Any Writers Out? Know any good writing software?

[newbit]

Would the OpenOffice writers templates work on LibreOffice? Tried to dwnld yWriter5 but ends up in tmp file when unzipped instead of making its own yWriter5 home file like it says it would on the linux version part of the site: http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter5_Linux.html            ....any idears? any other suggested software? anybodies? Thanks.

[ternor]

OpenOffice uses the same file formats as LibreOffice so the templates are interchangeable.

Scribus and WordPress are in the repositories.

[Archie]

Hello newbit.

yWriter5 will not run on PCLinuxOS. I took the steps to test it on a Live environment. These were the steps:

Code:

$ su
# apt-get update
# apt-get install mono mono-basic
# y
# exit

$ cd ~
$ wget -c http://www.spacejock.com/files/yWriter5.zip
$ unzip yWriter5.zip
$ cd yWriter5/bin
$ mono yWriter5.exe

And this is the output:

Code:

KDE colorscheme read failure, using built-in colorscheme
18:33:10, yWriter5 5.1.9.1 startup
System.TypeInitializationException: An exception was thrown by the type initializer for Mono.Unix.Native.Syscall ---> System.DllNotFoundException: libMonoPosixHelper.so
  at (wrapper managed-to-native) Mono.Unix.Native.Syscall:_L_ctermid ()
  at Mono.Unix.Native.Syscall..cctor () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
  at System.Windows.Forms.XplatUIX11.UpdateMessageQueue (System.Windows.Forms.XEventQueue queue) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Windows.Forms.XplatUIX11.GetMessage (System.Object queue_id, System.Windows.Forms.MSG& msg, IntPtr handle, Int32 wFilterMin, Int32 wFilterMax) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Windows.Forms.XplatUIX11.PeekMessage (System.Object queue_id, System.Windows.Forms.MSG& msg, IntPtr hWnd, Int32 wFilterMin, Int32 wFilterMax, UInt32 flags) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Windows.Forms.XplatUIX11.DoEvents () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Windows.Forms.XplatUI.DoEvents () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Windows.Forms.Application.DoEvents () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Spacejock.clsDelay.RegularDoEvents () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Spacejock.frmSplash.UpdateSplash (System.String StringToShow) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) Spacejock.frmSplash:UpdateSplash (string)
  at yWriter5.frmMain.frmMain_Load (System.Object eventSender, System.EventArgs eventArgs) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoad (System.EventArgs e) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.Windows.Forms.Form.OnLoadInternal (System.EventArgs e) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

It is an app with Windows in mind, and frankly, I don't want to pursue it anymore. Sorry.

Have you tried Zim? KeepNote? Take a look at these apps as they might be closer to what you are looking for.

Peace and much respect,
Archie

[pinoc]

obviously this depends what kind of writing you have in mind, story telling, news, CV, etc? My daughter used Writer's Cafe for some years and was quite happy with it. Didn't really use it myself, it's proprietary, but multi-platform, maybe worth a look.
-p.

[ghostbunny]

i don't know what you want to write but for scientific writing the best choice is tex i think.

texlive is in the repo and some editors for tex. But you will need a bit time to get everything in your mind, it is like html or css.

greets
ghostbunny

[kalwisti]

@newbit,

For my "serious" writing, I too use TeX/LaTeX. As ghostbunny mentions, LaTeX is not necessarily for everyone because of the initial learning curve it requires. However, if you'd like to read a quick overview of it and decide for yourself whether to try the program, I wrote an article for the PCLinuxOS Magazine a while back:

http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/200911/page08.html

Another option you might consider is LyX, which uses TeX as its typesetting engine under the hood, but is easier to learn because of its more user-friendly interface. You can read more about LyX here:

http://www.lyx.org/