Distraction free writing

Monday, 18 January, 2016

I wrote several years ago about distraction free writing and the portable Windows application Focus Writer, although over the last few years its Scrivener that has taken quite a few headlines.

Well over the last few months I’ve been doing quite a lot of writing and so went back to the idea of distraction free writing. One thing I’ve found over the years is that it’s not only the software you use, but the frame of mind you’re in. And frame of mind is closely linked to location. In short I like to write in a variety of locations, so having something portable to write with is important. Yes a smartphone could do it, but the screen is limited (although I do like the idea Microsoft has tried to bring together with Continuum by plugging your device in to a monitor - or just using a pico projector). My ageing Nexus 7 (7”!) tablet strikes the balance between size and portability which then leads to a keyboard. For a while I flirted with the Apple keyboard which is very nice, but the lack of cover was a problem. My current “goto” device is the Microsoft Wedge which is bluetooth, beautiful to type on and comes with a protective cover which doubles as a stand.

So, in looking for a distraction free editor on Android I came across JotterPad which is beautifully designed and does exactly what I want. A focus upon writing, research mode for searching dictionary/thesaurus and keyboard shortcuts for all the main types of formatting. BUT…

As it turns out, JotterPad uses Markdown. This is an extremely lightweight markup language designed for writing. Given it’s low key evolution, there has never been a “standard” and so there are various flavours (e.g. Github). CommonMark is an attempt to bring this together and markDownEdit is one of several Windows editors (portable!) that supports Markdown. Thankfully there is a converter (Pandoc) which is widely used (by both MDE and JotterPad) which translates in to a range of other formats (include DOCX, Latex and HTML). The latter is particularly important if you are then working to create a Kindle ebook.

However one of the key things I do is edit - that means being able to add comments and indicate edits. Currently markdown does not support this but CriticMarkup is a set of 5 tags that do. I’ve request that MDE add support for these which will be the final feature that will allow utilisation in academia.

Give markdown a go - it’ll really set your writing free.