Besides Libre Office, what other programs/solutions exist in the Linux world for writers?

(Please, don’t suggest VIM. After all the memes and comments I’ve read, I’ve come to dread it).

I like writing but the standard Writer tends to send me in a constant formatting spree.

I want to get back to writing regularly and something that could help me stay focused and somewhat organized would be nice.

  • SuperiorOne@lemmy.ml
    141·
    11 months ago

    I recommend Obsidian with community plugins. Application itself isn’t open-source but your content stored as markdown files.

        • toastal@lemmy.ml
          5·
          11 months ago

          It’s not compatible with other Markdown forks, but the whole Markdown ecosystem is a mess duct taped together by more forks & extensions that aren’t compatible either. Even the common denominator CommonMark is feature-barren & isn’t suitable for documentation or technical writing, but boy howdy will the next guy have his Markdown contraption to sell you.

  • Elric@lemmy.world
    111·
    11 months ago

    God he says no Vim and everybody goes on about vim. Please learn to read. It obviously isn’t for programming.

  • callyral [he/they]@pawb.socialEnglish
    81·
    11 months ago

    Any text editor that lets you write Markdown (all of them, since markdown can be written as a plain text file). It’s simple but featureful. I would recommend Marktext.

  • Starfighter@discuss.tchncs.de
    5·
    11 months ago

    Typst

    You can use their online web-editor (similar to OverLeaf for LaTeX) or download the open-source engine and run it locally (there are extensions available for many text editors).

    Compared to LaTeX I find it much more comfortable to work with. It comes with sane, modern defaults and doesn’t need any plugins just to generate a (localized) bibliography or include links.

    Since Typst is very young compared to LaTeX I’m sure that there are numerous docs / workflows that can’t be reproduced at the moment but if you don’t need some special feature I’d recommend giving it a shot.

  • Lem453@lemmy.ca
    5·
    11 months ago

    Onlyoffice

    Is UI mimics ms office and has comparability with word files.

    Not open-source and has some limitations without paying but works on windows and Linux. Can even be self hosted yourself to provide a web UI for access to your own files Google docs style.

  • lapislazuli@sopuli.xyz
    4·
    11 months ago

    FocusWriter for a minimalist, focused writing experience. You can edit the existing template for a dark theme and white text. I rather like the typewriter font, Liberation Mono (it was Courier something back on Windows). Give it a try. I’ve been using it for around 3-4 years.

  • driveway@lemmy.zip
    4·
    11 months ago

    I’d use OverLeaf. Open source LaTeX editor with cloud storage, simple setup, plugins, extensive documentation.

  • Tiuku@sopuli.xyz
    4·
    11 months ago

    If markdown fulfills your formatting needs, then there’s no beating it in terms of focus and simplicity. Use whatever text editor you like. My recommendation would be Kate. It supports previewing the rendered document in side by side view.

  • thayer@lemmy.caEnglish
    41·
    11 months ago

    While I’m a big fan of Vim, it’s definitely not for everyone.

    I spend about half of my writing time in VSCodium, which is a community-based release of Microsoft’s open source VS Code editor. There are several markdown, grammar, and focus-oriented plugins for the platform, and you can pretty much shape it into whatever kind of editor you want.

    I use VSCodium for the vast majority of my personal notes, technical writing, and project documentation (nearly all of which are written in markdown format).

  • mcepl@lemmy.world
    3·
    11 months ago

    Not vim necessarily, but I would really suggest thinking about a plain text editor of your choice and some of those lightweight markup languages (Markdown itself, reStructuredText, ASCIIDoc … I prefer rST, but they are mostly the same). Exactly because it allows me to concentrate on the content and ignore formatting. Besides, formatting, do you write for print or as everybody else these days for HTML? Why do you need a large word processor which is build primarily for preparing documents for print? Every serious text editor has some kind of plugins with spellcheckers, grammar checkers, dictionaries, etc.

    • qyron@sopuli.xyzOP
      1·
      11 months ago

      I like so say I want someday to see my work out in the world in the form of (e)books, so I want to keep my options open.

      • mcepl@lemmy.world
        1·
        9 months ago

        Eh? Both pandoc and rst2epub can generate eBooks. All those lightweight markup languages are especially awesome for converting into various output formats.

  • the_weez@midwest.social
    63·
    11 months ago

    If you base your opinion of vim from memes you are missing out. Anyone who can’t take 10 minutes to type vimtutor in their terminal is not someone to base an opinion on. These memes come mostly from impatient people that can’t read the docs. It’s a fantastic text editor.

    That being said, it’s not meant to be used for written words it’s meant to write code and config files. You want to look for a word processor.

    Abiword, etherpad, focuswciter are probably the next 3 biggest on Linux behind libre and open office.

    Personally I prefer markdown for most things these days but it’s not exactly meant for word processing either.