Besides Libre Office, what other programs/solutions exist in the Linux world for writers?
(Please, don’t suggest VIM. After all the memes and comments I’ve read, I’ve come to dread it).
I like writing but the standard Writer tends to send me in a constant formatting spree.
I want to get back to writing regularly and something that could help me stay focused and somewhat organized would be nice.
KDE comes with its own office suite. I’ve always preferred libre office so I don’t have much experience with it, but it’s there.
Not vim necessarily, but I would really suggest thinking about a plain text editor of your choice and some of those lightweight markup languages (Markdown itself, reStructuredText, ASCIIDoc … I prefer rST, but they are mostly the same). Exactly because it allows me to concentrate on the content and ignore formatting. Besides, formatting, do you write for print or as everybody else these days for HTML? Why do you need a large word processor which is build primarily for preparing documents for print? Every serious text editor has some kind of plugins with spellcheckers, grammar checkers, dictionaries, etc.
I like so say I want someday to see my work out in the world in the form of (e)books, so I want to keep my options open.
If you don’t need all the features of a full office suit then check out markdown and and editor like ghostwriter
FocusWriter for a minimalist, focused writing experience. You can edit the existing template for a dark theme and white text. I rather like the typewriter font, Liberation Mono (it was Courier something back on Windows). Give it a try. I’ve been using it for around 3-4 years.
I use LaTeX, and edit using Emacs. The nice thing about LaTeX is the editor you use doesn’t matter.
I recommend Obsidian with community plugins. Application itself isn’t open-source but your content stored as markdown files.
Obsidian’s fork of Markdown. Don’t expect compatibility.
There are extensions for obsidian compatability in Vim and Emacs.
It’s not compatible with other Markdown forks, but the whole Markdown ecosystem is a mess duct taped together by more forks & extensions that aren’t compatible either. Even the common denominator CommonMark is feature-barren & isn’t suitable for documentation or technical writing, but boy howdy will the next guy have his Markdown contraption to sell you.
Neovim
That’s what I use for my reStructuredText documents!
If markdown fulfills your formatting needs, then there’s no beating it in terms of focus and simplicity. Use whatever text editor you like. My recommendation would be Kate. It supports previewing the rendered document in side by side view.
It depends on what you want to achieve.
Vi and it’s descendants are brilliant editors for a programmer but not for writing prose. So stay away from them. ;-)
Do you want just to write text without being distracted by an overwhelming gui or are you fine with the hint at options?
Do you want to write in a terminal?
How much do you want to format while typing? By typing the format commands into the text or by clicking on buttons or ctrl-key magic?
Do you need version control?
For each of your combination of answers there are different solutions.
Vi and it’s descendants are brilliant editors for a programmer but not for writing prose.
They work just fine for writing prose too. Though you probably do not need to learn them if you only want to write prose.
I wrote almost all of my grad school work in Vim and Emacs/Evil, in a non-compsci field! It was fantastic for editing, and I used pandoc to automate proper formatting, citations, and bibliographies for my papers and thesis. 10/10 would recommend to someone who is tech savvy or has a tangential interest in programming.
Version control is an interesting idea.
I used to write fiction as a hobbie and want to return to it again.
The blank sheet of a standard text editor messes with my nerves. I lose myself editing, formating, etc.
If I could find a prompt that I could pre set the font, layout of the final work, and then have the program leave me alone, it would be perfect.
Most writers solutions come with a lot of bells and whistles, like word counter, time elapsed, goals, etc. Unnecessary. Distracting.
If I could find a prompt that I could pre set the font, layout of the final work, and then have the program leave me alone, it would be perfect.
You’re describing a workflow using TeX or LaTeX, like typesetters for publisher’s use. I don’t have a specific recommendation, but in your shoes, I’d look for a CLI text editor (to avoid distractions) that supports word wrapping and do your actual formatting and typesetting totally separately from your writing with LaTeX.
Norka, Apostrophe, Obsidian
Can I get some links, please?
Sorry, I was on mobile.
The spiteful thing to do would be linking Norka and the such but I’ll link them: Norka, Apostrophe and Obsidian.
Any text editor that lets you write Markdown (all of them, since markdown can be written as a plain text file). It’s simple but featureful. I would recommend Marktext.
You can use their online web-editor (similar to OverLeaf for LaTeX) or download the open-source engine and run it locally (there are extensions available for many text editors).
Compared to LaTeX I find it much more comfortable to work with. It comes with sane, modern defaults and doesn’t need any plugins just to generate a (localized) bibliography or include links.
Since Typst is very young compared to LaTeX I’m sure that there are numerous docs / workflows that can’t be reproduced at the moment but if you don’t need some special feature I’d recommend giving it a shot.
I’d use OverLeaf. Open source LaTeX editor with cloud storage, simple setup, plugins, extensive documentation.
If you base your opinion of vim from memes you are missing out. Anyone who can’t take 10 minutes to type vimtutor in their terminal is not someone to base an opinion on. These memes come mostly from impatient people that can’t read the docs. It’s a fantastic text editor.
That being said, it’s not meant to be used for written words it’s meant to write code and config files. You want to look for a word processor.
Abiword, etherpad, focuswciter are probably the next 3 biggest on Linux behind libre and open office.
Personally I prefer markdown for most things these days but it’s not exactly meant for word processing either.
(Neo)Vim is fantastic for writing when combined with some plugins and LaTeX
While I’m a big fan of Vim, it’s definitely not for everyone.
I spend about half of my writing time in VSCodium, which is a community-based release of Microsoft’s open source VS Code editor. There are several markdown, grammar, and focus-oriented plugins for the platform, and you can pretty much shape it into whatever kind of editor you want.
I use VSCodium for the vast majority of my personal notes, technical writing, and project documentation (nearly all of which are written in markdown format).
