OS/X software for writers

I stumbled on this excellent article providing a good summary of OS/X applications for writers. In my never-ending search for better writing tools my eye has started to wander from CopyWrite. My only real gripe with CopyWrite is its inability to order documents into a sequence, though this is arguably not something to focus on while trying to brainstorm and get ideas down.

It was fun to see NoteTaker and its companion products alive and kicking. Back in the NEXTSTEP days I used its parent product extensively. Today, though, I’d highly recommend OmniOutliner as the tool of choice for this kind of work — it works effectively with truly huge outlines and handles all the multimedia I need to throw at it. And if I really want to take the time to make it look like a notebook, I can. (As an aside, I just stumbled on OmniFocus, a new GTD tool that I look forward to seeing once it ships).

When it comes to writing, the field pretty well seems to boil down to CopyWrite and Ulysses. Both of them focus on writing, de-emphasizing structure and formatting. In the end I’ve decided to stick with CopyWrite. It’s intuitive, simple and powerful.

I did take note of Mellel, an industry-grade word processor that I’ll likely need to make use of when it comes time to deliver my finished manuscript. It touts total reliability, huge document handling and support for a variety of esoteric document publication requirements — things that I’ll likely have to deal with at any given publisher.