Linux Apps for Writers

The core features of novelWriter are:

• A plain text editor with a minimal set of markdown formatting features, plus a few additional features like tags and comments. Tags and comments are not counted towards word counts.
• Most features have keyboard shortcuts to speed up using the editor.
• Files are organised in a tree view with no automatic ordering. The order of the files are as you set them, and are saved in the same order.
• Files live in a set of root folders, and cannot be moved between them. These are currently Novel, Character, Plot, World, Timeline, Object and Custom. There can only be one of each, except for the Custom one.
• Within the root folders files can be organised in subfolders. The folders will have no impact on the layout of the compiled novel when I get around to adding the export feature. They are simply there for your convenience. The order of the text files in the final novel is dictated purely from the order of entries in the tree.
• Each file can have a file layout, which currently doesn't do anything other than indicate the purpose of the file. It will, however, be used to control the format and structure of the parts of the novel when the export features are added. Each chapter must have a chapter type file. The text of the chapter can be put in the same file, or in following scene files. The choice is yours. The entire book can also be written in a single file of type Book.
• Documents can be either opened in the editor (left pane) or in view mode (right pane). That means two documents can be opened at once, making it easier to work on one while following the other.
• When tags and references are set in the documents, a timeline window will show the relationship between the novel sections and the supporting files like character files, locations, plot elements, etc.

Vim is great for writing. But it isn't optimized for note-taking, where you often create lots of little notes and frequently change larger notes in a separate directory from the one you're working in.

This plugin allows you to define a list of directories that you want to search. The first directory in the list is used as the main directory, unless you set g:nv_main_directory. If you press control-x after typing some words, it will use those words as the filename to create a file in the main directory. It will then open that file in a vertical split. If that file already exists, don't worry, it won't overwrite it. This plugin never modifies your files at any point. It can only read, open, and create them.

You can define relative links, so adding ./docs and ./notes will work. Keep in mind that it's relative to your current working directory (as Vim interprets it).

oStorybook is a free, open source novel-writing software for creative writers, novelists and authors which will help you to keep an overview of multiple plot-lines while writing texts.

Typora will give you a seamless experience as both a reader and a writer. It removes the preview window, mode switcher, syntax symbols of markdown source code, and all other unnecessary distractions. Replace them with a real live preview feature to help you concentrate the content itself.

It has features of:

1. Markdown support including tables, code fences with syntax highlight, LaTeX, Table of Contents.
2. Cross-platform.
3. The real live preview and WYSIWYG features.
4. Beautiful interface and Custom CSS theme support.
5. Easy export

Typora will only be free during its Beta period. When it gets out of Beta, it will be a paid app.

Typewriter. Ring-binder. Scrapbook. Scrivener combines everything you need to craft your first draft, from nascent notion to final full stop.

Use it to sync your documents across devices via 2p2, without the need for cloud storage.

Elephant is a notetaker with a classic interface you already know.

Keep your notes to yourself. No accounts or clouds. For syncing use Dropbox, Github, rsync, ...

No feature bloat or redesigns, ever.

Elephant stores notes in plain files and folders. No databases and no migration.

Cross-platform for Mac, Windows and Linux.

Built for longevity with a classic interface. New versions will never offer weird functionality. There will never be a chat feature and it will never show stuff from Financial Times.

Premium is free, no ads. Open source.

A simple note taking application for your computer focused on privacy, using PGP keys to encrypt all your notes by default.

GNU Diffutils is a package of several programs related to finding differences between files.

Neovim is a project that seeks to aggressively refactor Vim in order to:

Simplify maintenance and encourage contributions.
Split the work between multiple developers.
Enable the implementation of new/modern user interfaces without any modifications to the core source.
Improve extensibility with a new plugin architecture.

bibisco is a novel writing software that helps you to write your story, in a simple way.

