CXO

Five tools that make life easier for writers

By // February 29, 2012, 12:24 AM PST // jlwallen

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  • Introduction

    As a writer, I'm always looking for tools to make my work easier. Although I spend most of my time in a word processor, sometimes I need more specialized features. For those times, I have some go-to tools that make the writing process go more smoothly. Whether you're a novelist, a student, an office manager, or even a documentation designer, these tools can help with your writing projects.

    Note: If you'd prefer to view this information as a blog post, check out this entry in our Five Apps blog.

    Photo credit: Copyright © iStockphoto.com/Rogeramjet

  • Writer's Cafe

    Writer's Cafe is a sort of Swiss Army Knife for writers. It contains storyline planning tools (with drag & drop cards), formatting, screenplay auto formatting, text and screenplay import, instant reports, outline view, tag-based searching, customizable structure, file export, character profiles, story locations, spell check, undo/redo, keyboard shortcuts, and more.

  • Writer's Cafe

    With Writer's Cafe, you can can plan and manage your work as you go along.

  • Scrivener

    Scrivener is a complete writing studio that allows you to collect research, order your ideas, outline and structure your novel, and view your research alongside your work.

  • Scrivener

    If you find yourself buried in notes and books all over your desk, you can use Scrivener to reduce the clutter and manage all your resources within a single application.

  • Labyrinth

    When you need to flesh out a plot line or diagram a character's growth (or map out a class or design a piece of code), mind-mapping software can be very handy. Labyrinth is one of the easiest-to-use mind-mapping apps you will ever find.

  • Labyrinth

    Labyrinth offers a scaling and scrollable canvas, text attributes (bold, italics, etc.), arrow navigation of thoughts, import/export, the ability to save a state across instances, and much more.

  • Scribus

    If you're a do-it-yourself author, you might want to look into Scribus. It's an open source program for desktop publishing and page layout.

  • Scribus

    Scribus offers features like color separations, CMYK and Spot Color support, ICC color management, and versatile PDF creation. If you plan to lay out your own book, you won't find a better, more cost-effective solution than Scribus.

  • Bibus

    If your writing involves a lot of citations, Bibus can help you manage them.

  • Bibus

    Bibus lets you search and sort your bibliographical records, perform live and online queries, and insert references and formatting of bibliographies into Microsoft Office, LibreOffice, and OpenOffice. Bibus is free (open source) and easy to use.

Introduction

As a writer, I'm always looking for tools to make my work easier. Although I spend most of my time in a word processor, sometimes I need more specialized features. For those times, I have some go-to tools that make the writing process go more smoothly. Whether you're a novelist, a student, an office manager, or even a documentation designer, these tools can help with your writing projects.

Note: If you'd prefer to view this information as a blog post, check out this entry in our Five Apps blog.

Photo credit: Copyright © iStockphoto.com/Rogeramjet

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By Jack Wallen

Jack Wallen is an award-winning writer for TechRepublic and Linux.com. He’s an avid promoter of open source and the voice of The Android Expert. For more news about Jack Wallen, visit his website jackwallen.com.