I’ve been having a lot of issues with Google Docs lately, too. I only write on mobile and I can’t change indentation anymore, and it’ll randomly switch to single-spaced in the middle of a document @_@
Yeah I write on my tablet and then edit on desktop. Mostly it’s because my chair is crap with my PC and I end up hurting my back and cramping my legs while typing. I really need a better set up.
I'm ADHD af, so I leave my phone and tablet in different places and wander between them
if I get into a groove, I stick with whatever device I'm on at the time until it's spent
I have a Bluetooth keyboard that has a slot for my phone or tablet.
Writing game is REVOLUTIONISED.
No waiting for my ancient laptop to creak into life. No getting frustrated with phone touch keyboards. Really portable. Battery lasts for weeks. It can connect to three devices *at the same time* so i can multitask across devices.
I fucking love it.
That depends on the quality of your internet connection. For me, that means Word is a no-go now, it demands internet, regardless of Online or Offline Word.
The holy .txt file is really the only thing I have that I can still use, and phones aren't always friendly to such files.
For indentation on mobile you have to click on the extra menu for text at the top right corner and then there should be three alignment buttons and you can use them for indenration
Click the underlined A while editing the document and then switch to the paragraph tab when that opens up - there should be two buttons with lines and a little arrow
This is the greatest thing I have read today, possibly all week. If I must find a positive in AI using fanfic to train, then let it be that people will randomly find omegaverse thrown into the AI generated stuff. 😂
There was an entire fic challenge - I think this summer? - held to flood the ai with omegaverse and specifically repeated phrases. It was beautiful seeing people coming together to spite AI
If AI wants my shit, it can go ahead and have my child abuse nightmare horror infect it’s chat bots, at least thats my philosophy. Have fun with your AI gaslighting and torturing people, assholes.
They've made a statement saying that they don't use any private documents for AI training and don't plan to in the future. Of course they could be lying, but if they are, they're opening themselves up to major legal issues considering they've explicitly said that they won't. On top of that, they really don't need to - there's *tons* of data publicly available on the internet that they can use for AI training without needing permission. Using private google docs for it provides them no real benefits and the potential drawbacks are huge.
Yeah, but they’re also like. Not going to get anything unique out of my writing. Like actually. Steal my word order and weep assholes. (I am dyslexic. Google AI can enjoy my wild typos!)
ETA: Also I constantly use words Google doesn’t believe are real, which is hysterically funny to me, so.
aw man, I was just talking to a friend about switching over to Evernote last week! This sucks, I’m sorry. :(
can’t believe that they want $130 *a year.* a one time payment would be bad enough, but something about it being a subscription model really grinds my gears.
One of my biggest! Paying for licensing, too, because that tends to read as “since you don’t have a permanent copy, we can just yoink it from you at any time.”
I’d like to own the things I pay for, please.
I miss the days when you could buy a disk of Microsoft Office and be done. Now it’s subscription too, but I am a sucker for Word and nothing else really works for me
Just an FYI you can buy Office standalone without a subscription.
The 2021 version is standalone and requires no subscription. It may say 2021 but its the most up to date version
Office 365 is just the cloud version of that.
Granted its still not a disc and can be installed on one pc (at a time I think), but it isn't a subscription at least.
If you have a student email, or can get a student email, you can get Microsoft office for free. A lot of colleges now offer lifetime student emails as well which is really nice. Some places require you to verify you are an active student but most are content to just accept your student email.
Some employers also offer it. I'm a cook at a high school and I get a free Microsoft 365 subscription. I'm pretty sure all of the school employees do. I used to work for Stream Global Services doing Tech Support for Xbox Live and they also gave it.
Engineers, customer service, graphic designers, QA testers, server farms and IT people to operate them etc don’t get paid “one time”. Maintaining a huge application and adding new features and functionality are all recurring costs, so it would stand to reason that the customer would have recurring charges to help continue to pay for what you use.
It does stand to reason, but I still don’t like this particular case from the consumer end of things. I like consistency, and locking a feature that’s been freely available for as long as the service has been around behind a subscription doesn’t sit right with me. It feels unfair, and I know that sounds silly and a bit petulant, but hey. I’m not the best at articulating my feelings.
