#ULYSSES VS SCRIVENER ANDROID#
#ULYSSES VS SCRIVENER SOFTWARE#

This approach, it seems to me, is the future of most apps we use. That is something I’ve come to like a lot. It doesn’t care what device I use or where I am.

#ULYSSES VS SCRIVENER ANDROID#

I can have a Word file open on my desktop and add a note into it on my Android phone while walking down the hill. It does all this through smart web storage. Once a very closed product limited to Windows and an inferior Mac version, it’s now available across the spectrum, for iPad, iPhone, Android phones and tablets, and with a version that runs very well in a browser. Microsoft Word is the ultimate destination of all my work except scripts, since that is the lingua franca of book publishing, the format we’re expected to deliver. Meanwhile mainstream writing apps have often moved, very successfully, to the web and given up trying to demand you use a particular operating system to get on with your work. But these are still both conventional computer programmes designed to run on individual devices. Ulysses does that without a second thought and, unlike Scrivener, doesn’t mind if your story is open on another machine elsewhere. I gave up on the iPad app long ago since moving between screens something I do all the time. You can get an iPad app too but Scrivener is complex and awkward when it comes to syncing between devices.

There is a Windows version but it’s some way behind the current Mac one at the moment though the release of Windows version 3 appears to be imminent.

#ULYSSES VS SCRIVENER SOFTWARE#

Which is one reason why I always try to keep an eye on what’s happening elsewhere in the writing software scene. But when you write for a living, five days a week or more, you sometimes need a change of the daily scenery. Most people will stick to one app, of course, which is eminently sensible. Ulysses excels at simpler narratives without too many twists and turns. Scrivener is by far the more complex but better, it seems to me, for multi-threaded stories. Today I flit between both depending on the project. I was an early user of Scrivener, a piece of software I still admire and use, and later adopted Ulysses, a lovely app on the Mac and iPad that combines power with simplicity. Years ago I came to the conclusion that standard word processors don’t cut it for me when it comes to dealing with the complex, threaded business of putting together a book-length narrative. I’m talking about processes, approaches, the day-to-day practice of writing. I’m not talking about ‘inspiration’ here. So I often take a long look at my work processes - the tools I use for the job - and try to work out if I can do things more efficiently next time. It’s easy to be sucked into trying to write something straight away but I long ago discovered this is a mistake. I don’t know what other authors are like but I go a bit funny whenever I’ve finished a long project.

Ulysses vs scrivener