The 15 Best Free Writing Apps Of 2019 That Every Writer Needs (2024)

In this article, we discuss some of the best writing apps available today. As you know, copywriting and professional authorship are quite in demand niches these days. These require experts to demonstrate extensive creativity and be able to spell out information in a logical order without spending too much time at it. Time is money, and would it not be great if we could save time on this laborious process of editing and formatting. Don’t you agree?

Usually, the speed of one’s copy composition is inversely proportional to the quality of a finished piece. Often, a higher speed of composition compromises the quality of writing in terms of grammar, structure, and important SEO key figures like the keyword density and uniqueness. Thanks to the wide array of modern specialized software solutions developed by leading web and mobile app development companies – writers can be aided to accelerate their writing process, organize their thoughts, and to make their editing task quicker without impacting the quality of writing. Below, we discuss some of the most prominent writing apps available today.

What Are Some Good Writing Tools? Have a look At Our Exclusive List

Currently, there are several hundred solutions available for checking grammar and spelling. But let us explore which of these writing tools can be noted as the best and most popular ones? We will first explore ten free-of-charge tools on the market:

• Grammarly
• Prowritingaid
• Ginger
• Scrivener (Free Trial)
• MS Notepad and Mac TextEdit
• Hemingway Editor
• Portent’s Idea Generator
• Canva
• OneLook
• Evernote

Let’s consider these writing apps with all of their pros and cons in a bit more detail.

1. Grammarly

Grammarly is arguably one of the most talked-about writing apps for MAC and Windows. It can help you check the spelling, grammar, punctuation, and even give pieces of advice on the tone of your copy. Grammarly’s “Tone” feature allows you to set customizable goals regarding the intent, audience, style, and the emotion of the text. It then measures a score of how well the text meets the goals that were set.

Grammarly is not only an excellent solution to quickly edit your copy, but it is also an extremely useful educational tool for students, the regular use of which will help you perfect your grammar and writing skills.

Itis a great solution for accelerating a copywriter’s workflow that, if used to its full potential, can almost replace the need of a professional staff editor.

2. Prowritingaid

Prowritingaid is another prominent application that tops the list of best free writing apps. It helps to shift focus towards a major objective in writing commercial text – the creation of unique, helpful, and interesting content. With this solution, you don’t have to manually check for redundant words and other errors throughout your copy, instead, this checker does all that for you by looking through your entire document in a matter of seconds.

With the use of Prowritingaid, you can enhance the tone of your writing and compose a better copy for better results.

3. Ginger

Ginger – an app based on natural language processing algorithms, is also among the most striking writing apps today. Ginger’s algorithms allow it to recognize context and discover errors in the most complicated areas of a text making its text-recognizing efficiency superior to most other editing writing apps. Since the service is also available in the form of a cross-platform mobile application, it makes it a top choice among the writing apps for Android and iOS as well.

A major advantage of Ginger is its feature to link with your social media profiles and Gmail inbox. This lets you write up your social media posts and emails accurately, checking everything in real-time with the help of a conveniently embedded service, without the need to copy and paste the text.

4. Scrivener (Free Trial)

This is yet another prominent software among the leading writing tools software, which has everything to help you compose a voluminous copy with a complex structure. With it, you can subdivide your piece by chapters, create drafts, put down comments and thoughts to return to later on – all in all, everything you could have been doing on a paper notebook but with faster, more accessible and efficient capabilities.

If used efficiently, Scrivener can assist you with complex writing, including composing unique studies, course work, Ph.D. dissertations or even writing entire books.

5. EditPad

Editpad is one of the most well-rounded writing toolkits available on the internet. It provides its users with a number of free and freemium tools to write and optimize their content.

Its text editor is a great choice for writing on the go. It provides a cloud save feature, so users can access their documents from anywhere (as long as they are logged in). Users can also utilize the paraphraser of Editpad to improve the quality of their writeup in a variety of ways.

The paraphraser can help reduce the repetition of words, follow a certain content tone, and otherwise touch up the content to make it easy to read. Aside from that, the summarizer can help reduce the fluff in your write-up and make it concise and to the point.