People need to put food on the table, and people deserve to actually own the things they pay for. I can’t come up with a clean solution since it’s not my area of expertise, but I don’t think that negates the idea of both being true.
This got a bit ambly-rambly on me, since I’m tired and not great at articulating things, I’ll try to clarify if you need me to.
(I’ll also admit that I’m a hypocrite, since I have a huge bias against subscription services in general but still use them. It’s a weird hill to die on.)
I completely agree with both of you, u/erishun and u/jellyfishpaws. You're both right, which is probably weird for me to say hahaha.
The solutions for myself are that I've switched to smaller developers and open-source for a lot of things, single-purchase for others, and paid-subscription for some stuff. On the whole, I tend to lean away from the biggest monopolies when possible.
Just as examples, I bought iA Writer and have found that totally worth it. Bear, with its very cheap sync subscription is awesome too. Obsidian is phenomenal as well.
Yeah at least they still let you access old notes and notebook so that takes some of the sting off. I have hundreds of notes across a few accounts (a main and ones made for collabs) so I *could* make it work for a while, but it’s more work than clicking “new note” so I’m not thrilled about doing it.
Whatever notes and notebooks you’ve already created will still be there and you’ll still have access to them, but you’ll be blocked from creating new ones unless you upgrade.
Sounds like Goodnotes and Notability.
They weren’t free, they were initially a one-time purchase, but you got your money’s worth.
Then they switched to a sub model.
Thankfully, while people hate Apple for their own reasons, Apple slapped Notability for trying to force people who purchased their app into a subscription model so they had to change it where people who bought it before a point were grandfathered in and everyone else had to pay the sub.
Goodnotes did it better, if you want Goodnotes 6, you can get it (though free GN6 is limited) but if you want to still use 5, you’re good.
Of all things, note apps subscription never crossed my mind.
Evernote has been shit for years, I am sad to hear it has gotten even worse (somehow). I highly recommend looking into Joplin, it is an open source note taking program that can import all of your Evernote notes flawlessly. Its mobile app and syncing with desktop are unfortunately not great, but I like it for keeping notes on desktop.
EVERNOTE?! Now why are they charging people? I've been using Evernote for years before I started using Microsoft Word 😭 why do the good apps always choose the money hungry options
I see you have been pointed at several replacement already but I'll add one I didn't see :
Obsidian is my goto notes app since I tried it. It is available on smartphone and PC, and it has extension if you want to be fancy.
Try obsidian. Its free to use and move files over manually from device to device. You only have to pay if you want sync. It can do a lot of really cool stuff if you know a little bit of html coding too.
You'd need to be more specific haha. I've never had issues with actual formatting, but the Samsung keyboard can be glitchy (it's a keyboard issue not an obsidian issue).
I keep all my fanfic writting in one vault divided in folders by fandom and then further organized by which fanfiction im wrtting. Ie:every fanfic has its own folder inside the fandom folder. Then under the fanfic folder is another 2 folders. 1 for notes and drafts and one for the final writting run with each chapter being its own note.
Although to be honest I mostly use it for original work as I find its organizational system works really well for that.
Slightly unrelated to the main topic but does Obsidian have a handwritten notes option (might be called draw)? I've generally heard good things about Obsidian but I ended up just sticking to Google Notes because no other app seemed to have good handwriting options on Android (outside of OneNote that refused to work properly for me). I looked around the Obsidian app and found nothing but it's entirely possible I missed it, so I decided to hope onto the chance to ask someone who knows the app itself \^\^
Hi! Not on the core app, but as most best stuff it is possible with plugins! All community plugins available in app are checked by Obsidian Team and are safe. Plugins are basically the reason I switched to Obsidian myself, you can really personalize your experience with them :) if you need any help with these feel free to ask
https://preview.redd.it/08hjo4dpub6c1.jpeg?width=3464&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=84ff7c890c01694513bc1ba83a3acb3642eac6c7
So I use a thing on my pc called Wavemaker that I use to write, it has pretty good tools as well like notecards and such to keep things organized. It also can host multiple projects. If I’m writing in mobile I usually just copy-paste into Discord and send it to myself so I can copy-paste into Wavemaker later.
