![]() It's powerful, with more features than you'll likely ever use. It's been around since 2007 and has helped an incredible number of authors write their books. It's a great way to reorganize your text. Want two documents together? Drag them together in the document list, select them both, right-click, and select Glue Sheets to link them together or Merge Sheets to turn them into one single document. Decide a chapter's running a bit too long? Press CMD + Shift + B to split everything below your cursor into a new document. Where Ulysses shines is in splitting and merging your documents. And there are smart folders that can group documents by keyword, text, the date they were updated, and more. There are tags-called keywords in Ulysses, hidden in the right sidebar-which you can uncover via search or from the small keyword icon in the center document pane. To move notes between documents, you'd need to copy/paste. It includes default folders and document lists, which you can drag-and-drop into the order and hierarchy you want. Where Scrivener lets you arrange your documents in free-form boards, Ulysses keeps things a bit more orderly with your documents in lists. Use folders to organize Ulysses documents-or just glue related documents Here's how Ulysses and Scrivener compare. Adobe InDesign is state-of-the-art for turning text into beautiful print books and one-pagers.įor everything else-books, longform documents, blog posts, theses-there are two other great apps: Ulysses and Scrivener. Plain-text apps like iA Writer and Byword keep things focused on just your text. Microsoft Word is great for formatting your resume and shorter essays, as is Google Docs for writing within a team. Perhaps something that'd help break a chapter into smaller pieces, let you find every mention of a character in seconds, or hide distractions and force you to write. What would be nice, though, is a tool that makes editing your text, organizing your thoughts, and formatting your final copy into a publishable eBook or print document. All you need is a blank space to type your thoughts. You could write a book in your email drafts, Notepad, your phone's notes app, or even in SMS messages if you're desperate. So, I admit that I’ve been a bit (a lot?) all over the place but I’m confident that there will be little need for significant changes in app choices and workflow going forward.You don't really need a new app to write. I’m using Scrivener and Ulysses for writing and Obsidian for research notes. I have DEVONthink primarily as a powerful file conversion and OCR utility. As I’ve noted, probably ad nauseam to some in this forum–for which I apologize, I have moved to Apple’s native apps for mail, notes, calendaring and tasks. And, I can always bulk convert files using DEVONthink.Īt this point I only have four app subscriptions and they are serving me well: Ulysses, 1Password, MindNode, and Bookends. ![]() Once I understood that I could export/compile rich text from Scrivener to markdown and that I could bulk export to markdown from Ulysses, I realized I was making this way too hard and that the Ulysses subscription was well worth it for short to medium length projects. Moreover, while I’m now more comfortable using a rich text based application like Scrivener, I still value the portability and future proofing of plain text files. Scrivener is working and syncing flawlessly. Scrivener tech support pointed out my error. I also discovered that it was user error and not Scrivener that caused the syncing problem I mentioned in this post. Having resolved this matter in my mind, I quickly concluded that Scrivener for large projects like books is superior to other options. I never questioned this before joining this forum but I got swept up on the plain text bandwagon. I’ve come to realize that it is “ok” to use rich text based applications. I’ve tried everything and I believe I’ve found the right combination of apps that do what I need while keeping subscriptions to a minimum. But, I’m working on breaking what in excess is an unproductive habit. My only consolation is that I’m not the only one in this forum “guilty” of switching and trying apps too often. ![]()
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