#word processing

My requirements:

Over the years, I've narrowed down what I like in a writing app, and just to give a baseline of what my workflow looks like I'll delineate it here:

Saves in Markdown

Markdown is basically just plain text, so markdown files are completely system and software agnostic and in a pinch could be read on basically any computer with a simple file extension change

File tree access

I know people like tags. Those people are wonderful people! But I just want to store my ideas, WIPs, notes, and completed works in an organized folder hierarchy. I genuinely don't understand why this aspect of file systems is becoming eroded in the modern era. (If anyone has any insight here, let me know, I'm genuinely curious why I have to explain folder structures at work so often these days!)

OS agnostic

I use an iPhone, an iPad, a MacBook, a Debian Linux laptop, a PopOS Linux desktop, and an Android e-ink tablet regularly; I want to be able to access my work on all of these devices seamlessly, and be able to work on fic or take notes for ideas "on the go" no matter what device I have with me.

Related to the above: some sort of cloud sync with my choice of provider (so not GDrive, Dropbox, or iCloud only.)

I also have some "wants" that I'm more flexible on, but they're still high on my priority list:

Live wordcount.

Handles novel length documents (this is difficult, more on this later, or maybe I'll make a third post.)

Workflow Basics

Here's my workflow in a nutshell:

Write in Obsidian on my MacBook

Sync using my own NextCloud instance

Use the Nextcloud app to do quick notes on iOS

Use Ellipsus to share for beta

Post on AO3 using Ellipsus's export tools

OR

Use the Copy HTML plugin to copy from Obsidian to post to AO3

Obsidian is... annoying. I secretly hate Obsidian. That said, Obsidian is sort of the Swiss Army knife of writing tools. It also satisfies 90% of my needs and wants, and it's got a robust plugin economy that supports JavaScript plugins, so I can hit 99% if I'm clever about it.

Things that Obsidian does not do:

Handle novel length documents

Officially support third party syncing (They sell a syncing subscription that's 8$ a month and may be worth it to skip the shenaniganery I get up to.)

Work well when syncing between iOS/iPadOS and any non-Apple OS unless you're using iCloud or their paid sync option.

To be clear: syncing to and from MacOS works fine using any cloud provider out of the box. It's specifically iOS/iPadOS that have issues

Workflow

I have Obsidian installed on my MacBook, my Linux devices, and my de-Googled e-ink Android tablet (the OnyxBoox Tab Ultra, which isn't made anymore. I think the Tab X C is the closest equivalent they currently sell). I self-host a Nextcloud server that I use to sync a folder on all of these devices, and I saved my Obsidian vault in this folder. (The Obsidian Vault is just a fancy way to describe what parent folder Obsidian has access to, and where you would save and organize your files, called Notes, inside the Obsidian app)

You can do the same thing and still avoid Google by using a privacy focused cloud storage solution, just make sure that you install the app on every device and set up the designated folder as the location of your Obsidian Vault. If you want to have more control and don't leave your home network often, you can instead set up Syncthing. If you want to use Syncthing with iOS and have a Mac computer, you can sync your iCloud folder to your Syncthing folder on your Mac using FreeFileSync but at that point setting up a Nextcloud instance in Docker is literally easier; believe me, I've done both.

On my iPad or iPhone, I can use the Nextcloud app to edit Markdown files quickly and easily, and since Obsidian retains a clear and externally accessible file folder hierarchy, this works fine for me. If I really want a deep writing session on one of those devices, I open the file in iWriter Pro (a beautiful app that I like significantly better than Obsidian, but it's missing features I need that I can use plugins to get and is Apple only, and is a separate purchase for MacOS and iOS/iPadOS). On Android, you'll probably need to go into the cloud storage app before and after writing sessions to force a sync, but it's only a few seconds and worth not using Google Docs, in my opinion.

Obsidian struggles with large files; most software struggles with large files, but Obsidian's limit is around the 28k word mark, depending on a variety of factors. If you work in chapters by default or only write shorter work, then this next section can be skimmed, as it's not that useful outside of people who get trapped by the muses into writing long works.

Obsidian Plugins

First, P. D. Workman's blog posts on working with Obsidian are an invaluable resource. As such I won't go deep into exactly what I do beyond explaining my favorite plugins to make Obsidian usable. If anyone does particularly want my take, please hit me up and I'll make yet another separate post on this.

General QOL

Better Word Count: shows a live wordcount at the bottom of your open document.

Copy Document as HTML: lets you right click and copy your Markdown formatted text as HTML so you can paste it into the HTML editor on AO3

New Tab +: opens documents as new tabs in Obsidian. The fact that this isn't default behavior, or at least togglable, is emblematic of the reasons I kind of hate Obsidian.