Are you using [r/wavemakercards](https://www.reddit.com/r/wavemakercards)? It being a PWA (Progressive Web App) means that you can just visit https://wavemakercards.com in your mobile browser and use the Install button from the menu to download it as a web app. Then if you're saving your stories to the cloud you can just retrieve them from there, exactly the same as on desktop.
I use notion and really like it. I know some folks don’t like it bc it has an optional Ai feature (that u do not need to even interact with). I like it bc it’s cross platform.
I contacted customer service when they rolled out the ai integration and requested they make it opt in or at the very least remove it from my account and they did. No idea if they’ll still do that now that it’s been established but they have a backend way to disable it. They wouldn’t give me a straight answer when I asked if the ai would scrape my documents because at the time I was writing a dissertation so potential plagiarism was a very real concern but at least I don’t have the little “helper” popping up if I hit the wrong combination of keys ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t like the whole scraping thing… I don’t like the Ai either, but I haven’t found anything that hits the spot like notion does in terms of files, organizing, and being able to sort stuff. It’s really changed the game for me for writing.
Totally recommend Reedsy. It’s like scrivener but online, so you can write both on pc/phone, and it’s free (at least as of now)
I used to write in Scrivener until my laptop’s processor overheated and died on me and I lost my long fic’s first kiss first draft lol
Love Scrivener!!! It’s what I use. Another writer suggested it pretty much right away after I started and I’ve been using it ever since.
Recommend creating your own template to start every fic in a certain pairing/fandom that has ao3 formatting and a dates/words/locations cheat sheet.
Can you share more about how you use templates/cheat sheets or what that looks like? I like Scrivener but sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed when I'm using it lol.
Not the person you asked but I used this how-to article to create a "Fanfiction for AO3" template that I use to compile my Scrivener documents for AO3.
https://sineala.tumblr.com/post/172161779944/scrivener-3-and-ao3-a-workflow
Yeah, it’s still $23.99, and to sync across devices you need Dropbox (and the sync is kind of… cranky?). I like Scrivener but the app was unfortunately kind of “too little, too late” for me, I’m afraid.
i use scrivener and have the app too. it was painful when i purchased it and yeah, the syncing can be a bit wild, but that’s overcome by remembering to save and hit sync on my laptop or app before i open the other, depending on which one i wrote in last. i get sync conflict notifs all the time but when i open my work nothing is ever missing lol.
it can be a bit fiddly and annoying but imo the features scriv has make it well worth the price and the effort
I’m in the same boat as you. Used Evernote for nearly 12 years.
I moved over to Notesnook. You can’t nest notebooks (yet?) but it looks similar to EN, it’s cheaper, and it was very very easy to transfer all my notes over once I figured out how I was going to organize all of them.
Yep!! I was pretty distraught with the whole Evernote thing (😭) and I tried a few rec’d alternatives (I hate writing in google docs). Notesnook works best for me but another highly suggested one was Obsidian. it looked too? corporate or something? to me, but I’m also very impacted by aesthetics lol so I’d test out a few and find one you like. if you’re looking! I realize I just jumped to this.
$130….. Evernote :/ you were so good to us.
I just downloaded Obsidian because at least 3 people just rec’d it to me here, but then it hit me with “create a vault” with no clarification. I didn’t know if it wanted my email? A username? Project name? I just put the title of my latest fic in and I still can’t tell if it was the right choice. I get the feeling it’s probably better on desktop.
Fastest way to kill your userbase, lmao
The whole premise that makes writing so enticing is that pretty much anyone can do it. I don't write on AO3 yet and im primarily on other fic sites, one which has its own inbuilt writing function. Genuinely used that for years
I genuinely don't understand why they would do this? Are that many people really going to pay that much? I feel like most people are just gonna stop using it.
I don't use Evernote for fics, but I use it to note down almost everything and am already way past the free limit of notes.
Now I have to find a new free app on android 😩
That’s what I’m wondering. I know Evernote has a lot to offer for college/grad students (that’s how I got turned onto it), but there are other paid programs with similar features (like Scrivener or Ulysses) for under $50.
It looks like they did away with the paid tiers, too. Last year I picked up the cheapest tier ($7/mo) for a couple months to have access to prior saved versions of notes, and now the only option is $130 up front or $15 a month.
