Adobe InDesign is state-of-the-art for turning text into beautiful print books and one-pagers. For everything else—books, longform documents, blog posts, theses—there are two other great apps: Ulysses and Scrivener. Here's how Ulysses and Scrivener compare. Ulysses vs. A Brief Intro to Ulysses and Scrivener. Research and Outline. Organizing Documents. Which Should You Use? This is Scrivener.
It's somewhat similar to Word at first glance, with a formatting toolbar where you can choose your font, format your text, and tweak other settings.
The sidebar makes the difference—that's where you organize your document with Draft and Research groups. Here you can: Add extra folders and documents to your draft to organize your project into books, chapters, and even individual paragraphs. Split a long document or combine sections in a new folder. Keep your notes, outline, and broader ideas in the research folder, with a card view to preview each while you're writing.
Dig into Scrivener's best features with our in-depth Scrivener guide. And this is Ulysses. It looks a bit simpler, perhaps like a notes app with 2 smaller left columns and a larger writing column. In addition to the main document view, you can add and view notes and references in a different sidebar or just add each note to its own document, expand it later with your final copy, and then merge individual documents into one larger file.
Dig into Ulysses' best features with our in-depth Ulysses guide. Both apps let you save notes, organize documents, write, and export your finished work—at a similar price. So what makes them different beyond their user interface?
You have to start somewhere, and Scrivener hopes you'll start out with research. Each writing project includes a Research folder where you can add text notes or import full web pages and files from your computer for future reference. Each document and note includes a title, the core text section, along with slightly hidden description and notes fields. Tap the i button to preview the description in a sidebar—a great place to list that document's main points and sketch out what it'll cover.
With your Research notes or your Draft documents, you can view the full documents with the default writing view. Or you can use the Corkboard view to preview just the title and description or the Outline view to see all your document metadata—perfect for organizing your document notes. Ulysses is a bit more focused on your documents themselves.
There's always the core writing pane visible. So, instead of adding notes separately, you could add your write your ideas in new documents and just manage them in a separate folder from your actual draft documents.
Or, you could add notes to your documents via Ulysses' slightly hidden right sidebar. Tap the paperclip icon in the toolbar to open that sidebar, where you can drag in files for reference and add notes panes with the details you need for each document.
Those notes will only be visible if you open the sidebar, as a great way to add reference to your documents that guide your writing. That means it might make sense to plan out your full writing project first, making new documents for every section.
Then, when you're ready to write, open the notes pane in each document, and paste in your quotes and references there.
Now it's time to turn those notes into copy—something both Scrivener and Ulysses are great at. In Scrivener, just select the document you want to write in and start writing. To help you stay focused, tap the Compose icon to go full-screen. That can hide everything, with a black background and a paper-like space to write—or it can show your notes and more in floating panes. You can use rich text or Markdown to format your document—though rich text is the default.
If you write in Markdown, just make sure to MultiMarkdown export options in Scrivener's Compile screen. You'll find a wide number of Scrivener templates online—as well as a handful you can choose from when making a new Scrivener project. These will include text formatting, page layouts, and folder structures that will help you make a document in that style—perhaps to write a college essay, screenplay, or book draft in a format that looks correct from the start.
Ulysses gives you a number of ways to focus on writing as well. The toolbar will hide automatically as you're writing. Use the macOS full-screen button the green one in your top toolbar to hide everything else—or open the sidebar and drag out your attachments and notes into floating panes for reference while writing. For even more focus, the Typewriter Mode options in the View menu can highlight your current line, sentence, or paragraph, and keep your typing centered on the screen like a typewriter Scrivener includes that latter feature, too.
Since Ulysses uses Markdown formatting, there are no options to format your text style and colors in the main app. Instead, you'll set a typeface for all your documents in Ulysses' settings. You can also choose a theme or download a new one to style your text in any colors you want—since it's just plain text, none of that will be included in your final document.
You'll use export themes, instead, for that more on that later. Both Scrivener and Ulysses help you focus on your writing. Their main difference is in how your format your text.
Ulysses offers a number of options for sharing, exporting or publishing your document. If your editor wants to track changes in Microsoft Word, you can export to that format or a variety of others. Alternatively, you can create a properly formatted ebook in PDF or ePub format right from the app. You can choose from a wide number of styles, and a style library is available online if you need more variety. Scrivener has a powerful Compile feature that can print or export your entire project into a wide range of formats with a selection of layouts.
