Yzabel / July 13, 2005

For some time, I had been looking for a nice, simple and cheap (read: not more than 50$/€, or, better yet, free) software for writing. The one I currently use is the well-known and very good OpenOffice, and I’m really satisfied with it; however, it lacks an essential component for novel writing in my opinion – the ability to navigate through chapters. When I write, it’s not from Chapter One to Final Chapter, and it becomes a hassle, once I have more than just 20 or 30 pages written, to navigate from one chapter to the other as I follow my inspiration regarding what to write at a precise moment. In a nutshell, what I want from such a software can be summarized as follows:

• Ability to organize files/chapters into an easily available single project or index, so that I can quickly sift through them
• Ability to export into a single file, for when I need a complete version to print or send
• Being close enough to a real word processor, at least when it comes to basic formatting, spellcheck and the likes
• Not being too expensive
• Having a trial version, since I don’t buy without testing first
• A bearable enough GUI. I’m going to work with this a lot, and staring at a butt-ugly software for hours can be discouraging no matter what. (I already have WordPress administration panel when I want that.)

So far, there are two products that I’ve noted down. The first one, Power Writer (lecteurs Français, dans notre bon pays, il se nomme plutôt poétiquement Phraseo) seems good and powerful, however it’s close to 100$/80 €, and thus not for me at the moment. I’ve tested a demo of Power Writer, and it was quite confusing on the first use, albeit indeed seeming like a good organization tool once one gets the grasp of it. The second one, which I’m likely going to use for the moment, is GemX’s TexNotes Pro 4.2, currently in hiding under a very simple GUI and a name that would make it appear like a barely improved Notepad only. Without any pun intended, here I found a little gem. It’s easy to take in hands, intuitive, nice to look at, can generate a single RTF file that I can import in OpenOffice in a snap of fingers for printing and paginating if I need to, has the basic formatting functions, and is very, very light (it doesn’t take more than two seconds to fire it up). Alright, the software is made in USA, and thus doesn’t have the regular French typographic attributes; I think I can however live without them for the moment, and use the ALT +… shortcuts for the four or five specific characters such as em-dashes or brackets I need to insert here and there. After all, if I wanted to worry about paginating from the start, I’d do that in InDesign or FrameMaker at work.I still think that I’m going to test it in length; the trial period lasts 60 days, is fully-functional, and ends up with reminders to register rather than locking down the software completely. Anyway, 60 days should be way enough for me to have a good idea of whether or not it fits my easy needs at the moment.Of course, I’m still open to any suggestions. I know I may not have necessarily found “the” software I need yet.