or Pages.
If you don’t have Word on your computer and can’t afford to buy it, this is a great alternative that’ll get the job done. Here’s what this book writing software looks like. The capabilities are pretty limited with Open Office but if you really only need the basics and don’t want to spend any money, this is the perfect writing software for you.
Book Writing Software Cost: Free How Much Does Book Writing Software Programs Cost? I would recommend not worrying too much about the cost of these programs. After all, dropping $100 or less on a program is not that big a deal if it is going to help improve your writing for years to come. That said, I know you work hard for your money—and you want to get the best deal you can! #2 Try a few different options Don’t just pick one of these writing software options and be done with it. Sometimes you really need to try them out before you can determine which will fit your needs with your current project. Make some notes as you work through a few and be sure to put together a pros and cons list to ensure you’re choosing the best option to propel you forward on your writing journey.
#3 Nail down your book information I know it might seem fun to get started once you have a super helpful writing platform to use, but you need to nail down your book idea first. Have you created your? How does look? Without these two necessities, you won’t get very far – even with some beneficial writing software. Do you use one of these writing software programs? Let us know how they are below! Most of my stuff comes off of OpenOffice.
If you buy your ‘puters, new, they might have MS Word on them, but if you don’t, you might not want to fork over the cash for a copy. Then you go OpenOffice.
Before PDF got to be the go-to format for publications, I used Adobe PageMaker, which used to be the standard for professional publishing. I still use it for self-printed works. Unfortunately, PageMaker was created by Aldus, and instead of modifying PageMaker to better handle PDF’s (the PDF exporter in the final ver.
7.2 is not only prone to crashing the whole program, but irretrievably corrupting the file to be converted), they abandoned it and replaced it with their home-grown InDesign–which, to my reckoning, has two fatal flaws: it’s only available by subscription, and it’s Could based (speaking as someone whose writing time is 90% OFF-LINE) There’s also Scribus, with I have on my computer but haven’t really played around with much. So you say that checking out an app that someone suggests, finding out it’s inapplicable to your system, and informing other people of that limitation is “hostile and negative in tone”? Warning people that there’s a HUGE FLAW in depending on Could-based applications is “negative and hostile in tone”? Telling people that there’s a COMPLETELY FREE alternative to a product that the people who don’t have the money to buy new computers (which would likely have MS Word pre-installed) all the time (and therefore, probably don’t have the money to buy a non-OEM copy) is “negative and hostile in tone”? I’ll tell you what’s “negative and hostile in tone”! It’s reading a comment that’s pointing out that a product is Apple only, ignoring the follow-up comment EXPLAINING that the comment was referring to the premium prices Apple puts on its hardware, and somehow STILL taking my words OUT OF CONTEXT–concluding that the comment was meant to say that it was an Apple product and ACCUSING ME OF SAYING that I don’t believe people should be paid for their work.
I NEVER SAID OR EVEN SLIGHTLY IMPLIED THAT, AND YOU ARE NEGATIVE AND HOSTILE IN CLAIMING THAT I DID. (For the record, OF COURSE I believe in paying people for their work. What I don’t believe in is paying a premium for a brand when I don’t see any quality/reliability advantage over comparable products, especially a brand that emphasizes “the look” over functionality.) And being that this is a writing blog, you should understand the English language better than that. (Yes, THIS is a hostile comment. It comes out of me when people somehow get the idea I said/typed “turn left” when my exact words were “go straight.” How can someone POSSIBLY twist a meaning that much, and how can you POSSIBLY make your words twist-proof?). Wow, you’ve really got some serious issues! Maybe an anger management course needs to be in your xmas stocking.
Along with a reading comprehension course. Take a chill pill, dude. You’re claiming i accused you of stuff that i didn’t so you’re now just getting ridiculous. People are going to have different ideas and opinions from you. No need to go ballistic. Anyway, i’m not going to argue with you.
I’ve read your unpleasant disqus comment history, and you’re just not worth my time so i’m just going to put you on ignore. Plus also, it’s not fair to other people here to have to read me responding to your nonsense. Hope 2017 goes well for you.
Thanks for the terrific link to your instructions for the Book writing template using Word. I started my first two books – way back in the Dark Ages of Indie-Publishing in 2009 – using Derek J Canyon’s HTML template; Word was a No-No back then; thank heavens it’s changed now. For my next couple I started with the assault course that is Scrivener. I love it, but I teach young writers, and for many of them it’s a technical and financial bridge too far. Just as I was about to publish my latest (which has a section on how to publish) I discovered the Reedsy Book Editor.
