Best Free Writing Apps For Mac
In the end, these are the best journaling apps we've found for every platform. Day One (Mac, iOS, Android)—best for writing quick journal entries in a simple, intuitive interface; free/$3.99 per month for premium features. And if you own a Mac, you have access to many wonderful innovative writing apps which would make writing an even more pleasurable activity. Using Mac was the thing that got me into Markdown. The best distraction-free writing apps hide the tools you need until the appropriate time, rather than omitting them altogether. With that criterion in mind, Ulysses is my favorite distraction.
The Mac is said to be the machine of creative people; starting from graphic designers to musicians and sound engineers. There are lots of heavy applications available to cater for their needs.
But what about writers? What options do they have? Mac’s word processors are always identical to the low profile TextEdit or the heavy duty MS Word or Open Office. There’s also previously mentioned LyxLyx - The Ultimate Scientific Paper Writing ToolLyx - The Ultimate Scientific Paper Writing ToolRead More, but neither of these are built specifically for writers.
As a self-proclaimed writer myself, I constantly looking for the ultimate ‘creative writing’ tool. These four are the best free options that I’ve found so far. And with NaNoWriMo closing in, you definitely could need some help in the writing department.
- Want a powerful, professional writing app but don’t like the high price tags attached to the options above? Worry not, Celtx is a completely free app that helps you organize, write and outline your film, video, documentary, theatre, novels, machinima, comics, advertising, video games, music video, and radio projects.
- This Mac-only app gives you a clean, distraction-free writing interface. Instead of ‘ribbon’ menus and a laundry list of features, you get a blank page to jot down your thoughts. Formatting options are limited and within easy reach thanks to a contextual menu.
- In addition to all of the free apps that Apple gives to every Mac owner, both the Mac App Store and independent developers provide tools that make using your computer easier — and a little more fun.
Babbling With Bean
Along comes the Bean (not the British comedy movie) – a simple yet comfortable writing environment. Bean is a little bit more powerful than TextEdit while a lot more uncluttered than those ‘powerhouse’ word processors.
At the beginning, Bean was built to accommodate the creative writing hobby of the app creator. But it is not limited only to that. Just like TextEdit, Bean also could be used for general text editing purposes from quick jot of phone number and to do list to creating web page and writing programming code.
To taste the Bean, just download the latest version of this app. It’s free.
Everything that you need to write a standard document is here, and more. To make your writing life easier, open the Inspector window. Bean also supports a full screen writing environment and alternative background and font colors.
Beside the default RTF (Rich Text Format), you can save the file as RTFD, TXT, DOC, XML, and also Webarchive. There’s another option of exporting the document as HTML, PDF, RTF and DOC.
The Jer is in the Hut
There’s Jabba and there’s pizza, but this time the Hut belongs to Jer. If you’re into writing more than other common word processor users, maybe you should take a look at Jer’s Novel Writer. This ‘free for personal use’ application – with a little ‘donating reminder’ every now and then – will help any creative writer organize their disorganized ideas.
The app will give you a two-pane display – the main writing area and a small area on the left where you could put some tiny notes related to your writing. There’s also a collapsible right sidebar drawer with three tabs to make your writing life even easier: Outline, Database, and Notes.
The how-tos of Jer’s Novel Writer can be a little confusing for first time users, but there’s a quick tutorial to help you which will start the first time this application is opened. Be sure to check it out.
CopyWrite your Copies
The third candidate is CopyWrite. This one is the first creative writing application I stumbled upon and – to me – the easiest to use. This one could be used and downloaded for free but with limitations: five documents per project maximum, and without an exporting capability.
The two-pane mail-style display will give any Mac users a familiar environment to work with. The upper pane will show you the documents of your project (this could be chapters, character data, description of the settings, plots, anything) and below is the content of your selected document.
Just like Jer’s Novel Writer, CopyWrite also has a collapsible right sidebar Notes drawer with two tabs: Document and Project. Any note you write in the “˜Document’ tab will only relate specifically to one document, hence it will only open while that particular document is selected; while any note you write in the “˜Project’ tab can be opened no matter what document is being selected.
Scribbling with Scrivener
Finally, writers with a big writing project – academic writing included – could freely try Scrivener for 30 days. Tiny-project writers (doing one page reports, really short stories, that kind of things), please step back slow and easy. I’m not saying that this app could not be used to write shorties, but looking at the features Scrivener has, it’s like killing an ant with a bazooka.
There’s too much to describe about Scrivener’s features in the writing space I have here, but for a quick introduction, you might as well watch the introduction video. One feature that I like the most is the Corkboard where you could put every bit of your writing and (re)arrange them as needed.
I’ve barely scratched the surface here. To find out the details about each app, please try them out yourself. If you want to have a longer list of writing tools available to find out which one suits you best – because every writer has their own unique working style – “Literature and Latte” has already made a list available here. Or search on MakeUseOf in our Mac section or use our search engine.
Now, the only thing left to do is start writing those best sellers. Good luck!
The Mac is a great tool for writers, with a plethora of software available for any kind of writing. It doesn't matter if you're a student spending long nights on your big paper, a journalist writing up your latest scoop, or a novelist furiously typing away on your next opus — there's an app for you on the Mac.
Microsoft Outlook is a stand-alone application, compatible with other Microsoft Office applications such as Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Exchange. Microsoft Outlook is an information management application for personal and business communication and networking. Address book for mac download. Microsoft Outlook offers advanced email organization, contact management, an integrated calender scheduler and task management tools.