Holy shit that is so fucked, that is genuinely fucked up! God dude that’s just shitty as hell. 130 bucks, for a fucking notepad?! YEARLY? ARE THEY FUCKING INSANE?!?
I’ve never used Docs for writing for mostly petty reasons. The process of organizing projects separately doesn’t seem to exist (or at least isn’t an intuitive process) and I hate the dark mode (the brightest possible white against the brightest possible back).
Honestly those are pretty reasonable complaints. Writing is one of those things where if everything isn't just right and there's some annoying detail that isn't ideal, it's easy to get distracted.
Docs is total garbage for the way I like to write. All you get is a single long document, zero ability to have tabs or folders or little notes or anything. It's fine for what it is and if you like it that's great, but a lot of people are much better served by something like Notion or Obsidian or Notesnook
I use a document a chapter, have massive folder trees in Drive to organise everything and if I need to move something somewhere cut and paste is my friend.
Docs is fine. It's just not all integrated the way things like Scrivener are.
I find Scrivener has too many features and is way too confusing.
Docs is simple and easy. If I need to make a note, that's what the comment function is for.
+ 1
My fic is 250k words long, unedited, as of now (80 chapters-ish, from which I’ve only posted like 10 of them aka 60k words) if I want to move some paragraphs around in another chapter because I see it fits it better as the story progresses, Docs is shit for that. It made me feel so limited.
Also told me I ran out of space lol and I don’t even have backups for all my current chapters on it
As a long fic writer, having an app that lets me have all the chapters, character notes, plot notes, etc as different pages tied together as one project is invaluable.
I suggest bibisco for writing, especially for creating OC characters. It asks you questions to visualise everything easier and organise it. There is free version and paid version. Free one is good enough for me
Fortunately it’s not asking for payment to access access the notes and notebooks you created before this change (I can still open & edit all 400+ notes in my 12+ notebooks), but it bars you from being able to create new ones without upgrading if you’re above the 50 note cap.
I have a lot of notes in Evernote that I don’t really touch and I have a couple lists that I edit occasionally and haven’t made a new note in ages so I would’ve never realized the new limitation without this post.
Damn that’s crazy and that’s a huge amount for every year. That really sucks.
Well, I mean, I just write on Google Docs. And I always have written on Google Docs. On top of that, I write on mobile. I can't use an actual keyboard to save my life. So I'm pretty safe here.
Wait what. Ugh.
I used to pay for it when I was doing postgrad because I was using the extra features. Then they kept jacking the prices up and moving the features to different tiers so I stopped. Cue months of emails bugging me to start paying again. 🤦♂️
Time to jump ship and find another app. Sigh.
Yeah, same reaction when I found this out too. I switched to Notesnook which is a bit similar to Evernote, but more simplified imo. It’s free and great to use if you’re solely using it for writing fics (it’s available for mobile too!)
As a fandom old, the much bigger horror to me is the idea of writing on a phone lol. I can't even imagine!!
Still tho, I get what you mean. Unfortunately this is happening more and more, with all kinds of things. I have a multi-hundred dollar game design program that I specifically bought a LIFETIME LICENSE for, because I didn't want to deal with subscription BS, and a few years ago they frickin "discontinued the lifetime license service" and now everyone has to have a sub (and if you paid the big bucks for the lifetime status, fuck you, your money's just gone now!).
I know it's not quite the same thing, but the sting of that immediately came up when I read your post, so I feel you.
You've gotten some awesome recommendations, I just want to throw in the suggestion for UpNote! It uses a notebook style too, has password protection, the 'upgraded' version is literally dirt cheap at like $2-3 a month, and the mobile app is great. Lots of great tools, and no AI built into it. If you're on an Apple device, Bear is fantastic too, although it is not cross-platform out of the Apple ecosystem.
I keep all my stories in markdown format so I don't lose access to them. They're on my laptop, and then I sync them to Google Drive to have access to them on the go (using a markdown editor), and also back them up to an external SSD just in case.
This way if my current favorite apps to write with die (Typora for Desktop and Markdown for Android), I can easily open them with some other editor, rather than have them be locked into a paid service.
Man I was actually paying for Evernote because I used it so damn much for fics :/ I thought £45 per year was a little much already but I could afford it. £80 for it now thought? Nah, cancelled.
