If you turn phrases for fun and/or profit, your best option for a Mac writing app depends on what you want to write, and how.

• Apps For Writing On Mac Keyboard
• Free Apps For Writing On Mac

Aug 25, 2017 The first three apps on this list all take a similar no-frills approach to writing. They sport clean, minimalist interfaces, keep all your writing in a single window, can swap documents between their iOS and Mac versions, and use some variation of the Markdown syntax to handle all text formatting.

Sure, you could stick with a word processor to pour your thoughts onto the page — but you've got better choices. If you want something a little less stuffy, cluttered, and nine-to-five, or more focused on creative writing, we've found four solid choices that take two very different approaches to helping you express yourself. All are either Essentials or Editors' Choices in the Mac App Store.

• Apr 19, 2019  Still, Mac apps, like Evernote, the best note-taking app around, should be useful for anyone. You won’t find all of these apps on the Mac App Store, but they’re still worth your consideration.
• Scrivener ($45) is a Windows and Mac app that gives you a single place to dump all your ideas and writing. It includes tools to keep notes, collect research, outline, and organize your writing.
• Mar 14, 2017  One of the things I love about Scrivener is that it’s as useful for planning and editing as it is for writing. For example, when planning a novel, the app offers a corkboard view. You can write notes on virtual index cards, rearrange the cards, stack them, unstack them and so on until you have a.
• The best writing apps know what to leave behind when switching from a 21-inch-screen to a 9.7-inch one, and they do it without trampling over any of our individual writing styles and preferences.
• How to write a novel: 6 writing apps & inspiration apps 6 writing apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac that will help you start writing your novel and stay inspired until it's finished By Ashleigh Macro.

Ulysses

The first three apps on this list all take a similar no-frills approach to writing. They sport clean, minimalist interfaces, keep all your writing in a single window, can swap documents between their iOS and Mac versions, and use some variation of the Markdown syntax to handle all text formatting.

Ulysses impressed me most among this crowd for its breadth of features and ease of use. An outstanding series of introductory texts ease you into using Ulysses, one simple step at a time. Their witty writing allows you to learn the program while you're using it.

If you want to track your own productivity, or challenge yourself to meet a certain word count, it's easy to set goals from Ulysses's dashboard. Don't know Markdown XL, Ulysses's native tongue? No worries — a handy cheat sheet of syntax waits behind a button at the top of the program. (Ulysses also supports old faithful keyboard shortcuts for bold, italic, and linked text, if you don't want to type Markdown XL's extra characters.)

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Ulysses keeps these two features and a handful of others, including options to export your work to text, ePub, HTML, PDF, or DOCX formats, in pop-over menus that you can tear off and keep onscreen for easy reference.

Ulysses isn't WYSIWYG; you can download themes to change up its color scheme at the Ulysses Style Exchange, but you can't view the effects of your formatting until you preview or export it. The Style Exchange also offers a host of free templates for PDF, HTML, and ePub exports, with different looks, fonts, and styles.

Ulysses comes with built-in iCloud support to hand off documents between its Mac and iOS versions. It can also publish your work directly to your Medium or WordPress site, once you enter your account info. And its subscription model means that your monthly $4.99 fee unlocks the app on both the Mac and iOS.

Ulysses offers a lot of options in a polished, user-friendly package. Unfortunately, it has a good portion of its thunder stolen by…

• $4.99/month with a 14-day free trial - Download now!

Bear

Nearly everything Ulysses does, Bear does just as well, in an arguably prettier package. Bear's fonts and color scheme, while still clean and stark, go easier on the eyes than Ulysses's utilitarian gray. Its stats panel is much easier to read, though less detailed. And Bear strikes a happy medium between full WYSIWYG formatting and Markdown simplicity by clearly labeling different header tags as you create them, and offering the option to actually show text as bold or italic when properly marked.

I liked Bear's tagging system, which makes it really easy to organize files. Just type in a hashtag anywhere in your document, and Bear will either create a category for it on the fly in its list of documents, or add that document to an existing category. I was also impressed with Bear's ability to share a note to any program you've added to your Mac's Sharing menu, including Facebook, Twitter, and Reminders.

