Posts Tagged
writing
Plain text files are great because they are low on file size, but they are extremely limited when it comes to presentation. To that end, noted blogger John Gruber created a simple markup language called Markdown, which allows for easy formatting for writers and increased readability when displayed. The syntax used in Markdown is simple to learn and use, and can be processed by a number of programs. So what’s all this got to do with your documents?
Most text editors for mobile devices typically allow either plain-text editing or rich document editing, which are both cumbersome to deal with when it comes to posting your content on the web. With Markdown, you can create formatted text documents that are as light as plain text files, read them using any plain text editor and display the content with headings, bold and italic text and active hyperlinked text. And now, you can do this on the go with Draft.
At the beginning of this week, we set out on a journey to help you kickstart your NaNoWriMo project. Writing 50000 words in 30 days is no easy task, but with the help of your Android phone or tablet, we know that you can do it. After all, you always carry them around, so you have no excuse not to write whenever you have some free time.
With that in mind, our team pulled their efforts together to create “NaNoWriMo Week” – 7 days of apps and tips dedicated to helping you make the most of your Android device throughout the month. From collecting and organizing ideas, creating a storyline, writing and typing, staying motivated and eventually syncing everything between devices, we covered all the aspects of the creative process. Here are our posts:
- Welcome to NaNoWriMo Week – Beginner tips
- Five apps to collect ideas for NaNoWriMo
- Visualize your mind with Mindjet for Android
- Thumb keyboard: Customizable two-handed typing
- Here’s how and why I use a bluetooth keyboard
- Keep your writing simple with Writer
- How to get on track with your writing goals
- Seamless writing with Simplenote
Let us know what you think of it, and whether or not you’d like to see more themed weeks like this one. We are a broad site, and we cover apps, tutorials, roundups and games, but we’d like to focus our expertise on certain topics every now and then. Would you like to see that? And if so, what areas would be interesting to you?
It’s National Novel Writing Month once again, time to challenge yourself to write 50000 words in 30 days, no easy feat! But with your Android device by your side, you can keep working on your novel or non-fiction book anywhere and anytime. Throughout this week, we’ll share our best apps, thoughts, and tips to help you achieve that writing goal.
When you think about it, your Android is actually the perfect writing device. It’s small, portable, lightweight and fast – and when paired with Simplenote, it becomes that bit more amazing!
As a writer, I like to get in some words whenever I have free time during the day. Unfortunately, I can’t bring my laptop or tablet with me everywhere I go – but I can bring my phone. So when I began looking into ways to be keep my writing seamless between my three devices, Simplenote stood out above all others. Read on to find out how you too can have a seamless writing experience via Simplenote.
It’s National Novel Writing Month once again, time to challenge yourself to write 50000 words in 30 days, no easy feat! But with your Android device by your side, you can keep working on your novel or non-fiction book anywhere and anytime. Throughout this week, we’ll share our best apps, thoughts, and tips to help you achieve that writing goal.
When I decided to start writing, my first step was to find an app that would help me keep track of my goals. There are many Android apps to manage goals and many writing apps as well; I could have used any one of them, but I wanted something more.
I usually use Google Drive for outlines and to do lists for general tasks. What I was looking for was a hybrid of both; an app that would allow me to treat an outline like a todo list, and where I could check-off sections as I wrote them. Unfortunately there was not one app that I felt did this well, so I came up with what I consider a winning combination of apps to help me stay on track: Google Drive, Tasks, and Regularly.
It’s National Novel Writing Month once again, time to challenge yourself to write 50000 words in 30 days, no easy feat! But with your Android device by your side, you can keep working on your novel or non-fiction book anywhere and anytime. Throughout this week, we’ll share our best apps, thoughts, and tips to help you achieve that writing goal.
As any writer knows, focus is absolutely key, and unnecessary distractions can really hurt the workflow. Most word processors are filled with bulky features that aren’t needed except for special projects that require formatting or tables. This means that they can easily distract from the primary purpose of the app.
Writer recognizes these aspects and strives to provide the most efficient writing experience possible on Android. It is an extremely simple word processing app that is designed to keep you submersed in your writing.
