Authors, what program do you use?

I know there are several authors on the forum. What program do you use? I know there are several specific programs but which one is the best? What do potential publishers prefer? Thanks!

I just use Open Office.

All of the stuff I've had published were written in Word. It's what I have.

I write a lot professionally. Not sure if you'd call me an author, but I use Word. It has enough formatting features, outlining, and stuff like automatic TOC generation, to serve my needs. It handles moderate graphics as well.

I just use Google Drive. It's free and has decent features. Plus, free cloud backup for a number of GB, so you'll be fine for space.

I occasionally have to do manuals or other technical documentation. I use Vi for the text, LaTeX for the layout/pagination/chapter stuff because it's great at typesetting. Trying to show equations in any of these Office products is futility.

Wow, LaTeX - now there's a name I haven't heard in almost 20 years. Word has built-in preformatted equations, but I imagine it is difficult to compose your own.

If you want to make a finished-looking book yourself, use LaTeX. Otherwise, LibreOffice, Word, or even a plaintext editor will do just fine. Publishers will be happy enough if you didn't mail-in a bunch of typewritten pages, which some authors still do.

While I am not an author, I imagine it also depends on what kind of book you're trying to write.

My thoughts:
Math -> LaTeX
Formatting including pictures -> Word
Text only, like novels and such -> something minimalist with just text on the screen.

I've written two or three in either OpenOffice or Word and one in Google Drive. I think. Heck, I'd write one in WordPad, I don't need all them fancy formats to make words work good. I was doing the layout, I'd use InDesign.

I've written in Open Office and Word when I'm forced to, I don't like them for much more than writing a letter. I use InDesign and FrameMaker for technical authoring, though either can handle anything you want them to do.
Of the two, I prefer InDesign because FrameMaker is kind of a pain in the butt.

I write in Pages. It's quick and simple.

I do Tech Docs for a living, I'm in the process of changing our publishing workflow to MadCap Flare.

Wow, thanks everyone. I've got several to check out. I started using pen and paper then Word. I googled the question and found many I never heard of. I thought I'd find some experience here.

I used to use Pages for personal things, but never trusted it after Apple broke things between versions. Regardless of platform, I use Word for documents and plain txt/vim for notes or anything involving code. I wouldn't mind learning LaTeX, but I would never create a document with it.

In science, you really need Word and Endnote. My dissertation was 175 pages, had dynamic tables of contents and figures, and had over 300 references. There's no way I'd consider doing that without Word. You just need to learn how to use section breaks and you're off to the races.

Scrivener is specifically design for authors writing longer texts. It does have a bit of a learning curve though.

Kylini wrote: In science, you *really* need Word and Endnote. My dissertation was 175 pages, had dynamic tables of contents and figures, and had over 300 references. There's no way I'd consider doing that without Word. You just need to learn how to use section breaks and you're off to the races.

It sounds like a proper publishing software designed around Technical Documentation would serve documents like that much better than Word.

However, the learning curve for something like Flare isn't exactly low. It helps to know a little HTML code, you can write in a WYSIWYG "word type" interface, or straight in XML code. How I get it to do things sometimes the tags don't want to let it do.

You're also responsible for using CSS to setup all formatting and such (however, once completed, all subsequent documents never have to bother with formatting again), easily to use in-line formatting or the CSS to keeps things consistent, Snippets and such for reuseability and consistency, etc.

Once you've used software like for documentation you realize how underpowered Word is.

EXAMPLE: Using Word is like building your motor swap, weekend track car in the gravel driveway with a small Craftsman tool kit and a few other tools. Proper publishing software is like a fully stocked Professional garage with a lift.

Both get the job done, but one is WAY easier to do so.

What I'm seeing here is that it really depends on what you need to do.

Put together words in a clever manner, and only words? You can use damn near anything. Heck, I once wrote a magazine article on a Palm Pilot 3 using the stylus and Graffiti handwriting. No matter what, the best choice will be something that disappears so that it's just you and the language. With really big documents that consist of many smaller documents, you may want software with the ability to assemble the big book out of separate chapters.

