Great press for Scrivener, the writing app I use

Scrivener got a glowing tribute in the New York Times Magazine last Sunday.  This is the application I’ve been using for several months to write all my field notes, store ideas, and draft papers.  It’s not a full replacement for MS Word or other word processors — mostly because it can’t handle footnotes like those programs can — but for most types of writing and drafts of academic work it’s a great product.

I’m a big fan of full-screen writing, using green text on a black background (scroll down this post for a picture), and Scrivener offers the best implementation of this I’ve seen.  From the NYT story:

When you’re working on a Scrivener opus, you’re not surrounded by teetering stacks of Firefox windows showing old Google searches or Citibank reports of suspicious activity. Life’s daily cares slip into the shadows. What emerges instead is one pristine and welcoming scroll: Your clean and focused mind.

Of course you could say that about any full-screen writing program, but Scrivener seems to get it just right.

Another great feature is that Scrivener saves your work as you go.  In fact, it was the Scrivener user’s manual that alerted me to the tip I gave the other day about Macs and the red dot, a detail that is basically irrelevant in this app.

I’m not planning on turning this blog into a Mac love-fest, and I’m not getting paid to promote Scrivener, but I think it’s a really cool program many of you would like.  Check out the free trial.