The mind map of Writing Outliner’s positioning

Posted in: Uncategorized by Edwin on September 25, 2009

A picture worths one thousand words.

Check the following mind map (click to enlarge) and you will have an overview of what Writing Outliner is all about and what makes it different from the other similar writing software.

PS. The mind map is made with mind mapping software MindVisualizer.

Turn Microsoft Word™ into a powerful outliner software

Posted in: Book writing software by Edwin on

In our under-development  project – Writing Outliner, the outliner is one of the  main parts of the writing software, it turns Microsoft Word™ into a true outliner software.

So what is a outliner

Well, the word outliner in the Windows world is not used as widely as it’s in the Mac world,  but you must be familiar with the similar words: folders, tree or hierarchy, right? The following are some examples of using a outline to manage information:

• Microsoft Office Outlook uses folders to organize emails into groups.
• Windows Explorer uses folders to manage all your files in your computer.
• Scrivener, the famous book writing software for Mac uses a outliner to manage all documents in a book writing project.
• Evernote, the famous note taking software uses hierarchical treeview to manage the notes it clipped.

Why outliners are so useful?

With a hierarchical outline view, you can view and manage the information at a larger scale without going into the details, this make it easier to get an overview and take control of the structure of a large amount of information.

Why Microsoft Word™ needs a outliner?

Let’s take writing a book as an example, with an outline view you can view and manage the book chapter by chapter, if you have ever written a book with Microsoft Word™ without the help of other software you should know the pain when navigating such a long document to find something for amendment.

How Writing Outliner™ differs from other outliner softwares?

1. Writing Outliner is specifically designed for writers, outlining is only one of the main features of it, and there are other many features such as full text search, index cards, tagging, writing-task-related document properties, second viewer for viewing research materials, taking notes, and so on, for making the writing process smoother and easier.
2. It’s seamlessly integrated into Microsoft Word™, so you can make good use of the industry leading word processor.

Note: Writing Outliner is currently under development and it’ll be come a versatile writing software  for writers, if you are interested you please sign up our newsletter so that you can get informed when it’s ready (for beta testing or purchasing).

Why Writing Outliner (Book writing software) is developed as a Word addin?

Posted in: Word by Edwin on September 21, 2009

What is a Word™ addin?

Microsoft knows although Word™ is a very powerful word processor it cannot cover all requirements of all users, for example, writers need functionalities to allow them to manage their long writings or a series of documents, to easily manage and view their research materials, to take notes, to brainstorm, to outline their ideas, and so on.

So Microsoft provides a programming interface for 3rd party software vendors to add functionalities to Microsoft Word™ by developing the so called Word addins (some people call them addons). In other words,  Word add-ins are software modules developed to work with and enhance Microsoft Word™ to accomplish some particular tasks.

Why Writing Outliner is developed as a Word addin?

Good question!

Microsoft Word™ is the leading software product in the Word processing industry, and most publishers accepts only book drafts in Word document format.  If Writing Outliner is developed as a standalone writing software like other novel or story writing software, the writers will have to export their drafts and load in Microsoft Word™ to do some further formatting works, what a pain!

With Writing Outliner being developed as a Word add-in authors get all their writing software tools in one place, the whole writing process from researching, outlining, note taking, transcribing, editing, to final formating, is streamlined!

Keep up with our development!

Writing Outliner is under development curently, you can sign up as a beta tester here.

Scrivener for Windows

Posted in: Book writing software by Edwin on September 18, 2009

Well, this blog title maybe look weird, but I think it’s quite a good way to explain what the Writing Outliner software project is all about.

What is Scrivener software?

Scrivener is a Mac software for writing books developed by a brilliant developer called Keith, it’s a versatile software tool for writing a book, be it a novel, a non-fiction story, a technical manual, or even a series of related documents such as columns.

While Scrivener has many features that make the book writing process easier, I think one of the big ideas behind Scrivener is that writing a book is not a process that simple start writing  from the very beginning straight to the end, but rather it’s a creative process that combines taking notes, jotting down ideas that sparks at any moment,  outlining the book structure, editing different chapters back and forth, final formatting and so on.

Why this writing software project started?

Scrivener inspired me when I was thinking of how to make our mind mapping software MindVisualizer more friendly for book writers, and with the help of my friend David who is a very nice  and knowledgeable guy, this book writing software project was started.

What’s the difference between Scrivener and Writing Outliner?

1. The main difference:
   Writing Outliner is for Microsoft Windows PC system while Scrivener is for Apple Mac computer.
2. Writing Outliner is a Word addin that integrates seamlessly into Microsoft Word™ while Scrivener is a standalone program.
3. Writing Outliner will provide some kind of mind mapping feature for capturing and organizing book writing ideas by integrating withMindVisualizer.

kudos to the author of Scrivener Keith and great thanks to my friend David! Stay tuned!