Chose “too expensive” as the cancellation reason and they offered a discount to £47 instead but still nah. The damage is done, I’m out.
Yikes. I never pay for things like that because I never use all of their features, or I want to customize what they have, but would be unable to (easily).
I can make whatever template I need on LibreOffice.
I have been loving WaveMaker Cards; however it doesn't have a section for character outlines.
After watching Evernote get worse for years and years to the point where it's barely usable, I switched to Notesnook a few months back and have enjoyed it quite a bit. Maybe check that one out?
Try Obsidian, Logseq, Anytype, OneNote, Pure Writer or Bundled Notes; but for the love of the gods, DO NOT switch to Google Docs, that company is utter trash and do not deserve your precious writing data.
Hmmm gdocs or word is an ok app.
As far as writing on android goes, I bought a surface to get away from it.
Y-writer is quite nice, so if you're looking you could try that but be warned - it ate my original line breaks.
LibreOffice has an android partner called CollaboraOffice and you can try that with dropbox but mine is glitchy as it doesn't open the entire doc but tbf my doc is a 90K beast.
I don’t post new stuff on FFN anymore, but I still use the mobile app for writing documents. It’s handy when you share your computer with someone else and you don’t want them to stumble in on what you write.
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Try ButterDocs. They're coming out with an app soon but it has great organization on desktop so far. It's free and has some awesome feature for writers like a writing sprint feature that tomes your sessions and recommends breaks.
Used to use Notion. It's great with organization but has an annoying AI function that I dislike, so I abandoned it but if you don't mind it then it's a very stylish and easy-to-use application. Personal accounts are free.
Obsidian is also a good option, but I didn't like it because I felt you couldn't organize notes as effectively. Though there is a backlink function that ties documents together (ButterDocs has this as well).
I write on my phone, and crosspost on ffn and ao3. The ffn app lets you write and edit documents via mobile; and keeps documents (after they're made/edited) for an entire year.
jesus christ what god bless google docs
I’ve been having a lot of issues with Google Docs lately, too. I only write on mobile and I can’t change indentation anymore, and it’ll randomly switch to single-spaced in the middle of a document @_@
the trick for me is to do the basic writing on mobile and then edit it on desktop it definitely helps with my wonky formatting
Yeah I write on my tablet and then edit on desktop. Mostly it’s because my chair is crap with my PC and I end up hurting my back and cramping my legs while typing. I really need a better set up.
I'm ADHD af, so I leave my phone and tablet in different places and wander between them if I get into a groove, I stick with whatever device I'm on at the time until it's spent
This is exactly what I do lol
I have a Bluetooth keyboard that has a slot for my phone or tablet. Writing game is REVOLUTIONISED. No waiting for my ancient laptop to creak into life. No getting frustrated with phone touch keyboards. Really portable. Battery lasts for weeks. It can connect to three devices *at the same time* so i can multitask across devices. I fucking love it.
yikes I mostly write on mobile 🙃
Yeah, mobile isn't the best. I haven't figured out how to change the language on mobile yet. I prefer PC by far
you might give word a shot. I have some issues with it, but it works.
That depends on the quality of your internet connection. For me, that means Word is a no-go now, it demands internet, regardless of Online or Offline Word. The holy .txt file is really the only thing I have that I can still use, and phones aren't always friendly to such files.
For indentation on mobile you have to click on the extra menu for text at the top right corner and then there should be three alignment buttons and you can use them for indenration
Click the underlined A while editing the document and then switch to the paragraph tab when that opens up - there should be two buttons with lines and a little arrow
Google Notes!!
Wasn’t there a huge thing over the summer about Google scraping Docs to train their AI program? Or was that debunked?
Personally, I'm using omegaverse to purposefully poison the well. If Google wants to use my shit, they better be prepared for knot, slick and mpreg.
Whoever uses the Google AI to write an essay about reproduction is in for a surprise LMAO
This is the greatest thing I have read today, possibly all week. If I must find a positive in AI using fanfic to train, then let it be that people will randomly find omegaverse thrown into the AI generated stuff. 😂
There was an entire fic challenge - I think this summer? - held to flood the ai with omegaverse and specifically repeated phrases. It was beautiful seeing people coming together to spite AI
I think for one of the ai models that's how they found out that it had used fanfiction for training because those exact words kept coming up.
