Victorian Rush
Weather Manipulator
I recently got a new laptop and sadly, this one did not come with Microsoft Word. I've been looking for another program to use and haven't had any luck.
-
Hi all. We have had reports of member's signatures being edited to include malicious content. You can rest assured this wasn't done by staff and we can find no indication that the forums themselves have been compromised.
However, remember to keep your passwords secure. If you use similar logins on multiple sites, people and even bots may be able to access your account.
We always recommend using unique passwords and enable two-factor authentication if possible. Make sure you are secure. -
Be sure to join the discussion on our discord at: Discord.gg/serebii
What program do you use for writing?
- Thread starter Victorian Rush
- Start date
- Status
Phoenixsong
you taste like fear
*briefly un-lurks*
Well, if all you're after is a drop-in, super-similar replacement for Word, you should look at LibreOffice. It's meant to be compatible with Microsoft Office's file formats and is laid out in a nearly identical manner, and it's completely free. Also comes with spreadsheet software (replacing Excel), presentation software (replacing Powerpoint), and a few other things, so if you also need other office software for work or school or something then LibreOffice should have you covered there, too.
Other options:
-If your new computer is a Mac, I think Apple's own word processing software, Pages, is either free or cheap in the App Store, and it's also pretty similar to Word in function, albeit with a very different layout.
-A lot of people write entirely online in Google Docs, so if you have or are willing to create a Google account there's that.
-Personally, I do a lot of note-taking and shorter writing in plain old text documents, lightly formatted with Markdown. I like them because I don't usually need all the bells and whistles of a full word processor, and because .txt/.md files are just about the simplest thing to move between different computers (I have both a PC and a Mac and bounce between them regularly, and back in college I was also frequently writing on the school's lab PCs/Macs) because it's impossible to find a computer that doesn't have at least a basic program that can open them. I don't actually write in Notepad, though; I use a text editor that's intended for code because I'm a giant nerd, more or less. (For other nerds who might happen to wonder, right now I'm specifically using Visual Studio Code, but I've used Sublime Text, Atom and Brackets as well; Brackets was my previous favorite.) For non-nerds, Notepad will work just fine as long as you turn on the word wrap setting.
-Recently I've been trying to write my longer fics in Scrivener. Scrivener is not free (but not that expensive, either, especially if you can get it with a discount code after completing a NaNoWriMo event if NaNo's your thing), and it's far more bell-and-whistle-y than a standard word processor, but it's intended specifically for authors and comes with some built-in organizational features and such, like the ability to break your story into sections without needing separate files. I am a deeply disorganized person who can't write more than a sentence of fiction without a plan these days, so as I play around with it and write more in it I'm finding it helpful for visualizing things and keeping them in more manageable chunks. It's definitely overkill if you don't need that sort of organizational hand-holding, however, and again, not free, so that might be a factor, idk.
-I used to use/occasionally still use any of several "distraction-free" writing programs, which basically take over your whole screen with nothing but your story so you're not distracted by the rest of your computer/any fancy word processor options. Most of them also use .txt or .md files as their format. There are tons of these things, but for example you could look at FocusWriter or Writemonkey or Cold Turkey Writer, all with varying appearances and degrees of forcing you not to touch Facebook during writing time rather than just hiding it from you.
There are countless other options out there; these are just the ones I believe are most common/the ones I often use. It's kind of hard to go wrong when all you need to do is write words, save those words and copy and paste those words into Serebii's post editor! If you're at all interested in experimenting with something other than "as close to Word as possible", you can't go wrong with just grabbing a bunch of the various free options or a Scrivener free trial and playing around with them for a bit to see what you're most comfortable with--as long as it's easy to use and gets out of your way when you need to write, it's a good 'un.
*re-lurks*
Well, if all you're after is a drop-in, super-similar replacement for Word, you should look at LibreOffice. It's meant to be compatible with Microsoft Office's file formats and is laid out in a nearly identical manner, and it's completely free. Also comes with spreadsheet software (replacing Excel), presentation software (replacing Powerpoint), and a few other things, so if you also need other office software for work or school or something then LibreOffice should have you covered there, too.
Other options:
-If your new computer is a Mac, I think Apple's own word processing software, Pages, is either free or cheap in the App Store, and it's also pretty similar to Word in function, albeit with a very different layout.
-A lot of people write entirely online in Google Docs, so if you have or are willing to create a Google account there's that.
-Personally, I do a lot of note-taking and shorter writing in plain old text documents, lightly formatted with Markdown. I like them because I don't usually need all the bells and whistles of a full word processor, and because .txt/.md files are just about the simplest thing to move between different computers (I have both a PC and a Mac and bounce between them regularly, and back in college I was also frequently writing on the school's lab PCs/Macs) because it's impossible to find a computer that doesn't have at least a basic program that can open them. I don't actually write in Notepad, though; I use a text editor that's intended for code because I'm a giant nerd, more or less. (For other nerds who might happen to wonder, right now I'm specifically using Visual Studio Code, but I've used Sublime Text, Atom and Brackets as well; Brackets was my previous favorite.) For non-nerds, Notepad will work just fine as long as you turn on the word wrap setting.
