Byword makes writing easier on your iPhone and iPad. Document Providers — open documents from other apps inside Byword; - Handoff for iCloud documents — works great with Byword for Mac; - iCloud Drive support. # Changes - Open in exported PDF documents now works as expected; - Fixes crash typing in HTML comments; - Images imported from Photo Library now include editing changes and retain correct orientation; - Other minor improvements and bug fixes. If you appreciate this release, please take a couple minutes to rate Byword or, if you feel more generous, maybe write a review. Means a lot—thank you. 2.3 Oct 2, 2014.

# New features. Insert images from Clipboard, Photos Library, iCloud and Dropbox using Markdown image references;. Upload images to WordPress — local image references detected when publishing to a WordPress blog can be uploaded to be published with the text;. 'Open In' for exported PDF documents — there's now a Share option to send the exported document to other apps installed that accept PDF documents. # Bug fixes and improvements. Improved Dropbox offline mode and error recovery;.

Reduced memory usage when syncing large number of documents;. Better performance deleting documents in iCloud;. Fix input issues for Japanese, Chinese and Korean;. Fix capitalization when inserting text via dictation.

2.1.6 Apr 3, 2014. Fix an issue with creating lists that caused the application to crash; - Address some issues in text view that caused the insertion point to suddenly jump on the screen. Fix cursor movement with external keyboards. Up/Down arrow keys now move cursor and selection like expected; - Fix cursor positioning issues. It should now be easier to place the cursor where you want; - Improvements to right-to-left writing mode; - Improved VoiceOver accessibility; - Fix an issue with TextExpander multi-line snippets; - Improved Evernote publishing. Byword now removes elements and attributes that are not allowed by Evernote without sacrificing content. However, please note that linking to footnotes or links in a table of contents will not work when published because Evernote does not allow linking within a note.

Clarkeleland Only practical for Markdown users Been using the Desktop version for several months now. Really enjoyed writing Rich text based documents on my computer with this app. When I finally bit the bullet and purchased the iOS Version, I unfortunately discovered after the purchase that the iOS version does not support Rich text. That detail was at the very bottom of the description and to be fair I made an assumption that the iOS version of the app would work the same as the desktop version. I can’t understand why rich text is not supported, and if I had known (I guess it’s my bad for not reading every single bit of description all the way to the very bottom) that I would be unable to sync those types of documents across devices, I would’ve gone with a different platform. Please Byword, if you’re reading this just add rich text support already, you’ll make your user base much happier and then we don’t have to write dumb reviews like this one.

Clarkeleland Only practical for Markdown users Been using the Desktop version for several months now. Really enjoyed writing Rich text based documents on my computer with this app.

When I finally bit the bullet and purchased the iOS Version, I unfortunately discovered after the purchase that the iOS version does not support Rich text. That detail was at the very bottom of the description and to be fair I made an assumption that the iOS version of the app would work the same as the desktop version. I can’t understand why rich text is not supported, and if I had known (I guess it’s my bad for not reading every single bit of description all the way to the very bottom) that I would be unable to sync those types of documents across devices, I would’ve gone with a different platform. Please Byword, if you’re reading this just add rich text support already, you’ll make your user base much happier and then we don’t have to write dumb reviews like this one.

Bikemike Great Mac App, pretty good iOS app Byword is my go-to distraction free writing app on the Mac and I used it on iOS for a while— but unfortunately the slow Dropbox syncing led me to explore other solutions for iOS. It seems like updates this year might have fixed this so hopefully it’s better now. I had Byword configured for a Dropbox folder that I use for journal entries and it has a couple hundred markdown files in it plus two sub folders with some text, markdown and a couple of old rtf (rich text) files in them. When I opened up Byword it would hang on ‘Downloading items’ or ‘Syncing Items’ for minutes and it made me nervous to open recent files and create possible conflicts in my Dropbox. That was a big blocker when I just wanted to open the app and start writing. I recently reinstalled the app and also removed the rtf files from this Dropbox folder (just in case) and things seem to be better— fingers crossed.

Bikemike Great Mac App, pretty good iOS app Byword is my go-to distraction free writing app on the Mac and I used it on iOS for a while— but unfortunately the slow Dropbox syncing led me to explore other solutions for iOS. It seems like updates this year might have fixed this so hopefully it’s better now.

I had Byword configured for a Dropbox folder that I use for journal entries and it has a couple hundred markdown files in it plus two sub folders with some text, markdown and a couple of old rtf (rich text) files in them. When I opened up Byword it would hang on ‘Downloading items’ or ‘Syncing Items’ for minutes and it made me nervous to open recent files and create possible conflicts in my Dropbox. That was a big blocker when I just wanted to open the app and start writing. I recently reinstalled the app and also removed the rtf files from this Dropbox folder (just in case) and things seem to be better— fingers crossed. WB-Dallas Good, but would like better Google Drive support Overall, ByWord is a strong editor for developing blog entries and other short content.