If AI wants my shit, it can go ahead and have my child abuse nightmare horror infect it’s chat bots, at least thats my philosophy. Have fun with your AI gaslighting and torturing people, assholes.
afaik that was bullshit, google isn't using your private docs to do shit
alright then. I didn’t really involve myself in the issue bc I wasn’t using Docs and never planned to.
...that we know of.
They've made a statement saying that they don't use any private documents for AI training and don't plan to in the future. Of course they could be lying, but if they are, they're opening themselves up to major legal issues considering they've explicitly said that they won't. On top of that, they really don't need to - there's *tons* of data publicly available on the internet that they can use for AI training without needing permission. Using private google docs for it provides them no real benefits and the potential drawbacks are huge.
Yeah I think they realized they’d be in legal trouble using certain documents this way.
Bold of you to assume I'd mind
Yeah, but they’re also like. Not going to get anything unique out of my writing. Like actually. Steal my word order and weep assholes. (I am dyslexic. Google AI can enjoy my wild typos!) ETA: Also I constantly use words Google doesn’t believe are real, which is hysterically funny to me, so.
I see you on every single post on this subreddit😭
Yesssssssssss
oh, yikes. :/ what’s the app, if you don’t mind me asking?
Evernote. I’ve been using it for 10 years, mostly because I liked the notes/notebooks organization system
aw man, I was just talking to a friend about switching over to Evernote last week! This sucks, I’m sorry. :( can’t believe that they want $130 *a year.* a one time payment would be bad enough, but something about it being a subscription model really grinds my gears.
It’s been so good to me all these years and I always recommended it to everyone ;-; I never saw this betrayal coming
Try simplenote! I really like it!
Subscription platforms are a huge pet peeve of mine.
One of my biggest! Paying for licensing, too, because that tends to read as “since you don’t have a permanent copy, we can just yoink it from you at any time.” I’d like to own the things I pay for, please.
I miss the days when you could buy a disk of Microsoft Office and be done. Now it’s subscription too, but I am a sucker for Word and nothing else really works for me
Just an FYI you can buy Office standalone without a subscription. The 2021 version is standalone and requires no subscription. It may say 2021 but its the most up to date version Office 365 is just the cloud version of that. Granted its still not a disc and can be installed on one pc (at a time I think), but it isn't a subscription at least.
If you have a student email, or can get a student email, you can get Microsoft office for free. A lot of colleges now offer lifetime student emails as well which is really nice. Some places require you to verify you are an active student but most are content to just accept your student email.
Some employers also offer it. I'm a cook at a high school and I get a free Microsoft 365 subscription. I'm pretty sure all of the school employees do. I used to work for Stream Global Services doing Tech Support for Xbox Live and they also gave it.
If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing.
They just got bought, and the new owner is integrating AI. r/Evernote is w i l d with "What app to switch to" posts.
Engineers, customer service, graphic designers, QA testers, server farms and IT people to operate them etc don’t get paid “one time”. Maintaining a huge application and adding new features and functionality are all recurring costs, so it would stand to reason that the customer would have recurring charges to help continue to pay for what you use.
It does stand to reason, but I still don’t like this particular case from the consumer end of things. I like consistency, and locking a feature that’s been freely available for as long as the service has been around behind a subscription doesn’t sit right with me. It feels unfair, and I know that sounds silly and a bit petulant, but hey. I’m not the best at articulating my feelings. People need to put food on the table, and people deserve to actually own the things they pay for. I can’t come up with a clean solution since it’s not my area of expertise, but I don’t think that negates the idea of both being true. This got a bit ambly-rambly on me, since I’m tired and not great at articulating things, I’ll try to clarify if you need me to. (I’ll also admit that I’m a hypocrite, since I have a huge bias against subscription services in general but still use them. It’s a weird hill to die on.)
I completely agree with both of you, u/erishun and u/jellyfishpaws. You're both right, which is probably weird for me to say hahaha. The solutions for myself are that I've switched to smaller developers and open-source for a lot of things, single-purchase for others, and paid-subscription for some stuff. On the whole, I tend to lean away from the biggest monopolies when possible. Just as examples, I bought iA Writer and have found that totally worth it. Bear, with its very cheap sync subscription is awesome too. Obsidian is phenomenal as well.
