Do you want this in a different format?
• Paper Versions available upon request.
• Provide me with a USB key for an electronic copy.
• Give me your email address and I can send you a
copy before we begin.
• Available as a PowerPoint and as a searchable pdf.
beyond microsoft office
[Apps for Diverse Writing Styles]
Contact Info
Timothy Swiffen
Access Technologist
Office for Students with Disabilities
timothy.swiffen@mcgill.ca
Why Switch From Microsoft Office?
[And Other Word Processors]
Why
Switch?
Microsoft Word, Pages, and LibreOffice are all great
programs for creating professional looking documents,
but they have a number of disadvantages for the
process of writing:
• Word Processors were designed to replace
secretarial functions, not to help the writing
process.
• Word encourages a linear writing format, yet
many people write in a non-linear manner.
• Word struggles to keep track of numerous
documents (notes, brainstorms) and long
documents (theses, dissertations).
• Word has 100s of distracting features that are
largely irrelevant to University writing (when
was the last time you needed to do a mail
merge?).
what are the alternatives?
Capture Your Ideas
Write Distraction Free and Stay Motivated
Revise, Revise, Revise
Capture
Your Ideas
Sometimes all you want to do is get that idea for your
term paper written down the moment inspiration
strikes you, whether it’s on the bus, at the cafeteria or
right before you go to bed.
Apps that are good for capturing your ideas don’t
worry about your formatting or your prose but rather
are easy to access, easy to search, and free of
distractions.
Evernote
SimpleNote
Mindmeister
Capture
Your Ideas
Evernote
SimpleNote
Mindmeister
Evernote is the most popular note taking app. It
has hundreds of features, can take audio notes,
photo notes and sync with pretty much any
device.
• Evernote lets you tag and quickly
search your notes.
• If you use a LiveScribe pen, your
class notes can be automatically
uploaded to Evernote.
• Evernote can preform basic OCR
(Optical Character Recognition) on
pictures you take on your phone.
Capture
Your Ideas
SimpleNote is a plain text note taking program
that on purpose has few features other than a
very powerful search engine.
Evernote
• SimpleNote keeps all of your notes
backed up on a cloud server, so
you’ll never lose your notes.
SimpleNote
Mindmeister
• SimpleNote is indexed so that as
long as you remember at least one
word that is contained within the
entire note you will be able to find it
again.
Capture
Your Ideas
Evernote
SimpleNote
While SimpleNote can be accessed on your web
browser, there are numerous apps that can sync
with your various devices.
Windows: ResophNotes
OSX: Notational Velocity
iOS: SimpleNote
Android: Notational Acceleration
Mindmeister
Windows Phone: Metro Note
Blackberry: BerryNote
Capture
Your Ideas
MindMeister is a mind mapping web app with a
number of great features for visualizing your
ideas.
• With MindMeister you can visualize
concepts in a variety of different ways,
exposing relationships between ideas.
Evernote
SimpleNote
Mindmeister
• For each node on your mind map you are
able to add notes, images, files and due
date.
 This can help you organize your paper
along with your ideas.
• MindMeister is a web app, though it also
has native apps for iOS and Android.
• While there are premium versions, the
free version is quite good.
Capture
Your Ideas
Evernote
SimpleNote
Mindmeister
Evernote
• Very powerful with a number of features.
• Great for students who use audio and/or visual
notes.
• Can be a bit overwhelming and distracting.
SimpleNote
• Easy to search through thousands of notes.
• Simple to use and non-distracting interface.
• Text only, does not support visual learners.
Mindmeister
• Let’s you visualize the relationship between
ideas.
• The ability to assign due dates lets you stay
organized while you are writing.
• Each mind map is separated from others.
Capture Your Ideas
Write Distraction Free and Stay Motivated
Revise, Revise, Revise
Eliminate
Distractions
Often, when we’re writing we have too much
on the go, you have pdfs open, your web
browser, your email, your music player.
More and more programs have distraction-free
modes that force you to focus in on your
current task only.
Don’t worry about formatting until you are
done with the important work of getting your
paper written!
Programs that aim for distraction-free writing
also have the ability to track your writing
progress so that you can give yourself daily
goals.
Eliminate
Distractions
These programs can also work with the built
in text to speech features of OSX and
Windows 7 and the text files they export
can be brought into any other writing
program such as Wynn or Kurzweil.
OSX and iOS: WriteRoom
Windows: WriteMonkey
Linux: Focus Writer
Capture Your Ideas
Write Distraction Free and Stay Motivated
Revise, Revise, Revise
Organize
Academic writing is often a very convoluted process,
where your ideas sometimes only become clear
after you’ve written them down.
Scrivener is a program that was developed by a
novelist to be a set of tools to facilitate the creative
process.
Features:
• Move quickly between your brainstormed ideas, an
outline, and your written text.
• Keep all of your related files in research in the same
easy to access space.
• Set yourself a wide variety of writing targets, from
daily writing goals to word to word limits for sections.
• Write in distraction free mode with a font that you are
comfortable with and export it into a format that
meets your course requirements.
Thank you for your time!
Contact Info
Timothy Swiffen
Access Technologist
Office for Students with Disabilities
timothy.swiffen@mcgill.ca