Novel Word Count: shows a wordcount next to file names in the file tree views in Obsidian. Honestly this is the best plugin ever, I'm sorely tempted to put this functionality in my "Want" list.

Long Document Plugins This is the order in which I use them, with a brief explanation of why:

Note Refactor: once a document in Obsidian starts lagging, I use this plugin to split the document at my scene breaks. You can configure what criteria it uses to split your document, so you could also use this to split by chapter, or just go shove in some unique text strings to split up wherever you want. It's fairly flexible. If you find yourself using this a lot, you'll probably want to get into the habit of numbering your scenes; you can also number your scenes after the fact using the built in Obsidian Outline panel, but if you wait until the document is struggling to load, then you'll very frustrated the whole time you're doing it.

Continuous Mode: displays all open notes as one continuous document, so once you break up your scenes you can still read them all straight through if you'd like.

Longform: stitches your scenes back together prior to posting. You can specify a bunch of things to add or strip from the scenes, and this has really robust JavaScript template support, so as you get more comfortable with this you can do a ton with it. Keep in mind, once you re-assemble the document with Longform, if it's longer than what Obsidian easily supports, it will be sluggish and miserable to use in Obsidian again; luckily you probably don't actually need to interact with it inside Obsidian anymore at this point.

Collaboration and final touches:

So Ellipsus and Proton Drive support Markdown import.

Once I've finished up with my personal revisions, I either use the Copy as HTML plugin to post immediately, or I want to get it beta-read. You can import directly to Proton Drive as markdown and then convert it to a document, or you can import to Ellipsus. Use the sharing features to share with beta-readers or whoever. Get your comments and edits. Merge your changes. Live life to the utmost.

I like Ellipsus because I like the themes, I like that you can export to AO3 supported HTML with a button, and I like that they support find+replace using regular expressions now, an important part of my workflow since I accidentally fell into Mandalorian worldbuilding hell and use CSS in my AO3 uploads now and need an easy way to embed it.

Ellipsus has some really freaking weird limitations such as sharing to view only being an entirely separate share option from sharing to collaborate and requiring all collaborators to have an account, but they're pretty responsive to feedback; early in the beta process I would get responses to bug reports within minutes to hours. Now I don't do bug reports as often, so I can't speak to their current turnaround times, but they really made a good impression on me.

Conclusion

I probably shouldn't be allowed to design workflows. I spend more time perfecting them than actually writing. But I wrote this post in Obsidian, if that helps anyone make a decision, and this is what currently works for me. It's straightforward enough to do in a way that's completely free to the user, supports your privacy, and your creativity.

So this might be "duhh" writing advice for most of you...but I'm going to still list it. I'm still kinda surprised people didn't learn this with the whole "must learn computers" programs they pushed.

OMG, It's so hard to fix tab indents!!!!

I saw some assistant agent made to do this MANUALLY when it's a search and replace, which means the entire agency didn't know this is a thing...

Some people still don't know as seen here:

especially with regards to using the “first-line indent” option instead of hitting “tab” for paragraph indents.

Look, there is something called "Invisibles" and you use what is called "escape characters" in order to get around the invisibles and all programs have something to substitute for tabs.

They've been there well, since the beginning of word processors.

(Don't use Word since they use your words to feed into AI, but if you have to): You can copy a physical tab into the find/replace box. The next box in the "replace" should have nothing in it. Hit enter.

It will delete all your tabs. Have a style set up. Select all of the plain text, hit the style. You're done.

Tip: for those exporting to Microsoft Word, be sure to select export with styles.

In BBEdit, for those on a mac, the escape is \t (They have semi-AI, but no gen AI)

In Scrivener the escape character is a copy-paste dealie, like Microsoft word. Type a tab. Copy the tab into the find and replace. And then proceed.

LibreOffice \t\

... and so on. It does this for returns too.

Worst case scenario Half of your manuscript has physical tabs, and half of your manuscript doesn't and Iunno, the find/replace is broken for some reason and you're on a time crunch, but the bug is there.

Turn on invisibles! All programs that have word processing have this. It will physically show you where the tabs are so you can delete them. This is hella useful for when you have an invisible table in your manuscript (for the nonfiction writers out there) Or you can't figure out if there is or isn't a separate space.

You can copy spaces into the find/replace of all major and minor word processors.

BBEdit, Microsoft Word, LibreOffice and so on. Every single last one has this. It's had it probably before you were born.

OMG, I want to find Avail, not available because I named my character Avail.

Avail[space] will fix that.

A certain author didn't know that, so I had to inform them...