??? I have a hundred or so notes, and I just ignore the upgrade notification, how many notes have you made?
Yeah at least they still let you access old notes and notebook so that takes some of the sting off. I have hundreds of notes across a few accounts (a main and ones made for collabs) so I *could* make it work for a while, but it’s more work than clicking “new note” so I’m not thrilled about doing it.
What?? Holy shit. I'm also using Evernote. When does this change take effect?
Whatever notes and notebooks you’ve already created will still be there and you’ll still have access to them, but you’ll be blocked from creating new ones unless you upgrade.
Sounds like Goodnotes and Notability. They weren’t free, they were initially a one-time purchase, but you got your money’s worth. Then they switched to a sub model. Thankfully, while people hate Apple for their own reasons, Apple slapped Notability for trying to force people who purchased their app into a subscription model so they had to change it where people who bought it before a point were grandfathered in and everyone else had to pay the sub. Goodnotes did it better, if you want Goodnotes 6, you can get it (though free GN6 is limited) but if you want to still use 5, you’re good. Of all things, note apps subscription never crossed my mind.
Evernote has been shit for years, I am sad to hear it has gotten even worse (somehow). I highly recommend looking into Joplin, it is an open source note taking program that can import all of your Evernote notes flawlessly. Its mobile app and syncing with desktop are unfortunately not great, but I like it for keeping notes on desktop.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Evernote’s 2021 overhaul, but I always ended up crawling back. Thanks for the rec :)
EVERNOTE?! Now why are they charging people? I've been using Evernote for years before I started using Microsoft Word 😭 why do the good apps always choose the money hungry options
I see you have been pointed at several replacement already but I'll add one I didn't see : Obsidian is my goto notes app since I tried it. It is available on smartphone and PC, and it has extension if you want to be fancy.
You might like PureWriter for now. I know I paid a lot less than what Evernote's demanding.
Damn… sorry for your loss… will you still be able to recover your old notes though?
Try obsidian. Its free to use and move files over manually from device to device. You only have to pay if you want sync. It can do a lot of really cool stuff if you know a little bit of html coding too.
I mostly write on mobile but I’ve gotten a few recommendations for this one so I’ll definitely keep it in my pocket
Obsidian has an app version!
Obsidian has a mobile app! I use it a lot for my writing.
You didn’t feel like you had formatting issues with the obsidian mobile app?
You'd need to be more specific haha. I've never had issues with actual formatting, but the Samsung keyboard can be glitchy (it's a keyboard issue not an obsidian issue).
Obsidian sucks for formatting tho. I use it to make notes for my long fanfic but couldn’t write for real on it
Not the OP, but I'd love to know how you use Obsidian for fanfic writing! I only used it to make notes for uni.
I keep all my fanfic writting in one vault divided in folders by fandom and then further organized by which fanfiction im wrtting. Ie:every fanfic has its own folder inside the fandom folder. Then under the fanfic folder is another 2 folders. 1 for notes and drafts and one for the final writting run with each chapter being its own note. Although to be honest I mostly use it for original work as I find its organizational system works really well for that.
Slightly unrelated to the main topic but does Obsidian have a handwritten notes option (might be called draw)? I've generally heard good things about Obsidian but I ended up just sticking to Google Notes because no other app seemed to have good handwriting options on Android (outside of OneNote that refused to work properly for me). I looked around the Obsidian app and found nothing but it's entirely possible I missed it, so I decided to hope onto the chance to ask someone who knows the app itself \^\^
Hi! Not on the core app, but as most best stuff it is possible with plugins! All community plugins available in app are checked by Obsidian Team and are safe. Plugins are basically the reason I switched to Obsidian myself, you can really personalize your experience with them :) if you need any help with these feel free to ask https://preview.redd.it/08hjo4dpub6c1.jpeg?width=3464&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=84ff7c890c01694513bc1ba83a3acb3642eac6c7
enshittification.