I am giving five stars, but I would like to see support (or better support) for using multiple Google Drive accounts. This makes sense, since many users have a dedicated GMail account for each blog (or family of blogs). And if you already have this, please make it easier to find. I have my eye on Boxcryptor and other similar encrypted cloud tools, so I hope you grow your support for that as those tools mature and become more widely adopted. Cloud services tied to email (GMail/Drive, Outlook, GMX, Yandex.) seem like a good idea in general. And thanks for keeping RTF and HTML.

I know most of your users are using Markdown, but I am one of those old timers who tried Markdown and like the older tools better. If you would grant another wish, add 'publishing' to OneNote as well as Evernote. WB-Dallas Good, but would like better Google Drive support Overall, ByWord is a strong editor for developing blog entries and other short content. I am giving five stars, but I would like to see support (or better support) for using multiple Google Drive accounts.

This makes sense, since many users have a dedicated GMail account for each blog (or family of blogs). And if you already have this, please make it easier to find. I have my eye on Boxcryptor and other similar encrypted cloud tools, so I hope you grow your support for that as those tools mature and become more widely adopted. Cloud services tied to email (GMail/Drive, Outlook, GMX, Yandex.) seem like a good idea in general. And thanks for keeping RTF and HTML. I know most of your users are using Markdown, but I am one of those old timers who tried Markdown and like the older tools better. If you would grant another wish, add 'publishing' to OneNote as well as Evernote.

If you use a Mac, you work with text. Your documents may be short (tweets and iMessages) or long (reports, stories, or even novels), but you need an app to handle that text. Depending on the type of writing you do, you may want something as simple as a basic text editor or as complex as a full-featured word processor; if you write code, you want an editor designed for that type of content. I tend to use what have come to be known as focused-writing apps. These apps, increasingly popular of late, allow you to write in a focused environment, export your writings to various formats, possibly apply basic styling, and let you print your work. Unlike a word processor, which has lots of complex features for formatting and styling text, or a text editor, which is better for complex text modifications or working with specific code languages, a focused-writing app takes a minimalist approach, providing just the necessary text tools for writing and then getting out of your way so you can focus on your words.

I looked at the top focused-writing apps for OS X to find the best one. (We’ll look at word processors and code editors in future articles.) What makes a good focused-writing app? Today’s best focused-writing apps are made with writers in mind and offer some or all of the following features:. A distraction-free environment—or at least a special view or mode—that allows you to focus on your writing without worrying about toolbars, palettes and other formatting tools. A full-screen mode, so you can shut out everything else on your Mac’s screen.

Support for the writing language, a simple syntax for formatting plain-text documents that can be easily converted to HTML for use on blogs or web pages. Multiple export formats, such as HTML and RTF, for publishing or sharing your styled text. (Since OS X lets you, as long as a writing app has a mode or view that shows your text with proper formatting, the app doesn’t need a specific PDF-export feature of its own.). Document statistics. Data such as word count and character count are essential to many writers; some people may also want more-advanced statistics such as reading level and estimated reading time. An iOS companion app is a nice bonus—if you tend to write on both platforms, an OS X app with an iOS cousin lets you easily switch between platforms.

(Note for this feature to be useful, the apps must use a common sync platform such as iCloud or Dropbox.) Top choice: iA Writer Information Architects’s $5 wins hands down for simplicity and for its attractive (and only) font. While it doesn’t let you choose your own typeface, the company’s Nitti is a beautiful mono-space font, and working in iA Writer lets you ignore everything around its document view—I often use iA Writer’s full-screen mode to block out the other windows on my Mac. The app also includes a Focus Mode that restricts the view even further, letting you concentrate on a single sentence at a time. (I’d prefer it if Focus Mode highlighted the current paragraph rather than sentence, since many writers think in terms of paragraphs, but the app’s sentence-level focus seems to be popular.) iA Writer is a minimal, yet powerful writing app. IA Writer’s Markdown support is very good. The app offers a formatting bar at the bottom of the window that lets you quickly apply Markdown formatting, even if you don’t remember which syntax characters to use. You also get a decent Markdown-preview window, though it’s not customizable.

In fact, that’s one of iA Writer’s hallmarks, love it or hate it: Little in the app is customizable. If you don’t like what’s here, you should look elsewhere. But if you like iA Writer’s approach and attractive styling, you’ll find it to be a great tool to write without distractions. There are also iOS version of iA Writer, for iPad and iPhone, and those apps work with iCloud, but you can also use Dropbox to be able to access your files from any app.

Top contenders Hog Bay Software’s $10 is a bit like iA Writer with more options. WriteRoom comes with a handful of default themes, and you can download others or even roll your own, if you’re so inclined.