-Recently I've been trying to write my longer fics in Scrivener. Scrivener is not free (but not that expensive, either, especially if you can get it with a discount code after completing a NaNoWriMo event if NaNo's your thing), and it's far more bell-and-whistle-y than a standard word processor, but it's intended specifically for authors and comes with some built-in organizational features and such, like the ability to break your story into sections without needing separate files. I am a deeply disorganized person who can't write more than a sentence of fiction without a plan these days, so as I play around with it and write more in it I'm finding it helpful for visualizing things and keeping them in more manageable chunks. It's definitely overkill if you don't need that sort of organizational hand-holding, however, and again, not free, so that might be a factor, idk.
-I used to use/occasionally still use any of several "distraction-free" writing programs, which basically take over your whole screen with nothing but your story so you're not distracted by the rest of your computer/any fancy word processor options. Most of them also use .txt or .md files as their format. There are tons of these things, but for example you could look at FocusWriter or Writemonkey or Cold Turkey Writer, all with varying appearances and degrees of forcing you not to touch Facebook during writing time rather than just hiding it from you.
There are countless other options out there; these are just the ones I believe are most common/the ones I often use. It's kind of hard to go wrong when all you need to do is write words, save those words and copy and paste those words into Serebii's post editor! If you're at all interested in experimenting with something other than "as close to Word as possible", you can't go wrong with just grabbing a bunch of the various free options or a Scrivener free trial and playing around with them for a bit to see what you're most comfortable with--as long as it's easy to use and gets out of your way when you need to write, it's a good 'un.
*re-lurks*
Last edited:
NebulaDreams
A Dense Irritating Miniature Beast of Burden
A mix of different things, really. I actually use an Alphasmart Neo for first drafts, which is a computer keyboard with a built in word processor, and is really useful since the small screen discourages you from going back and editing stuff. I upload it to Evernote after, and when I need to work on second drafts, I use Google Docs for beta reading since it allows people to comment, and LibreOffice for redrafting.
unrepentantAuthor
A cat who writes stories
Scrivener. I find the whole setup very helpful in keeping my stories organised. I also variously use Google Docs/OneNote/Discord depending on my specific needs.
Manchee
extra toasty
I'm not sure if they do the discount anymore. I "won" NaNo last year and the discount was not part of the winnings, unless I totally missed it, but when I won a few years ago I remember it being pretty obvious on the winner page. Regardless, I bought Scrivener anyway, and it has been super helpful in planning larger projects. It took a little bit to get used to, but I'm really happy with it. You have to choose Mac or Windows version, which annoys me a bit because I have a Windows desktop and a MacBook Pro, but it's still worth it.
Speaking of a MacBook Pro, I used to have Word on it, but it's going through some issues right now and had to be wiped. Because of that, I've been using Pages, and I actually prefer it to Word. It's a lot more streamlined. The layout is different, yes, but it's not hard to figure out. And it is free, and should come already downloaded on the Mac (mine did, unless that guy at the Apple Store put it on after he wiped it)
Venia Silente
[](int x){return x;}
For writing I've been working on more or less the same setup for a few years.
Libreoffice for writing; the Writer component has a respectable HTML mode which allows you to write fics that paste easily into forums like this one or into AO3 (but not into Google Docs for some reason, it seems to randomly insert blank lines) and probably even FF.net but I wouldn't dare try, someone else can take the bullet for the team. The spellcheck is the default that comes installed in my distro but I assist it with some Pokédics of my creation, holding the names of mons from G1 to G6 as well as some items and locations.
For grammar I'm admittedly using beta readers
When working on smaller texts that don't require much or anything ni the way of eg.: formatting, I ditch the heavier editors and I switch to Geany and Pluma, both of which optionally accept spellchecking. It helps that Geany is also my default workshop when it comes to programming.
Data keeping and researching, at least when done for Pokémon, is done via some private pages and a small database in the Suocéverse Wiki, also of my creation, and via 10 to 15 tabs opened in the browser pointing to sites like Bulbapedia, Veekun, Wiktionary, Encyclopedia Britannica and a few online quick references.
Planning used to be done on Freemind but now I'm moving some bits to Writer's Cafe; still, most important planning is done on pen and paper or simply on S5 slides and diagrams.
Libreoffice for writing; the Writer component has a respectable HTML mode which allows you to write fics that paste easily into forums like this one or into AO3 (but not into Google Docs for some reason, it seems to randomly insert blank lines) and probably even FF.net but I wouldn't dare try, someone else can take the bullet for the team. The spellcheck is the default that comes installed in my distro but I assist it with some Pokédics of my creation, holding the names of mons from G1 to G6 as well as some items and locations.
For grammar I'm admittedly using beta readers
When working on smaller texts that don't require much or anything ni the way of eg.: formatting, I ditch the heavier editors and I switch to Geany and Pluma, both of which optionally accept spellchecking. It helps that Geany is also my default workshop when it comes to programming.
Data keeping and researching, at least when done for Pokémon, is done via some private pages and a small database in the Suocéverse Wiki, also of my creation, and via 10 to 15 tabs opened in the browser pointing to sites like Bulbapedia, Veekun, Wiktionary, Encyclopedia Britannica and a few online quick references.
Planning used to be done on Freemind but now I'm moving some bits to Writer's Cafe; still, most important planning is done on pen and paper or simply on S5 slides and diagrams.
MichaelParis
New Member
Thanks for the helpful tips! I often use a service with free essay samples for students. Unfortunately, I don't always have enough time to study the material properly. And with the help of this resource I manage much more without compromising the quality of my knowledge.
Last edited:
- Status