Beyond that, Bear duplicates a lot of Ulysses's virtues, from its overall interface to its friendly help files. And the program's basic version, which packs plenty of power, is absolutely free on both Mac and iOS. However, to match Ulysses's features, you'll need to subscribe to Bear Plus, for $1.49 a month or $14.99 a year. That subscription gets you features like iCloud synching, ePub export, and customizable export themes, all of which Ulysses includes right out of the box.

• Free to download, $1.99/month or $14.99/year Bear Plus subscription - Download now!

iA Writer

iA Writer is inexpensive -- just a one-time $15 fee -- and it packs a reasonably robust feature set. iCloud sharing and synching with its iOS sibling is built in, as is WordPress and Medium support. Like Bear and Ulysses, iA Writer offers downloadable export templates, and its help files include instructions to make your own with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. But for all these virtues, iA Writer still falls short.

Its stark black-and-white interface makes Ulysses look colorful. It feels brusque and utilitarian, not welcoming. On first use, the program dumps you right into its interface with no introduction. Its lean, efficient Help files explain the program well, but after Ulysses and Bear's gentler tutorials, iA Writer's lack of frills can feel jarring.

Word count and other stats are crammed into a tiny menu at the bottom of the window, and you can't set goals for any of those parameters. They're squeezed into the same small space as iA Writer's Format and Syntax menus, which can format text or quickly highlight all the nouns, adverbs, adjectives, or other parts of speech in your document — a nifty feature undercut by lackluster interface design.

Finally, a real-time preview window can show you what your text will look like when it's finished and formatted. But it feels odd to have the same text side by side; if you want to see what text looks like when formatted, why not just have a WYSIWYG editor?

iA Writer isn't bad on its own merits, but with such impressive competition, it can't help but suffer in comparison.

• $15 - Download now!

Scrivener

At the opposite end of the spectrum from its spartan rivals, Scrivener is a jumbo-sized Swiss army knife stuffed with a sometimes overwhelming array of fun and useful tools. The other programs in this roundup are undeniably more versatile, lending themselves just as well to note taking, blog posts, journalism, or technical writing as they do to writing fiction. In contrast, Scrivener's built to serve the needs of folks writing novels, short stories, screenplays, and — given its ability to store pictures, cached web pages, and other research material alongside a given text — possibly term papers. For $45, you'll definitely get your money's worth.

Scrivener's somewhat long in the tooth compared to its rivals here, with a dense but coherent interface filled with the kinds of colorful icons that seem to have fallen out of fashion among Mac apps. It arguably needs such a crowd of buttons to display even a fraction of the features stuffed into its every nook and cranny. (My favorite: A ridiculously options-laden name generator for authors in need of inspiration.) Scrivener's user manual, however engagingly written, is 546 pages long. It's not messing around.

Even after years of using Scrivener, I still sometimes find myself hunting through its menus in search of that one command I need. Consistently formatting text files in a given project to anything other than Scrivener's default settings can be a pain, and it keeps its settings for targets and statistics in separate popup windows.

But despite this complexity, Scrivener does a good job of getting out of your way. Scrivener offers an outline mode, and a corkboard mode that displays each of your scenes as virtual notecards on which you can hash out what happens when. But if you just want to start writing without worrying about its bells and whistles, you won't have a problem. Because it's so like the Finder, Scrivener's system for storing scenes in various folders makes sense immediately. And like all the programs mentioned here, Scrivener offers a fullscreen mode that blots out everything but the text you're working on, to avoid distractions.

Scrivener also offers a respectable if occasionally glitchy screenplay mode. It won't replace Final Draft, but if you want to have fun writing a cinematic masterpiece about Dominic Toretto battling Dracula, you'll end up with a decently formatted final product.

Scrivener also shines when it's time to publish your work. Its voluminous list of export formats includes all the usual suspects, plus ePubs, Final Draft screenplay files, and even Kindle books. You can even select only specific chapters or files to compile and export — handy when you've got multiple drafts of a novel in a given file, but only want to create a PDF of the most recent one. However, this versatility has one glaring exception: Scrivener doesn't support iCloud, though it can share documents between its iOS and Mac versions.