Byword Distraction-less Writing App For Mac

You can zoom your text and use any font installed on your Mac, and the app’s Typewriter Mode automatically scrolls your document as you type, similar to how you’d see a piece of paper move in a typewriter. WriteRoom has no Markdown (or other language) preview, however, limiting its usefulness for writing in anything but plain text without an additional app to show what your writing will look like. WriteRoom lets you choose different themes to suit your preferences. Metaclassy’s $10 falls, feature-wise, somewhere between iA Writer and WriteRoom—it lets you choose between a dark them and a light theme, and it lets you choose your font.

But Byword gets Focus Mode right, allowing you to choose either Line Focus or Paragraph Focus. It’s also got a typewriter mode, it supports rich text, and the premium version (unlocked via a $5 in-app purchase) lets you publish your writings directly to WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, Scriptogr.am and Evernote.

Byword is also available in iPad and iPhone versions, and it syncs your files using iCloud. However, fans of Markdown will want to steer clear (unless they use Marked, below), as Byword’s Markdown preview requires that you toggle between edit and preview mode—you can’t proofread using the preview and make changes to your text at the same time. I like Byword’s paragraph focus, which highlights the paragraph I’m working on while dimming the rest of the document. Honorable mention Hog Bay Software offers an alternative to WriteRoom called, which, while not exactly a focused-writing app, does something interesting. The $25 app is a combination of a text editor and an outliner: You format your text with Markdown syntax, but you can “fold,” or hide, sections by clicking on header characters.

This feature lets you write longer documents, keeping a big-picture view without having to tediously scroll up and down. You can also move sections around like an outliner, but FoldingText is still, at heart, an app for writing and working with text. When you’ve finished writing, you can export your document to HTML, or copy it to the clipboard as HTML or rich text. FoldingText lets you collapse your document sections, move them around, and reorganize them. The rest of the pack TextEdit Many people can get along just fine with OS X’s built-in TextEdit, which is actually a full-blown word processor.

It can handle serious formatting, such as lists and tables; can work with graphics, videos, and audio files; and can export to a variety of formats, including RTF and Word. But despite its many formatting options, TextEdit is a “plain text” editor at heart—it’s the direct descendant of Apple’s aptly-named SimpleText, and the much older TeachText, both simple tools designed for editing and displaying text documents. It also offers no true distraction-free mode, doesn’t include full-screen mode, and doesn’t explicitly support Markdown formatting, though if you use it in conjunction with Marked 2 (see below), you can write in Markdown and preview your formatted documents. Mou Chen Luo’s is a free (donation requested), Markdown-focused text editor that includes a live preview in a two-pane window: editor on the left, preview on the right. The app includes keyboard shortcuts for Markdown-syntax formatting, and notably offers very good support for CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) languages. It’s also very flexible, letting you choose themes—including those you create—for both the composer and preview panes.

Mou even lets you post directly to Tumblr and Scriptogr.am, though not to WordPress or Blogger. However, placing the editor and preview pane in a single window takes up a lot of space, and if you’ve got a dual-display setup, you can’t separate those views so that the editor resides on one display and the preview on the other. You can temporarily hide the preview pane, but the window doesn’t resize, instead expanding the editor pane to twice its width, which can be annoying. Also, you can’t choose which side of the editor the preview pane appears on—I prefer to have my preview to the left of my editor, and I can’t do that with Mou. Mou gives you two panes, the text editor and a preview, in the same window. For Markdown fans: Marked While all of my recommended focused-writing apps handle Markdown syntax to some extent, few shine when it comes to previewing the formatted output (HTML or RTF, for example) of a Markdown document. IA Writer’s preview isn’t customizable; Byword requires you to toggle between composing and previewing; and WriteRoom has no Markdown preview at all.

I’ve adopted Brett Terpstra’s $12 (currently at ), which not only provides Markdown previews that are automatically updated to reflect changes you make to your documents, but also lets you customize its display with CSS files that, for example, match your blog or website’s design. Marked also includes a full range of text-statistic tools, as well as export options—so even if your favorite writing app doesn’t export to your preferred format, it’s likely that you can get such functionality from Marked. In my writing, Marked has proven invaluable, especially for documents with complex formatting—not only is its export-to-HTML feature perfect, but I use my website’s own CSS file for Marked’s preview, so I can see exactly how my writing will look.

Marked can also display inline images based on Markdown and HTML links, something the writing apps above can’t do. I couldn’t work without Marked 2 to preview my text documents and export them to HTML. Bottom line There’s no shortage of writing apps for OS X, for any type of work, and for any budget. You may want to stick with the free TextEdit, or, if you use Markdown, look for a tool that displays formatted texts better.

My ideal text editor would have the simplicity of iA Writer, some of the features of ByWord and WriteRoom, and the preview and export features of Marked 2. Sadly, such a dream app doesn’t exist. In its absence, I’ve found iA Writer to be the most useful tool, because it stays out of my way.