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What is your most effective writing software?
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Posted by satis
Oct 26, 2025 at 04:35 PM
I write on Mac and iPad and iPhone. On the Mac I’ve used BBEdit for text processing for decades. I wish it had a companion iOS app. Since its release in 1992, it’s been maintained consistently updated. Two journalists I know have written in it for decades.
Almost two years ago, BBEdit expanded its worksheet interface to integrate with ChatGPT, allowing you to chat directly inside the app without switching applications or copying and pasting from a web browser. Each chat worksheet retains its own history, so you can refer back to past conversations or continue an ongoing exchange over time.
https://sixcolors.com/post/2024/01/bbedit-15-adds-chatgpt-support/
http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/index.html
I know one person who uses BBEdit for shorter work but has written six books using a combination of Scrivener and Pages, though I’m a fan of neither. Around Xmas you’ll see 25% discounts on BBEdit, and it’s a regular participant at artisanalSoftwareFestival.com with that discount.
BBEdit’s main competition for text writing on Mac/iOS is probably iA Writer and Drafts. I love using Drafts because it launches extremely fast, faster than any other writing app I own, and it’s perfect for jotting quick notes or ideas while on the phone or at my desk. Unlike iA Writer, which restricts users to two themes and four weird bundled fonts, Drafts lets you choose from ten themes and any font you like. iA Writer isn’t bad, but I dislike being confined to its limited themes and oddball font choices. I *need* to write in my preferred font and I prefer to work with a customizable background that isn’t strictly black or white.
For me, a close 2nd to writing in text on Mac/iOS is MWeb, which MadaboutDana first wrote about here in 2017. It’s available as a free app, an unlocked $10/year subscription or a $35 purchase. Highly tweakable and themeable (more so than Drafts) Markdown editor with a library ability, and can even generate static websites.
For long form writing I use Ulysses on Mac/iOS, which I’ve found to be more robust than Scrivener, whose subreddit is filled with users complaining about bugs and even text loss, especially on Windows.
Ulysses uses a sheet/group concept where ‘sheets’ - which writers tend to use as chapters - can easily be rearranged or split, then ‘glued’ into a single visible document. The sheet I’m working in right now is not a chapter of anything but has 33,151 words, and it can easily handle many times that without slowing down. It has a simple but comprehensive built-in theme editor that lets you customize colors and formats for elements like text, subheadings, quotes, footnotes, equations, code, and lists.
Ulysses uses a custom flavor of Markdown that supports inline comments, footnotes, task lists, multiple H1 headers, code blocks, writing goals, and custom export styles (PDF, HTML, ePub, etc.). If you prefer you can choose to write in standard Markdown but you’ll lose these extended features. Ulysses saves directly to iCloud but also supports local folders if you prefer (although some Markdown XL functionality may not work in that mode).
Here’s a good overview of Ulysses from Zapier
https://zapier.com/blog/ulysses-markdown-writing-guide/