Writing Tools for Windows

Tools for digital writing on a PC

As a Windows user from the beginning I have often cast a slightly envious eye towards Mac users when it comes to the question of writing software. They have the polished Scrivener - perfect for creating books of any kind, beautiful simple text editors like Ulysses and Byword, and the gorgeous eBook creator, Vellum. PC users are not spoilt for choice - there are an absolute ton of options out there - but the problem is they don’t quite have the same polish as their Mac counterparts. But things are improving. I’ve always resisted the urge to switch camps. I don’t believe the grass is always greener. For one thing, a Mac mouse has one button. To a PC user that’s like working with one hand tied behind your back! So I’ve always had to rely on the fact that the sheer number of Windows users would lead to equivalents of great Mac software being developed for the PC. The best news is that the creators of Scrivener saw the light and developed a PC version of their wonderful writing software. Unfortunately, it has always lagged a major version behind the Mac and looked, frankly, clunky and messy on the PC. But that is all about to change with version 3.0, now in Beta testing. This will bring it pretty much up to date with the Mac version and be much closer cosmetically. I have had a good play around with the Beta and I have to say it is going to be a game-changer for writers using PCs. Creating eBooks is much more of a thorny problem. Vellum for Mac shows how it should be done. Nothing comes close on a PC. I use an open-source eBook editor called Sigil. It does a decent job of producing ePub books but I am handy with CSS and HTML. Without such knowledge it would be difficult to get the best out of Sigil - not impossible, but you would be limited to very simple formatting. With some CSS knowledge you can achieve very professional results with things like drop caps and graphical chapter headers. Calibre is an eBook manager program, and it does a decent job of converting eBooks to other formats such as Kindle and PDF. Together, Sigil and Calibre can get the job done for you if you have some basic skills and the determination to conquer the learning curve. Amazon have a free piece of software called Kindle Previewer which also does an excellent job (as you’d expect) of converting an ePub into Kindle format. But Calibre is more flexible. So far, I haven’t mentioned the giant - Microsoft Word. If you are writing for conventional print formats then it is of course the industry standard. However, for digital - eBooks, blogs, etc. - it is a nightmare and best avoided at all costs. The Docx format it uses as standard fills even the simplest document with masses of invisible junk that prevents it from being able to work with most other software without annoying issues. For digital writing, plain text is the best way to go. It is future proof. At the moment, Markdown is gaining in popularity. It allows you to add basic formatting instructions to a document, such as headers, bold and italics, whilst being able to save the document as plain text. In some ways, it is a dream come true but I am finding it is not the promised land I had hoped it would be. Existing software is proving reluctant to fully embrace Markdown, and although the likes of Word and Scrivener will claim support, in reality you end up spending too much time tweaking things like extra carriage returns that can mysteriously appear. Plain text is the one format that is virtually bulletproof. I have found, the hard way, that it is best just to get on with your writing and worry about the formatting at the end. Write the whole thing in a text editor. When you are happy with it, then you can copy & paste or import it into something like Scrivener or Sigil and begin to think about the presentational aspects.
Another benefit of plain text is it has no problems crossing platforms. I can edit a document in Byword on an iPad and it syncs, via Dropbox, to my PC where it can be pulled into any text editor straight away. And changes made on the PC will be synced back to the iPad. It’s the same with Mac and Android apps. Byword is one of a plethora of text editors for iPad but I single it out because it has an extra trick - it lets you publish to a blog account, such as Wordpress or Blogger. (This article is proof!). One issue you might have with working in plain text is that it is not a nice working environment to look at, especially if you’ve used Windows notepad. Well, the good news is there are plenty of gorgeous text editors available on the PC. Most of them allow you to choose the fonts and colours you want (for display only - the documents are still saved as plain text!). I am particularly drawn to so-called minimalist editors, such as WriteMonkey, OmmWriter and ZenWriter. These allow you to do away with the usual clutter of menus and toolbars and just focus on your words on the screen. I like ZenWriter because it allows you to display any picture you like as a backdrop to your words and comes with some wonderfully calming background music that really does seem to put you in a focussed mood. A slight caveat with ZenWriter is that it saves documents in RTF format. Scrivener can import RTF documents, but I prefer to just select the text in ZenWriter and then copy & paste as required. WriteMonkey is another brilliant option. It can look as basic as you want it to but has a wealth of features hidden away if you want them and is highly configurable. It supports Markdown as well as plain text, so you have both bases covered there. So, to sum up, if I want to create an eBook in Windows I have a four-step process:

1. Create the text in a plain-text editor, such as Byword on iPad or ZenWriter on PC.
2. Cut & paste or import into Scrivener, where you can add formatting, front matter, images, etc.
3. Export from Scrivener as ePub, then load into Sigil to tidy up and add tweaks such as drop caps.
4. Load into Calibre or Kindle Previewer to convert to Kindle format.

This process is not set in stone and I’m always looking out for new solutions (particularly a PC equivalent of Vellum!), but for now it does the job. The thing is to experiment with some of the many software options available and see what works for you. Most have a free trial period and some are free full stop. (Sigil, Calibre and Kindle Previewer are free. ZenWriter, Scrivener and Byword are all relatively inexpensive.)