Text editors are a dime a dozen these days. I would venture a guess that there are hundreds, from web-based ones to native apps. Different interfaces, similar functionalities, but none of them do what “Write!” does – provide a beautiful, functional interface for writing. And I do not mean writing C++ code (there are excellent editors for those out there) – I am talking about writing.
Think of “Write!” as a word processor (for Windows as of this writing) that actually works and is a joy to use. Imagine Microsoft Word stripped down to its essentials and made it a joy to write with.
The interface is simple: pure white and you get to write. There is no ribbon menu. Nothing else. Just plain white. All formatting and navigation options are hidden either through shortcuts or through the right click. Highlight text, right click, and you can select its formatting (title, header, quote, code, etc) and colour.
It’s pretty simple but has some awesome features. You can “collapse” all sections to have an overview or to make scrolling easier. There is a navigation pane that opens that has you pan through your whole text. You can select some text and look it up in the thesaurus, or translate it into another language. It’s a bit quirky; for example, the default translation is always English to Russian (it opens Google Translate). There is no setting for “default” translations or auto-detect that it’s a non-English word to translate to English. It’s a minor issue, though. What I also liked is the powerful spell-checker that can detect multiple languages, so you don’t have to set a language that applies to the entire document like in Word.
The biggest gripe I have is that it does not export to .doc or .docx or even .pdf; it saves in its own format and can only export to text only, which loses all your formatting. However, you can copy and paste into Word when you’re done, and all your headers and formatting remains intact (except for the font which you need to change in word, since there is only one font in “Write!”).
Am I in love with “Write!”? Absolutely. Is it perfect? Not yet, but the developers are active in adding new features, and cloud-sync and integration is coming in future iterations. Collaborations are also set to be integrated in future versions, which will definitely prove to be a potential asset for serious writers.
As it is today, though, it’s a lovely writing app if you’re a serious writer. It’s way less bloated than Word, better looking and more functional than simple note pads or other word processors out there. It has its niche market, and the developers promise to keep improving it. As a writer myself I would have loved to have this back when I had more time to write stories in college.
Best of all though is that it is for free, so there’s no reason to not give it a spin.