• bibisco is a desktop application available for Linux, MacOS and Windows in 12 languages: czech, french, german, english, italian, polish, portuguese (Brazil), portuguese (Portugal), russian, serbian, spanish, turkish.
• All that you need - with bibisco you can organize chapters and scenes, manage revisions, export novel in pdf or docx. And, of course, write with a fully featured text editor, also in DISTRACTION FREE mode.
• Organize your ideas - with bibisco you can create a novel structure, define premise, fabula, narrative strands and settings: geographic, temporal and social context.
• Focus on characters - your novel works if its characters are believable, that is when you understand human nature's complexity. With bibisco you can KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR CHARACTERS, in an unusual and funny way: an INTERVIEW!
  *Going into the deep - with bibisco you can see how characters, locations and narrative strands are distributed chronologically and across chapters. You can keep track of the number of words and characters you've written and you can see your story represented on a TIMELINE.

Heimer is a desktop application for creating mind maps and other suitable diagrams. It's written in Qt and targeted for Linux and Windows.

Sigil is a multi-platform ebook editor. It is designed to edit books in ePub format.

Sigil is a multi-platform EPUB ebook editor with the following features

• Online Sigil User's Guide, and Wiki documentation
• Free and open source software under GPLv3
• Multi-platform: runs on Windows, Linux and Mac
• Full UTF-16 support
• Full EPUB 2 spec support
• Multiple Views: Book View, Code View and Preview View
• Complete control over directly editing EPUB syntax in Code View
• Table of Contents generator with multi-level heading support
• Metadata editor with full support for all possible metadata entries (more than 200) with full descriptions for each
• User interface translated into many languages
• Spell checking with default and user configurable dictionaries
• Full Regular Expression (PCRE) support for Find & Replace
• Supports import of EPUB and HTML files, images, and style sheets,
• Documents can be validated for EPUB compliance with the integrated FlightCrew EPUB validator
• Embedded HTML Tidy: all imported files have their formatting corrected, and your editing can be optionally cleaned

yWriter is a writing tool that uses "scenes" as a unit of text and allows you to associate that text with all manner of story elements (characters, locations, items) as well as place it and rearrange it within the context of chapters.

With Plume Creator, organize your writing projects ! Scenes, notes, characters,... Rich Text editing, full screen editing and multiple projects …

Plume Creator gives you an outliner, a distraction-free mode, a note manager and much more!

Markdown is a text-to-HTML conversion tool for web writers. Markdown allows you to write using an easy-to-read, easy-to-write plain text format, then convert it to structurally valid XHTML (or HTML).

Thus, “Markdown” is two things: (1) a plain text formatting syntax; and (2) a software tool, written in Perl, that converts the plain text formatting to HTML.

Taskwarrior is an ambitious project bringing sophisticated capabilities to a simple and elegant productivity tool. You'll find it has customizable reports, charts, GTD features, Lua extensions, device synching and more, all while our international team provides excellent support!

Track your tasks and projects in a plain text file, todo.txt. A todo.txt is software and operating system agnostic; it's searchable, portable, lightweight and easily manipulated.

draw.io is a free online diagram drawing application for workflow, BPM, org charts, UML, ER, network diagrams. No login or registration are required and features include the ability to save locally (including svg), a range of stencils, .vsdx, Lucidchart and Gliffy import and real time diagram sharing.

Open-source tool for writers. With outliner, character management, plot development, distraction-free editor, etc.

Org mode is for keeping notes, maintaining TODO lists, planning projects, and authoring documents with a fast and effective plain-text system.

Sync makes it easy to store, share and access your files from everywhere - your privacy guaranteed. Get 5GB free or 500GB Pro account for $49/yr.

Made by the company behind WordPress, Simplenote is an easy way to keep notes, lists, ideas, and more. Your notes stay updated across all your devices. No buttons to press. It just works. Your notes are synced across your devices when you create, add to or change them.

Registration is required but the app and service are free.

Tree editor for writers, makes outlining your stories and articles easy, fun, and convenient.

Dia is a GTK+ based diagram creation program for Linux, Unix, Mac OS X and Windows released under the GPL license.

Dia is roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program Microsoft Office Visio, though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.