It’s National Novel Writing Month once again, time to challenge yourself to write 50000 words in 30 days, no easy feat! But with your Android device by your side, you can keep working on your novel or non-fiction book anywhere and anytime. Throughout this week, we’ll share our best apps, thoughts, and tips to help you achieve that writing goal.
About a month ago, I considered purchasing a tablet because it’d enable me to write anywhere without having to carry around my bulky 17″ laptop, which is great for editing photographs and video on location but not so great for a quick article or blog post. Armed with a new Nexus 7, I decided to start taking my writing outdoors for a change of scene and some fresh air.
The next step in becoming mobile while working was finding a way to type efficiently on my tablet. The Nexus 7 ships with the stock Android Jelly Bean keyboard, which is nice enough but not nearly as flexible as I’d like. So when I began looking for a replacement keyboard, I found Thumb Keyboard to be a compelling choice because of its new approach to improving the two-handed typing experience. It looked to be just what I needed to turn my 7″ tablet into a killer writing device. Here is my experience with it so far.
It’s National Novel Writing Month once again, time to challenge yourself to write 50000 words in 30 days, no easy feat! But with your Android device by your side, you can keep working on your novel or non-fiction book anywhere and anytime. Throughout this week, we’ll share our best apps, thoughts, and tips to help you achieve that writing goal.
One of the most important aspects of writing – especially long form writing like reports, stories, novels, etc. – is the organization and structuring of content. A lot of people use long lists and sub-lists but unfortunately, for a lot of visually inclined people like myself, this gets ugly and out of control very quickly. I can’t get myself to make any sense of content until I can spatially organize everything for an at-a-glance overview.
One of the best ways to do this is to create mind maps. To quote Wikipedia, “A mind map is a diagram used to visually outline information”. I’ve been creating mind maps for years now, for everything from organizing my financial details to preparing project plans and even content outlines for blog posts like this one. The excellent open source app Freemind was my weapon of choice and has stuck with me, not the least for lack of alternatives. Many online and offline mind mapping apps were available, but none seemed to do the job well enough. So when Mindjet, one of the better commercial desktop mind mapping apps out there, released their Android version for free, I was excited.
For writing enthusiasts, the end of October only means one thing – NaNoWriMo is about to begin! NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is an annual creative writing project where participants are challenged to write 50000 words during the month of November. The NaNoWriMo.org site is where the challenge takes place, but you’re free to use any software to do your writing before uploading it there. Given the difficulty of the challenge and how time-consuming it is, we can’t think of a better way to kickstart your project and keep up with your goals than on your Android device. After all, it’s always with you and can help you through every step of the way.
That’s why during this whole week, we’ll take an extensive look at the creative process, starting with a few general tips, then collecting and organizing ideas, mapping the storyline, using different onscreen and hardware keyboards, writing and editing the text, keeping up with your goals, and always syncing everything between phone, tablet, and computer. By the end of the week, you’ll be fully prepared and ready to tackle NaNoWriMo.
In my years in college, the times I spent in the library were probably the most boring. The second most boring and frustrating times were spent writing research papers. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy writing, but research papers? Not usually. That’s why when I come across tools that make both my time in the library and my time doing research papers easier, I get excited.
Enter Cite This for Android. This handy little app makes formatting the citations for the books for researching very simple. Seriously, all you’ve got to do is create a project, add a reference, and scan a bar code. You can even choose which popular format you’ll need it exported into.
With collecting and citing references done this easily, see if you can imagine how else you can shorten your stint in the library. Maybe you can collect the citation information, find the pages in the book you want to reference, and grab pics of them with your phone for reading later in the dorm or at home. Either way, Cite This can make those citations easy (and slightly more fun).
Even blogging, an intensive activity originally done in the comfort of a workstation, has gone mobile. With the rise of smart phones and tablets, it’s easy to take our digital life with us wherever we go.
In this article, you’ll learn about some useful apps to maintain your blog using a mobile device (either phone or tablet). Why do I recommend them? Well, because this article was written using only my phone – with the help of these apps.
