As regular readers will know I write reviews less often the Edmond Halleys most famous offspring makes it’s regular solar visits. I am not interested in the opinions of others when eulogising about a new whisk or how a new gavel will change your life forever. Yes, there really are on line reviews of gavels, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.
However, on this occasion I have acquiesced to absolutely no-one and have decided to commit my thoughts to virtual parchment about a new programme I’ve been using recently. Software. For a computer. Are you still with me ?
One of the great uses for computers is to record ones thoughts, to create websites, to write fiction and non fiction, to collect ones thoughts, to be creative. The very words you are reading now have been captured on a computer. Who knew ? Over the years I have used many different tools, from simple, format free “text pads”, such as Gedit text editor, Open Office or more recently LIbre Office for my CV and various job applications. I have also used something called Baskets, an offline version of Microsofts One Note for the Linux world.
Some time ago, actually, about a decade I ago, I tried to write a novel. Indeed, I did write one. It was not very good. It was never published and, to this day, has a global readership of two. And that includes me. It was written entirely in Libre Office. Lets be frank, Libre Office, Open Office, Calligra Suite and even Redmonds proprietary solutions are perfectly decent tools for writing letters, CVs, reports etcetera, however they are utterly unsuitable for writing an a hundred thousand word novel, not matter how poor the novel. Something better, something more appropriate is needed.
For a few weeks I trawled the software repositories to see what was available. I knew what I wanted and how I wanted things to be organised. I knew I wanted something that was, roughly, hierarchical, I new I wanted something that would allow me to see, literally see, plot points, or character occurrence. Some way of keeping notes in roughly the right place, i.e. near the place where I am actually writing. I also wanted to have some way of creating and updating character personality and detail, on the hoof, as it were, as I had not fully worked out each characters finer details. This is because I had started writing in a linear way, using a linear tool which was probably not a good option for the job.
After finding, reading about, downloading and trying about six or seven different programmes I have settled on Manuskript. I am using it now for capturing these words, and I am using in earnest to re-engineer the terrible tome I created a decade ago.
I am not going to do a review of the feature set, partly because I don’t know if it contains anything unique and partly because, frankly, I am still learning and discovering the software. There may be other programmes that do more, or that do better, I don’t know.
However, if I were to create a programme specifically for the creation of written work, where the focus is on writing rather than formatting, as is the case with word processors, Manuskript is the software I would create. It’s logic, it’s layout, presentation, features et al appeal to my logic. Menu’s are where I would expect them to be, as are side panels, useful data collection points and a lot of other things. IN truth, there is much that I love about this software and there is much that I have not yet discovered.
I am using Manuskript on my Ubuntu machine. It is available for other Linux distributions. There is a version for Windows. There are issues with getting the Apple O/S to work properly. This is a failing on Apple as they continue to provide a deprecated solution, restrictive and negative practice as well as not paying their tax duties correctly. I digress, this is not about the failings of Apple.
I am not going to recommend Manuskript to be honest because I have no idea how you think. However, for me, Manuskript is probably the best tool I have come across for a long time that does one thing very well, does not try to be other things and does exactly what I want, they way I want it done.
Oh, and while Manuskript may be excellent software, an excellent solution for a single problem, it does not actually make a silk purse out of a sows ear. My terrible tome from a decade ago may still be a terrible tome, just re-engineered with some excellent software.
I thank you.
Mark Daniels 