Free, easy, fast – and it produces well-formatted files for both ePub/Kindle and Pdf for print. But abandon all hope those that haven’t got easy online access, as it only works there. It’s also not (yet) for complex books – they’re working on it. And, no, I don’t have shares.
I just have to say that while so many people use Word (shudder) there IS an alternative not mentioned. Rarely is, except by those who love it. Word Perfect has so many more robust features (Reveal Codes!!) than Word could ever dream of, I simply don’t understand why it is never mentioned. Word Perfect was the first word processing program where you could simply sit down and type. Word finally caught on.
Yes, I come from a legal background, but there IS an alternative to anything mentioned here. Just had to say this. Remember, Reveal Codes. And easier formatting. Oh, and another thing that might be working against it: Back in the 1990’s, it had more bugs, weevils,and maggots than a ten-day-old corpse.
I remember it spontaneously changing fonts (while I was typing), periodically deciding the ONLY font in the library was “Courier New,” and–everyone’s favorite–freezing during the 20-minute autosave (since this was still the DOS era, you’d have to warm-start the computer to clear it, losing all your data.) And I’m not sure about Word, but I know OpenOffice doesn’t have native import capability for WordPerfect files, so you’re always having to convert it for everyone else. Firstly, most of what Scrivener is so lauded for, like drag-drop sections/scenes/chapters, etc., originated in Word. Most people don’t know how to do it because they don’t bother to learn to use the tools of their trade. Secondly, you’ve completely ignored YWriter, one of the BEST writing tools out there, and either FREE or the creator requests a whopping $25 donation, which I’ve gladly given.
The creator (and author himself), Simon Haynes, is a terrific guy, and although his software isn’t “pretty” like the typical Mac product, it’s amazingly powerful. You want drag-drop scene and chapter manipulation? Piece of cake.
YWriter tracks characters, locations, times, props–you name it. (By props I mean things like murder weapons, cars, anything you can think of.) One of its absolutely fabulous features is that if you provide times and characters for your scenes, it will construct timelines for you, which almost none of the others do. I can highly recommend it for the creation of your book. There are also programs like Power Structure (excellent), Truby’s Blockbuster (eh.I have it, but it’s clunky as HELL, and refuses to run on my Win8.1 laptop), and others.
I love PowerStructure. If you are an outlining fool, Power Structure is for you. I like to use it to outline, and then use YWriter to write.
WONDERFUL, both of them. I’ve got a Mac. I’ve got Word and despite what it says above, it doesn’t crash on me. I’ve also got Pages and Scrivener. I’ve also got a pen and a pad of paper.
![Mac Mac](https://3av1tir25l-flywheel.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Microsoft-Project-Alternatives.png)
I like Pages, but it is a bit short on formatting ability. I like Scrivener for certain things, especially non-fiction, but all the things it can do can become cumbersome if you let it. So I’m torn between Word and Scrivener.
That said, I think Scrivener has the edge for original writing. I then export to word for final layout of the whole. So, for a start, as well as Scrivener, you can try Plume and YWriter. They both have a collection of tools for writers.
Second, there is more than Word. The obvious is LibreOffice, for many the successor to Open Office. In some ways, it’s better.
It’s been recoded recently. It has a ton of plug-ins. If you don’t want to use that, there are dozens of alternative word processors you can use. Some of them, like Jarte and Write Monkey, concentrate on distraction-free writing.
Or you can go for a fully-functional word processor like Softmaker’s Textmaker, or WP Office. None of them cost as much as Word, and all can create doc or docx documents for you. I haven’t found anything yet in Scrivener that I can’t do for myself in Word, using simple folder organization.
It is the opposite to intuitive. If you have the patience to learn it, or if you don’t need to collaborate, or if you need to be organized, then pick it up. It’s worth it. And apart from the poor handling of Track Changes, the word processor in it is perfectly adequate. Pity Scrivener doesn’t have a cloud-friendly solution. I love Scrivener’s features, but I need access to my docs from my PC, my Mac, and my Android phone. I need the docs to be sync’ed reliably.