This is SUPER useful if you're switching from a double space after the period to a single space after the period, or you are sure your errant fingers have typed a double space somewhere. Type a double space in the find box of the find/replace and then a single space in the replace and it'll kill all of your double space. It's one of the first things I do when editing a manuscript because I always double space by accident.

Word processor can also find caps v. no caps usually with a "caps sensitive box"

Say you did something really dull and named a group, "Hub" and now you've changed your mind. Manually going through isn't for you. But you don't want it to find all the instances of bike hub. You can check "case sensitive"

But it's one chapter I need to search.

Say it's confined to a chapter, but all 200,000 words are in that one document. (Back it up or use Scrivener). Then you can select and hit "search in selection"

Yeah, basics, but I'm still amazed that people actually do the whole manuscript to find one part.

But I replaced everything by accident... and it'll be hard to fix it

Undo! Cmd z in a mac, cntrl Z for Windows and Linux. ... But I made some changes in between the mistake.

Screeeeeennnnnshooot. Hit undo hit redo. (do not make changes to the manuscript in between) Hit the screenshot key, (if you have one), or for those on a mac without the extended functions, cmd +shift+4 of the edit you made.

Keep doing this until you reach your fateful terrible mistake of find/replace. Hit the undo on the find replace, fix it appropriately (you forgot a period you forgot a space, etc)

Usually word processors store the changes up to about 20-50 depending on your settings.

Then you can use the find function to find where you made the changes from before and plug them back in.

There's menus for text transformations

You've written in caps everywhere, for example and you regret the decision, but can't use Find and Replace.

In Scrivener there is a text transformation menu.

Edit->Transformations Microsoft word, BBEdit, and LibreOffice have similar things. Don't abuse it. But it's useful in case you forgot and don't want to retype, say a whole chapter title.

Shortcuts for Start a new page AKA Page break are useful for writers.

Page Break! In Google docs it's cntrl/cmd return (I set it to this in Scrivener too to create a new sub document)

In Microsoft Word it's control shift+enter.

It's super, super useful for scripts. Memorize this shortcut.

~~Large Tip: Learn how to use Styles~~

Make sure your chapter titles are a separate style from your text. So if you have to format it to Iunno, Wingdings for that one lone editor that can read Wingdings and nothing else, you can copy the current style and then make it all Wingdings. (If you downloaded my Better Novel Format for Scrivener, I did that for you. I also have a template I made for LibreOffice with Short story format and also Novel format which I made ahead of time.)

MS Word has styles. (again, only if you have no choice because of work constraints)

LibreOffice has Styles

Scrivener has styles.

Only the straight text editors don't have styles like Notepad, though they are semi-built in for you for other purposes. TextEdit doesn't have this either (as far as I know).

OMG, I need to have a style for long quotes. You just go to the menu and then click on the style you need. (and/or use the shortcut).

OMG, I need to edit my manuscript, but I don't want to change the chapter headings. Use an editing style.

As I said, I did all of that for the Better Novel Template in Scrivener. BUT I've also done it in LibreOffice and Microsoft Word (before it turned to the Evil side).

And I set them to shortcuts.

Learn to use styles! Learn to use templates!

This way you don't have to reformat your entire manuscript every single.last.time.

When they switched some of the formatting for Chapter headers, it was really easy to fix the entire manuscript by editing the default style for chapter titles and then the WHOLE manuscript was fix in one go, rather than me having to go through 30-40 chapters doing it manually.

I also made a Scrivener template for screenplays, but I have to do some testing rounds with it before I release it.

Bonus tip: Scrivener (if you go digging) has a button that says, "select everything of a similar style" in case you forgot to set styles. I don't think Microsoft Word or LibreOffice has this, but they might somewhere...

So I think a lot of the GDocs kerfuffle is a bit overheated (they *say* they don't scrape docs for AI, adult content is specifically allowed in the TOS, and I haven't seen any real examples of them shutting down or restricting access to documents due to content), but I'm still a fan of privacy and I don't find Google to be trustworthy any more. I have turned off Gemini at every possible interaction point, but its uninvited introduction to multiple systems as an automatic opt-in was gross.

Microsoft Office is a hard pass. So intrusive.

I tried Ellipsus last year. I didn't love it due to some unaddressed reliability issues, though the interface is pleasant. I know Ellipsus is everyone's darling, but I'm also a bit sus of their business model, as in they don't seem to have one past "we'll need to have a paid plan in the future at some point".

So far I'm leaning toward ProtonDocs, mostly because I really need to be able to edit in a browser session. I write on my phone a LOT. It doesn't have document tabs which is very close to a dealbreaker for me. I already pay for their storage plan and have a soft spot for Proton in general.