• $45 - Download now!

Which app is best?

If you want a jack-of-all trades writing app with WordPress, Medium, and iCloud support built in, Ulysses is your best bet. If you're not willing to shell out $4.99 a month indefinitely, try the similar Bear first. You may not ever need its advanced features, which would give you a terrific writing app for free.

But if you're serious about creative writing, and you want a stalwart companion to help drag stories out of your brain, Scrivener's your best bet. Its learning curve is steeper, but its powerful features make that climb worthwhile.

Got any favorite apps we haven't mentioned here? Let us know in the comments below.

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Create and collaborate on documents that are beautiful beyond words.

Pages is a powerful word processor that lets you create stunning documents. You can even use Apple Pencil on your iPad to add comments and illustrations by hand. And with real-time collaboration, your team can work together, whether they’re on Mac, iPad, or iPhone, or using a PC.

Download Pages for Mac from the Mac App StoreDownload Pages for iOS from the iOS App StorePreview Pages for iOS in the iOS App StorePreview Pages for Mac in the Mac App StoreStart using Pages at iCloud.com

A canvas
for creativity.

Apps For Writing On Mac Keyboard

From the start, Pages places you in the perfect creative environment. It puts all the right tools in all the right places, so it’s easy to choose a look, customize fonts, personalize text styles, and add beautiful graphics. And everyone collaborating on a document has access to the same powerful features.

Start with a great‑looking template.

Choose from over 70 beautiful Apple‑designed templates, and customize your document any way you like.

See your progress.

Track changes, add highlights, and have threaded conversations with your team. Your edits are saved automatically.

Find and organize chapters easily.

Pages automatically creates a table of contents for you based on paragraph styles and updates it as you make edits. Just tap or click to find the content you want.

Communicate beautifully.

Liven up your text by filling it with color gradients or images. And take the entire page to the next level by adding photos, galleries, math equations, charts, or more than 700 customizable shapes.

Record and edit audio clips.

Add and adjust narration, notes, and sounds for people to play in your documents on iOS and Mac.

Create a book.

From travel books to fairy tales, it’s easy to make beautiful, interactive books with image galleries, audio clips, and videos right inside Pages. Built‑in tools let you copy and paste into different projects, create links to jump to other pages, and collaborate with friends, editors, colleagues, or classmates. And when you’re done, easily share them with others or publish them to Apple Books for download or purchase.

Turn your device into a teleprompter.

Now public speaking is nothing to be afraid of. With Presenter Mode, Pages turns your document into a ready-to-read speech with just a tap. You can then set it to scroll automatically at your pace.

Pages and
Apple Pencil.

Sketch, illustrate, and create documents to express your ideas with Apple Pencil on your iPad.

Draw and modify

Sketch your idea, then press play to watch each stroke animate onto the page.

Free Apps For Writing On Mac

Edits that stick.

With Smart Annotation, your edits stay with the marked-up text, making it easy for you and your team to incorporate changes.

Collaborate with anyone.
Anywhere.

Work together in the same document, from across town or across the world. You can see your team’s edits as they make them — and they can watch as you make yours, too. Just select a name on the collaborator list to jump to anyone’s cursor.

Work on any document. On any device.

You don’t work in one place on just one device. The same goes for Pages. So the documents your team creates using a Mac or iPad look the same on an iPhone or web browser — and vice versa.

Work together in real time on documents stored on iCloud or Box.

Everyone can collaborate — whether they’re on Mac, iPad, iPhone, or a PC web browser.

Unlock documents with a touch or a glance.

Open password-protected files in a snap with Touch ID or Face ID on compatible devices.

Microsoft Word friendly.

Teaming up with someone who uses Microsoft Word? Pages makes it simple. You can save Pages documents as Word files. Or import and edit Word documents right in Pages. Most popular Word features are supported, too. Now it’s no problem to work on the same project. Even if you use different apps.

Learn more about Microsoft Word compatibilityLearn more about Microsoft Word compatibility

More ways to do stunning work.

Numbers

Create great-looking spreadsheets. Together. Best ebook apps for mac.

Keynote

Easily build stunning, memorable presentations.