If Scrivener’s makers, Literature & Latte, are listening: embrace the cloud! I’d happily pay more for Scrivener rather than use any other tool. But as it’s currently engineered, Scrivener would be fighting against me. FYI to people about to say that they use Google Drive, Dropbox, or some other cloud service for their Scrivener files: Literature & Latte specifically warns against doing this as it can lead to complete and unrecoverable loss of your work. If it’s cloud-friendly you want, I recommend you check out the Ulysses App. I find it to be the most intuitive, simple, and user-friendly writing App available.
You will never lose anything you write, because they store everything on the cloud. One of its (several) exporting options is Docx. The only draw-back is that it only works on apple products. But, on the bright side, it works cross-platform, so whatever you write on your Ipad will automatically appear on your Mac or Iphone, so you don’t need to “search” the cloud for it. If i have a thought I want to record while I’m out-and-about, I can insert it into a paragraph on my IPhone, but for long writing spells, i prefer typing on a keyboard.
The neatest feature (which i love to use) is customizing your writing environment (page). My personal favorite is white text on a black page. It helps preserve my night-vision by drastically reducing blue-light. It also keeps me more harmonized with my melatonin/ serotonin balance. Check it out.
I agree John. Ulysses is almost perfect; as long as you’re into the Apple ecosystem.
The biggest plus for me is the capability of dragging and dropping the order of your “sheets”, be they chapters, sections, or whatever you desire. You can do the same in Scrivener, and in Word’s Navigation pane, but not as efficiently.
Other good points for Ulysses: the iPad version is almost identical to the MacOS program, and the distraction-free and dark modes are great. The new subscription model is a bit pricey compared to other apps, but if you’re a serious writer it’s more than worth the price of a coffee a month. I use yWriter5 (upgrading to yWriter6) It is free. Mainly for Windows, but I use it quite well in Linux.
It does a lot of what Scrivener does, I use it with my work files on Dropbox, so I can continue from many devices. YWriter6 is being developed for Android, Fire, IOS, and other platforms. Still in Beta for those.
Scrivener released a slightly older edition for Linux. No longer supported, but seems to work pretty well and is also free.
I’ve worked with it a little. I like Celtx for writing plays. The free-standing pc version was free and can still be found I think, although they have been moving everything over to their cloud service for a fee. I also use Celtx with Dropbox. I love Evernote for quick notes. Again, free and cross-platform.
It is awesome to be able to access the work from laptop, tablet or smart phone! I have used Word, and before that really loved Wordperfect. It was a case of having to pay to upgrade WP or use the Word that was free on the pc I had at the time.
I’m also a cheapskate! My first computer was the Radio Shack Color Computer (Pre Tandy I think.) Back when you had to store programs and work on audio casettes. It was incredible when I upgraded to floppy disk! The word processing program to use there was called Telewriter-64. You had to type in the special codes to get a lot of formatting and characters. Even with all that it was still pretty productive.
I wrote several plays on that system back in the early ’80’s. I miss PageMaker. It made it easy to handle multiple text streams, you could set chunks of text off to one side (technically not in your document, but still in your file in case you want to put it back later), and kern and lead your text until it fit just right. Unfortunately, the PDF export was unstable, the graphics would get automatically downsampled to something like 50 dpi, and instead of fixing it, Adobe dumped the whole package and replaced it with its in-house-developed (PageMaker was developed by Aldus), on-line only, subscription-only InDesign. (I don’t have home internet, so anything Cloud-based is automatically “out.”) So if you want a desktop publisher that works offline, you have to learn Scribus (I’ve got it, but haven’t played around with it much.) And to say MS Word is “the first” is a misnomer. There used to be an awful lot of word processors around, but Word had the advantage of being pre-installed with the vast majority of new PC’s and basically shoved all the other processors out of the market.
(Is Corel’s WordPerfect still around?). About the only challenger left to Word is Apache OpenOffice (I believe it was originally written for Linux, then a Windows version was released), which has the advantage of being open source (and free). My books are born in OpenOffice. I began using the unsupported Linux version of Scrivener, but it would not work with my current distro. As i didn’t want to re-enter the work I had done I installed the paid Windows version under Wine and it mostly works, apart from media, which I don’t need. Other tools I’ll look at for the next project will include Manuskript, oStorybook, Bibisco, and yWriter.
If your package includes MS Office, that’s fine, but don’t waste your money on buying it or on the annual charge for Office 365 – get Libre Office.