All of these features make Editpad a versatile toolkit for writing efficiently.

6. MS Notepad & Mac TextEdit

MS Notepad along with Mac TextEdit is another writing tool that will come in handy for those who prefer simple and concise text editor software over complex and confusing programs. This software works autonomously supports an offline mode and does not take too much space on one’s hard drive. MS Notepad and Mac TextEdit are both practically identical solutions that are compatible with both Windows and macOS (the latter version allows working with both native-format documents and MS Word or OpenOffice files).

The main purpose of both the products is to help you with typing, editing, and storing text. However, with Mac TextEdit, you can also open and make changes to images, as well as add audio and video files. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

7. Hemingway Editor

Hemingway is an interactive editor you should try if you wish to make your writing simpler and more accessible to the reader. By simply copying and pasting your work into the Hemingway editor, you can view all the areas of improvement and optimization in your text, such as: which sentences can be shortened, which words can be replaced with other more fitting words or phrases, where passive voice can be removed, etc.

Hemingway offers another great feature called “readability grade levels” that helps with writing efficiently. This feature analyzes your text to measure how easy-to-read the text is, based on the choice of words and sentence structure, and suggests improvements. This efficient tool may as well eliminate the need for an expert editor for you.

8. Canva

Canva is a great editor to help you make your process of editing and formatting time-efficient. Need to compose a CV? No big deal – select from dozens of readymade templates and writing tools for students and professionals. The myriad of templates of business cards, banners, advertising forms, and logos available at Canva lets you present your copy in whichever form you wish, with an accessible user interface that is easy to use.

Although the service is not free, it certainly is worth its cost. It is worth paying a few bucks for an advanced and efficient tool like Canva once, then hiring an expensive graphic designer.

If you want to create qualitative text for a landing page (to tell about new products), your blog (to educate your audience), or guest posting (to grow ranks & increase brand awareness, article writing tools can be the perfect solution for you. So, let’s consider these writing apps with all of their pros and cons in a bit more detail.

9. Portent’s Content Idea Generator

Portent’s Content Idea Generator will be of great help during one’s creativity crisis – when you are unable to generate fresh ideas and create interesting, unique, and viral content. Its easy-to-use interface asks you to define the main subject of your article (even one word is enough), and in return generates an intriguing headline with content suggestions in an instant. The ideas that are suggested are adequate for you to come up with a few thousand words for a long read.

Try it and you will never fail at creating unique and interesting content again.

10. OneLook

OneLook is another accessible web service that can be a great assistant for professional writers. It is a complete online collection of dictionaries, where you can simply search for the meaning of words and get results from over 30 orthographic, linguistic, explanatory, and other anthologies. OneLook’s reverse dictionary feature is also an efficient tool for writers to look up exact words and synonyms by describing their definition. You should try it out if you want to enhance your vocabulary and knowledge of words.

11. Evernote

Evernote is another top contender among the best writing apps for Windows and MAC Apps, which is used to create notes. From the perspective of a professional writer, this piece of software can come in handy as a storage place for useful links, plans for future articles, and random thoughts to be elaborated later on. In general, you can make good use of Evernote if you need to note down ideas and useful information about your content.

This way you can simplify your workflow and produce a well thought out and structured copy.

Not Found An App Of Your Choice Yet? Here are a Few Additional Free Writing Software Options

If you still haven’t found anything that fits your requirements among the above-mentioned writing software variants, look through these ten additional solutions for professional writers:

• Google Docs
• Libre Office
• AbiWord
• Calmly Writer
• Zoho Writer
• Apple Pages for Mac Users
• WPS Office
• SoftMaker Free Office
• iA Writer
• Focus Writer

Let’s take a brief look at each of them individually:

12. Google Docs

Google Docs is globally-renowned online writing software that lets you unload your local storage and work with a copy in your browser, using various useful gadgets for writers. The standout features of Google Docs include collective editing and autonomous editing mode, which allows users to save changes made in offline mode on reconnection to the Internet.

