Question: What software is absolutely essential to you

Posted by Hugh
Aug 1, 2011 at 05:26 PM

I use Scrivener and DevonThink Pro Office every day - often every hour - and as far as I’m concerned they’re the best at what they do. I have a love/hate relationship with Tinderbox. I like and use the Omni Group’s products Omnifocus, OmniOutliner and OmniPlan. I’m also a big fan of Curio.

But are they essential to me? No. Apart from the Mac OS X file system, at a pinch a replacement for any information manager, the two applications which above all others are essential because they are pretty much irreplaceable are MS Word and MS Excel. Word can carry out virtually any writing task, just not very well, and enable collaboration and communication with other users. MS Excel is IMO unique and can of course be used for jobs ranging from complex multi-sheet valuation spreadsheets to PIM-creation to project management to - yes - outlining. You could probably make a mind-map with it - I bet someone has.

The irony is that I use them only very occasionally, but when I do they’re, well, essential.