Quite a number of attractive, predefined formats or templates are available, or you can create your own. Winner : Scrivener has some very powerful and flexible publishing options, but be aware they come with a steeper learning curve.
Ulysses offers a number of useful writing tools, including a spell and grammar check, and document statistics. Search is helpfully integrated with Spotlight and also includes Filters, Quick Open, library searches, and find and replace within the current sheet.
I love Quick Open, and use it all the time. Just press command-O and start typing. A list of matching sheets is displayed, and pressing Enter or double-clicking takes you straight there. Find command-F allows you to search for text and optionally replace it within the current sheet. It works the same as it does in your favorite word processor. Scrivener, too, has a number of useful writing tools. I keep finding new treasures the longer I use the app.
Simple, but handy! Both apps include helpful additional tools. Scrivener, on the other hand, offers versions for Mac, iOS, and Windows so has a broader appeal. The Windows version was launched later, in , and still lags behind. While the Mac version is currently 3. Version 3 for Windows is in the works. Winner : Scrivener. While Ulysses is aimed squarely at Apple users, Scrivener also includes a Windows version. Windows users will be happier once the new version is released. One subscription gives you access to the app on all of your Macs and iDevices.
By contrast, Scrivener is committed to avoiding subscriptions, and you can purchase the program outright. If Ulysses is a Porsche, Scrivener is a Volvo. One is sleek and responsive, the other is built like a tank. Both are quality apps and are a great choice for any serious writer. Scrivener , on the other hand, is the best tool for long-form writers, especially novelists.
It will also appeal to those looking for the most powerful software, those who prefer rich text over Markdown, and those with a dislike of subscriptions. Finally, if you use Microsoft Windows, Scrivener is your only option. Ulysses offers a free day trial, and Scrivener a more generous 30 calendar days of actual use.
Try creating a larger document out of separate pieces, and spend some time typing, editing, and formatting in both apps. See for yourself which best meets your needs. Can you help me with my decision. I will appreciate your advice. It can be a great tool for outlining your story. The cards are small, which allow them to be laid out at once, but each one does have the ability to scroll so you can include as much or as little information as you want. Cards can be rearranged by simply dragging and dropping.
Templates are another powerful feature that makes it extremely versatile. Scrivener comes with a few basic templates in a number of categories to get you started. If you are a fiction writer , you can choose relevant templates for novel writing and short stories. You can also import templates if you want. This allows for endless creative opportunities.
You can choose from thousands of templates and add them to your account with ease. You can download templates for extensive outlining , for detailed and structured novel writing , and even for scientific research papers.
Most good stories require some level of research. Scrivener really encourages the research process and has a lot of options to support it. Using both the documents and corkboard, you can store anything and everything in this research tab. It is readily available as a heading in your binder, but it is neatly tucked away at the same time.
When getting your draft ready to transform into a published eBook , it is important to ensure everything is perfect. Both Scrivener and Ulysses can help you with compiling, but Scrivener gives you more control. The user-interface is simple on Ulysses, but it is not as thorough and extensive.
This is an area where Scrivener has a huge one-up on Ulysses. Ulysses is available exclusively on mac products. Originally, Scrivener was a software for mac as well. A version for Windows has been available for several years now, though. While updates to the Windows version are often slower to be released than mac, it is still available. There are slight advantages to the software when used on a mac, but the Windows version of the book writing software is just as thorough, comprehensive, and powerful.
This gives you a lifetime license to use the book writing software. Major updates in the future may cost a small upgrade fee, but it will not be mandatory. When you purchase Scrivener, you have it for life. Ulysses , on the other hand, requires a subscription to maintain access. The monthly fee may sound small, but it will begin to add up quickly. A few years down the road, Ulysses will end up costing you much more. They do have the advantage of being available across all devices, but it is still costly.
Scrivener does have some advantages over Ulysses, but Ulysses has its strengths too! There are several areas where it outperforms Scrivener.
For Mac users, this is a huge advantage. Ulysses can sync all your documents to iCloud, whereas Scrivener cannot. While Scrivener does offer exporting, Ulysses has more options.
There are a variety of choices available to choose from, but you also have access to the Ulysses Style Exchange. This is a space where you can find and download lots of different export styles that are created by the community.
Ulysses gives you the ability to share your work in several different ways. Easily attach a manuscript to an email, or share it to third-party apps.
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