Google Docs is an efficient tool if you don’t want to store important data locally on your devices’ hardware. The more documents there are, the more memory they take and create a CPU stress load. This is why Google Docs is preferred by users because it transfers all their copy to the cloud and even if a device shuts down unexpectedly, all the info is synchronized and saved on the cloud in real-time and can be processed further on via integrated writing apps.

13. Libre Office

LibreOffice is a complete package of free writing tools that allow users to work with various text and graphics formats. It is available in both desktop and web versions, and contains writing apps for Windows as LibreOffice Writer (for text files’ editing with additional visual HTML editor available), LibreOffice Calc (for digital sheets and tables’ editing), LibreOffice Draw (for the vector graphics creation), LibreOffice Impress (for presentations), LibreOffice Base (for connection with external DBMSs and HSQLDBs), and LibreOffice Math (for mathematical formula’s editing).

If you frequently include data consisting of irregular letters and symbols in your copy, this software will make your life easier. With LibreOffice, you won’t have to switch between tabs and windows to copy and paste symbols anymore.

14. AbiWord

AbiWord is a free writing software similar to Microsoft Word and is compatible with MS Word, RTF, OpenOffice, and WordPerfect files. This piece of the book writing software can serve as a great replacement for the MS Word while offering additional capabilities and features.

We recommend trying out AbiWord if you are not satisfied with everything MS Word has to offer.

15. Calmly Writer

Calmly Writer is a web service with an intuitive interface dedicated to real-time text editing. It is professional writing software, basically equivalent to Google Docs, that is more focused on features adapted closely to the requirements of professional writers.

Calmly Writer is a must-have writing tool if you work on large writing tasks regularly. This writing software provides better and extensive text formatting capabilities than other alternatives like Google Docs and even features a Dark Mode option which provides a comfortable reading experience. We believe that this is one of the best writing apps for Windows to use if you write content regularly.

16. Zoho Writer

This book writing software is a handy app for mobile users, that allows you to access the editor from your smartphone or tablet if it is connected to the Internet. With Zoho Writer, new content can be written offline with all the changes automatically synced up once the internet connection is restored.

This piece of software can also be easily linked with other Zoho services, as well as with Dropbox and Google Apps. Moreover, it has a document merging feature, which can be useful for writers that work with several sources of information at the same time. You should try this alternative if you have had issues with MS Office’s built-in writing tools.

17. WPS Office

Created by a software development company based in China, WPS Office is among the most competitive alternatives to a regular MS Office software package. Its basic version is freeware and saves documents in formats as diverse as *.docx and *.xlsx (however, you will have to purchase a paid version for such features). It also allows you to work with multiple tabs simultaneously, save documents in PDF, use a built-in Google search bar, and queue several documents for printing. Additionally, WPS Office also supports the OLE technology and encrypts data upon saving a document.

Altogether, the interface of this software is pretty similar to that of Microsoft Office and you will not have many issues in figuring out how to work with it.

18. SoftMaker Free Office

SoftMaker FreeOffice is a freeware solution from German developers that contains a text editor, digital sheets editor, and a separate app for presentations. It is an ideal option both for professional and common use. It is not only an alternative to Microsoft Office, but it can also be integrated with it. This software provides a proprietary file format and also supports the commonly used .doc, .xslx, and others.

Another great feature of SoftMaker FreeOffice is that it can be launched straight from your flash drive, which means that you can use it on certain portable devices as well. You should try SoftMaker FreeOffice if you are looking for a multipurpose solution.

19. iA Writer

iA Writer is available in two versions – a full-scale product for Mac OS X and a compact application for iPhone and iPad. It is inspired by the minimalistic visual design of Apple iOS and is one of the best text editors for journalists, bloggers, and everyone who works regularly with text. If you want to get extensive text formatting capabilities, you should probably go for other, more functionality-focused writing tools (e.g., Pages, which we discuss below). However, if convenience, accessibility, and interface conciseness are the main features you are looking for, then this solution will be a great choice for you.