Ulysses
Ulysses offers a full array of tools for writers of any kind. This app is easy to pick up and start using but offers a wide array of customization options for everything from writing to exporting. Choose to work in Markdown or create your own markup style. With Ulysses, you can also create your own writing environment with everything from background colors to fonts. When it comes time to publish, you can export your work in a variety of formats, including plain text, DOCX, and ePub. You can also publish your work to WordPress sites and Medium.
Your projects all sync with iCloud between Mac, iPhone, and iPad, with Dropbox support also available. The app also recently added support for Touch ID to keep your documents safe.
- $44.99 - Download Now
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- iPhone and iPad, $24.99 - Download Now
Byword
'Simple but effective' is the best way to describe Byword. With this Markdown-focused writing app, you start with a blank document and just write. It's a minimalist app with only a few settings to fuss with, and Byword really only cares about getting you writing. Your documents sync between Mac, iPhone, and iPad using iCloud Drive, though you can also store them in Dropbox.
When it comes to publishing, you've got options for PDF and HTML. You can also post what you've written to blogging services such as Medium, WordPress, Tumblr, and Blogger, or you could send your document to Evernote.
- $11.99 - Download Now
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- iPhone and iPad, $5.99 - Download Now
iA Writer
iA Writer's gone through quite a few changes over the years. Where the previous Pro app tried to break down your writing into a flow between notes and writing and editing, the modern iA Writer focuses on having your write in plain text, with full Markdown support. That's not to say that there aren't advanced features, however, as there are quite a few. Syntax Control breaks down your writing to show you the structure, highlighting adjectives, nouns, conjunctions, and more. Link to other documents in iA Writer to combine them into a single project, or link to images or spreadsheet files to see them in iA Writer's Preview screen in a number of different templates.
Like other apps on this list, iA Writer lets you publish to blogs, in this case, WordPress and Medium. You can also export your work in Markdown, PDF, HTML, and Microsoft Word.
- $9.99 - Download Now
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- iPhone and iPad, $3.99 - Download Now
Scrivener
Scrivener is nothing short of a full-featured suite of tools for writers. Novels, scripts, essays, research papers, it doesn't matter, because Scrivener supports all of them. Organize your ideas on digital notecards and lay them out on the corkboard to see how your work fits together. Import images, PDF and other media you've used as research to refer to it later. Keep your work segmented for easier organization and edition, while maintaining its structure with the Binder. And each part of the app can be customized to create the exact writing environment that you need. It's actually hard to encapsulate just how many options Scrivener gives you.
When you're done, compile your project into a single document, and export in formats like DOC, rich text, PDF, ePub, Kindle, and even export for other apps like Final Draft. Away from your Mac? You can also check out Scrivener for iPhone and iPad, which lets you work on your Scrivener projects no matter where you are.
- $44.99 - Download Now
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- iPhone and iPad, $19.99 - Download Now
Blogo
Blogo is a standout amongst our selections here because while many of these apps allow you to publish to the web, that's Blogo's explicit purpose. Open up Blogo and sign in to your WordPress, Blogger, or Medium account and start writing those hot takes. Manage everything from your post's title to its tags, preview your posts, and images. Write in Markdown or rich text, insert inline HTML and code blocks, and keep track of your writing goals. You can also perform some basic photo editing, cropping and resizing photos, and even adding effects and filters.
While Blogo is free up front, you can subscribe to Blogo Pro for $2.99 per month (or $24.99 for a year) to get access to more advanced features. You'll be able to add as many accounts as you want, get access to the Media Search feature to easily find videos, images, GIFs, and more, and on certain accounts, you can even moderate and reply to comments.
- Free - Download Now
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- iPhone and iPad, Free - Download Now
Bear
Best Free Writing Apps
A relatively new app compared to the rest of the list, Bear might seem simple, but it offers a great deal of flexibility for handling text. It's true that Bear is good for both notes and todo checklists, but it's support for Markdown, a variety of themes, and simple organization makes it a great tool for many different kinds of writing. Add images, files, code blocks, and more to spice up your work and give it more context.
Mac Novel Writing App
In terms of options, you've got few. Choose how to sort your documents, pick a theme, pick your font, and even control fine-grain details such as font size, line height and width, and paragraph spacing. Subscribe to Bear Pro for $1.49 per month in order to sync your documents between Bear for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
- Free - Download Now
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- iPhone and iPad, Free - Download Now
Pages
Apple's own writing app, Pages lets you create all sorts of documents. There are more than 60 templates in Pages, covering just about every kind of writing, from short essays to research papers. There are even templates for items like business cards and flyers. You can add images and shapes, layout your documents in different styles, and more. You can also secure documents with Touch ID if you have one of Apple's 2016 MacBook Pros with Touch Bar.
Pages also makes it easy to collaborate with other people. Multiple people, whether they're on macOS, iOS, or even Windows thanks to iCloud.com, can collaborate on a document at the same time. You can share collaborative documents publicly or with specific users, see who is in the document at any given time, and follow their cursors as they edit the project.
- Free ($19.99 for pre-October 2014 Macs) - Download Now
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- iPhone and iPad, Free ($9.99 for pre-September 2014 iOS devices) - Download Now
Your favorites?
What is your writing app of choice on your Mac? Do you use one of these or something else? Let us know in the comments.
First thing is first, you need a mac mini. In order to make the most out of this computer and especially for the upcoming updated system software that apple is releasing, I. Jan 21, 2008 Question: Q: Uses for old mac mini? Any ideas for use for an old mac mini? I recently bought a new imac and am wondering what what would be the best way to use my old original mac mini. Mac mini 1.25, Mac OS X (10.5.1). TechEBlog's editors have put together a list of the top five creative uses for the somewhat underexposed Mac mini. While I suppose they're all creative, one of them is pretty useless, so it'd. Uses for older imac.
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