

Alternatives to wordprocessors - memborg

I&#x27;m looking for a general purpose writing tool, for writing letters, documentation, jot down notes and so on in pure text, and not be dependent on a certain piece of software like Word for the writing part but it could be as simple as Notepad or as advanced as Vim.<p>At some point I might need these writings to be presentable to others in form of a PDF, with formatting: like headers, bold, italic, having a page header, a footer and so on.<p>Any pointers to where I might look to?
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tedyoung
Like others, I use whatever text editor I find most convenient and write it in
Markdown-like syntax (on Windows, that's MarkdownPad). When I want to get it
into PDF, I'll either use Leanpub to make it into an eBook, or I'll convert it
into LaTex and use something like [http://overleaf.com](http://overleaf.com)
(wysiwyg preview of your LaTex) to improve the formatting (or do things that
Markdown-like syntax doesn't handle).

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DanBC
Abiword is a lightweight word processor. You'd probably want to use Abiword's
template feature to set defaults to what you want. EG I prefer light text on
dark backgrounds. I like monospaced fonts. I have all the toolbars turned off.

This allows me to do basic "text editor like" typing, but with the option to
apply styling and export to PDF.

[http://www.abisource.com/wiki/FaqDefaultFont](http://www.abisource.com/wiki/FaqDefaultFont)

[http://www.abisource.com/wiki/FAQ/Always_save_as_Word](http://www.abisource.com/wiki/FAQ/Always_save_as_Word)

Otherwise, any text editor you like for most of the stuff and the tools you
need for the other stuff. gedit for all the texty stuff, and then import it
into a WP to apply styles and export to PDF.

I guess I misunderstand your question: why don't you just use a word-processor
for everything, and save as text? Why don't you just use a text editor and
then import into a WP when needed?

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memborg
I don't want to use a word-processor at all. But thanks for the input on
abiword

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mark_l_watson
I use several things:

leanpub: for writing books. uses Dropbox, web services to produce books from
markdown. I can edit markdon files on my phone, ipad, Chromebook, and kaptops.

Google docs: quick notes that I might need in the future; having search helps
find stuff later

Microsoft OneNote - for notebooks for travel planning, research, etc.

Emacs: org mode, but it takes effort to get started

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Frenchgeek
[http://www.latex-project.org/](http://www.latex-project.org/) ?

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memborg
Isn't big and clunky like docbook?

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Frenchgeek
Well, the example on the site show it can be pretty simple (I never had use
for it, so I never really tried it ), and formatting could be easely added by
editing a classic text file...

So the machine that would convert latex to PDF doesn't have to be the one the
text files are written with.

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usermac
I use BBEdit for its text-only and RegEx and really enjoy it. I must admit, I
do like MS OneNote as I can write a note and see it on all my devices.

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gizmoboy7
[https://www.zoho.com/docs/writer.html](https://www.zoho.com/docs/writer.html)
\- Check this out?

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memborg
Still an word-processor, one could have mentioned google docs too.

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memborg
And I would like it to be open source too and not a web application

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informatimago
emacs

[http://www.danfowler.net/resources/emacs_talk/#/](http://www.danfowler.net/resources/emacs_talk/#/)