When working with iA Writer, you can employ convenient hotkeys and change color schemes of the whole editor. The available skins look visually appealing and all the formatting options are conveniently available to use.

20. Apple Pages for Mac Users

Pages are one of the professional text editors from the category of writing apps for Mac. The interface design of this book-writing software is what makes it a professional editor, where despite the extensiveness of all the features, the interface is easy-to-use, intuitive, well-structured, and customizable.

This is one of those writing apps that will be a trusty companion for professional copywriters, journalists or anyone wishing to write a copy that doesn’t require much formatting and can be passed on to editorial right away.

21. Focuswriter

A Focuswriter is a distraction-free text-editor with efficient features like an autonomous spell check, focusing function (highlight fragments of text you are currently working on), a selection of visual themes, convenient text navigation, and extensive support for major operating systems. Another key feature of a Focuswriter is its ability to launch the app right from a flash drive, while you can also launch it on your pocket devices without any problems.

This book writing software looks original and different from most text editors out there which makes it a go-to software for writers.

Best Tips To Use Specialized Software To Create High-Quality Content

All of the aforementioned software solutions would allow striving writers to achieve their ultimate goal – enhancing their professional writing skills. Here are some tips to help you create the highest-quality content with the help of these book writing software:

• Minimize your mistakes. You should always analyze recommendations provided by the writing apps to minimize the number of common errors you make over time;
• Use comments. When you are working on a document collectively, try to define all the changes made using the “comments” feature on the app. The simplest way to do that is to comment on particular chunks of text via writing apps’ built-in features instead of rewriting it at once;
• Unload your thoughts. It can be quite difficult to keep everything in mind when working on a large copy. You can use Evernote or similar software to sort everything out and employ your thoughts gradually.
• Formatting first, text later. For marketing-focused writing such as mottos and the advertising copy or something similar, the most sensible order of things to do would be to work out the visual design of your feature first and then fill it up with text.
• Always compose a plan. This goes for book-writing especially. A basic draft will always help you accelerate the process without losing important thoughts. Writing apps such as Scrivener are of great help at that.
• Integrate apps with your workflow gradually. Don’t try to master all the top writing tools at once. Take it slowly, figure out the pros and cons of each app. Otherwise, you will risk wasting a lot of time without much effect.

Enough about Writing Apps & Software! Let’s Answer Some Common Questions For You

A small FAQ for you to get a better understanding of the professional software and editing tools today.

Do authors use Microsoft Word?

Yes, they do! Despite the innovativeness and diversity of numerous similar yet advanced writing apps, Microsoft Word remains the most popular professional tool for writers. On the other hand, an online version of this renowned writing software – Google Docs – can be a sufficient alternative if you are concerned with the safety of your text. Google Docs can be an irreplaceable writing tool for anybody who needs to access their copy on mobile devices (some people on our team consider it one of the best writing apps for Android) or laptops on a regular basis – even if your device’s battery dies at the most inappropriate moment, all data will be saved in the cloud automatically.

What font do writers use?

Although Microsoft Word’s default font type is Times New Roman, most of the copywriting clients require the use of 11 pt Arial (which is a more plain alternative to Times New Roman). It is considered to be better perceived visually and can be scaled to any text-size. We would recommend you to focus on Arial font to make your work look as professional as possible.

What format should I choose?

For the overall format of your copy it is preferred to use up and down, left and right paragraph indents, which are usually set by default. A single line interval should also be employed, and don’t forget about headlines. Instead of making the text bold and bigger, use proper headline styles in your text to make it look more professional.

Is proofreading necessary?

It surely is. Sometimes it happens that links added to the text lead to either outdated or changed information sources. You should also take time to look through your copy after editing, as this will allow you to find mistakes you might have made while composing and correct them.

Conclusion

With all modern writing software apps we have listed above, it becomes much easier to focus on the task of writing without having to bother about formatting, editing, and proofreading. Try out at least one of the writing apps we have discussed to see for yourself what productivity-boosting opportunities you may be missing out on right now!