Organize, plan, and write your next masterpiece with the help of this awesome open-source app specifically designed for writers
What’s new in Manuskript 0.12.0:
- Implemented enhancements:
- Improving user-friendliness of log files #852
- [Feature Request] Add spell check for Chinese. #822
- Number of characters instead of number of words? #774
Becoming an author is something quite remarkable, regardless of one’s success or fame. However, writing a book is not an easy task, and more often than not, it requires insane organization even before the actual writing begins.
In this situation, a simple text editor or writing software won’t suffice. Clearly, what you need is a full-featured writing app with organization capabilities. An app like Manuskript.
What is Manuskript?
Manuskript is an open-source app specifically designed for writers. Its aim is to provide you with the perfect writing environment in order to create a good first draft and then further refine and edit it until it becomes a masterpiece.
In short, Manuskript is the perfect combination between a text editor and a text organization tool. It has a spell checker, a markdown highlighter, a frequency analyzer, and the ability to automatically save stories in plain or open text formats.
Feature rundown
Upon first launching Manuskript, it might strike you as being a bit weird. It doesn’t look like typical writing software, as there’s no text editor right in your face.
That’s actually a good thing, as Manuskript is designed to help you grow your premise from one sentence, until you reach your first paragraph, and ultimately to your full summary.
With its help, you can conceive plots, create characters, construct outlines, build worlds, track items, edit and re-organize chapters and scenes, as well as jump anywhere in the storyline. In short, everything you need to keep track of all the complexities of your stories.
You can compose any sort of story or text with the help of the app’s fiction and non-fiction templates and writing modes. You can organize your thoughts and snippets in a logical manner and re-organize them on the go if you need to.
Last but not least, you can import and export documents from and to formats such as HTML, ePub, OpenDocument, DOCX, and many more.
Does it actually work as a writing app?
It really depends on what your expectations are. If you expect it to be as minimalist and as stylish as most modern distraction-free text apps out there, then you might be disappointed.
Of course, the app does offer a distraction-free mode, but both the GUI and the editor are not exactly top-notch in terms of looks and functionality.
As mentioned before, where Manuskript really shines is the story organization part. And it does it remarkably well.
Verdict
Manuskript is a very interesting and well-designed app, despite it still being in a very early development stage. Clearly, the app will mature with time and will become even better, but that’s not to say that it’s not good in its current form. Quite the contrary.
It’s important to understand that while Manuskript is a writing app, its main purpose is to help you organize your ideas and create the environments (build worlds, track items, edit and re-organize chapters, scenes, plotlines, etc.).
When it comes to the actual writing, the app is quite adequate. It has a nice and simple editor, a distraction-free mode (that’s nothing to write home about), as well as a spell-checker (that’s also not perfect right now), and other small tools to help you go about your writing.