Lay out a technical document? To me, layout and writing are separate steps and skills, but I can see how you might view them as one and the same. In that case, you look at things like InDesign or the real specialty programs. You can even do the text in one piece of software and have it placed in an InDesign document. I'm pretty sure InDesign is the industry standard for magazine and catalog work.

Personally, I'm not a fan of Word. It's a word processing program that's tried to evolve into layout software, and it's clumsy to me.

If you're sending off to a publisher, basic word processing is fine. For self publishing on Amazon, more like in-design with a plug in for their format. For technical work/manuals, one of the specialty programs are probably best.

Keith Tanner wrote: Lay out a technical document? To me, layout and writing are separate steps and skills, but I can see how you might view them as one and the same. In that case, you look at things like InDesign or the real specialty programs. You can even do the text in one piece of software and have it placed in an InDesign document. I'm pretty sure InDesign is the industry standard for magazine and catalog work.

Magazines/Flyers/etc, yes. InDesign doesn't do well with the types of documents I'm discussing, Technical/Scientific.

It's so ill prepared for that type of stuff, Adobe makes an entire another program (and software suite) aimed at this type of writing. Adobe Framemaker.

But you are right, it's important to know what type of writing he is doing/what he needs to accomplish.

oldtin wrote: If you're sending off to a publisher, basic word processing is fine. For self publishing on Amazon, more like in-design with a plug in for their format. For technical work/manuals, one of the specialty programs are probably best.

Yeah. And it never hurts to ask. I prefer to receive copy in either Word or Pages. I just want text. We're going to do our own layout, so no need to complicate things by adding in photos.

I have also written things using Apple's Notes program. Sometimes I want/need to start writing something that very instant. Notes does that just fine. Then I'll eventually copy it to Pages for final polishing.

z31maniac wrote:

Keith Tanner wrote: Lay out a technical document? To me, layout and writing are separate steps and skills, but I can see how you might view them as one and the same. In that case, you look at things like InDesign or the real specialty programs. You can even do the text in one piece of software and have it placed in an InDesign document. I'm pretty sure InDesign is the industry standard for magazine and catalog work.

Magazines/Flyers/etc, yes. InDesign doesn't do well with the types of documents I'm discussing, Technical/Scientific. It's so ill prepared for that type of stuff, Adobe makes an entire another program (and software suite) aimed at this type of writing. Adobe Framemaker. But you are right, it's important to know what type of writing he is doing/what he needs to accomplish.

I use FM and ID every day. I've never actually wanted to use FM over ID, once. I only use FM because I'm updating something that was written in FM long ago. They both can do the same thing, it's just that FM makes you jump through hoops to do it, and Adobe doesn't support it. You need to hunt through forums to find others that have solved the problem. FM actually has the cajones to say they have "discover able features" because they can't be bothered to document stuff like the rest of the free world.

If I'm doing something large, I use Word to self edit it before it gets posted up anywhere. I'm mainly a blogger, and use WordPress, which is basically a fancy forum tool in a nutshell. Works pretty well.

DrBoost wrote: FM actually has the cajones to say they have "discover able features" because they can't be bothered to document stuff like the rest of the free world.

That's because Adobe sucks very large bags of gentlmen's sausages. Hairy ones.

DrBoost wrote: I use FM and ID every day. I've never actually wanted to use FM over ID, once. I only use FM because I'm updating something that was written in FM long ago. They both can do the same thing, it's just that FM makes you jump through hoops to do it, and Adobe doesn't support it. You need to hunt through forums to find others that have solved the problem. FM actually has the cajones to say they have "discover able features" because they can't be bothered to document stuff like the rest of the free world.

I'm sure that's down to how you're using it. From my limited exposure to it, it didn't seem like it was really designed to do with it what I wanted.

Could you force it to do most of it? I'm sure. But I didn't see the point in having the company upgrade it, get me heavily trained on it, etc. When we could just buy a different software setup I'm familiar with and KNOW does what I need it to for the type of documentation I produce......for much less. And continues to gain heavily in market share in Tech Docs.

Also, as mentioned, the fact the only way you can product support as in "How can I make it do this?" vs "It's broken" is to go on the forums or other Adobe forums.

Vs what I'm using, "Hey, how do I do this?" "Let me remote into your computer and show you."