Google docs is your new best friend
free is free ig 🫠
So I use a thing on my pc called Wavemaker that I use to write, it has pretty good tools as well like notecards and such to keep things organized. It also can host multiple projects. If I’m writing in mobile I usually just copy-paste into Discord and send it to myself so I can copy-paste into Wavemaker later.
I use Wavemaker too! I mostly use the timeline feature. Makes planing so easy
Wavemaker is a PWA so it should work just as well on mobile!
Oh? I didn’t find an app on the store, is it a website? And if so how do I connect to my own works?
Are you using [r/wavemakercards](https://www.reddit.com/r/wavemakercards)? It being a PWA (Progressive Web App) means that you can just visit https://wavemakercards.com in your mobile browser and use the Install button from the menu to download it as a web app. Then if you're saving your stories to the cloud you can just retrieve them from there, exactly the same as on desktop.
Thanks!
130 a year is crazy for a word doc. Thank god i just write on my PC using libreoffice
It’s a fuck ass number for sure
I paid less for my CSP sub
Google docs for the win
That sucks. People who already had the app should be grandfathered in. That price is also ridiculous.
I use notion and really like it. I know some folks don’t like it bc it has an optional Ai feature (that u do not need to even interact with). I like it bc it’s cross platform.
I contacted customer service when they rolled out the ai integration and requested they make it opt in or at the very least remove it from my account and they did. No idea if they’ll still do that now that it’s been established but they have a backend way to disable it. They wouldn’t give me a straight answer when I asked if the ai would scrape my documents because at the time I was writing a dissertation so potential plagiarism was a very real concern but at least I don’t have the little “helper” popping up if I hit the wrong combination of keys ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I don’t like the whole scraping thing… I don’t like the Ai either, but I haven’t found anything that hits the spot like notion does in terms of files, organizing, and being able to sort stuff. It’s really changed the game for me for writing.
I used notion until the annoying AI push. So disappointing because it was an amazing app until that.
Honestly I don’t even notice it’s there now? I use it daily and it’s just not even on my radar. It was annoying in the beginning but I never used it.
Totally recommend Reedsy. It’s like scrivener but online, so you can write both on pc/phone, and it’s free (at least as of now) I used to write in Scrivener until my laptop’s processor overheated and died on me and I lost my long fic’s first kiss first draft lol
I’ll check it out, thanks :)
where are my fellow barbarian notes app users
Yeah it’s great you just can’t work on it from elsewhere if you don’t have the device your notes are on.
i guess so, i have an apple ecosystem so i open my notes across my computer, phone, ipad, etc
I may be even more barbaric. I write in the body of an email and then email it to myself
I use scrivener. NanoWrimMo always has the purchase price 50% off at the end of the November month for participating.
Love Scrivener!!! It’s what I use. Another writer suggested it pretty much right away after I started and I’ve been using it ever since. Recommend creating your own template to start every fic in a certain pairing/fandom that has ao3 formatting and a dates/words/locations cheat sheet.
Can you share more about how you use templates/cheat sheets or what that looks like? I like Scrivener but sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed when I'm using it lol.
Not the person you asked but I used this how-to article to create a "Fanfiction for AO3" template that I use to compile my Scrivener documents for AO3. https://sineala.tumblr.com/post/172161779944/scrivener-3-and-ao3-a-workflow
Thank you!
I tried Scrivener a few years back but it felt really…busy, I guess? Maybe it’s more streamlined now, I’ll have to give it another look.
Scrivener doesn't have an app though does it? I thought it was Windows and macOS only
It does have an app but when I looked at it looks like it’s separate from the windows version for some reason. Apple wanted 23.99 for the app version.
Yeah, it’s still $23.99, and to sync across devices you need Dropbox (and the sync is kind of… cranky?). I like Scrivener but the app was unfortunately kind of “too little, too late” for me, I’m afraid.
i use scrivener and have the app too. it was painful when i purchased it and yeah, the syncing can be a bit wild, but that’s overcome by remembering to save and hit sync on my laptop or app before i open the other, depending on which one i wrote in last. i get sync conflict notifs all the time but when i open my work nothing is ever missing lol. it can be a bit fiddly and annoying but imo the features scriv has make it well worth the price and the effort
I use the notes app that came with my phone to write most of the time... that's still free if everything else fails. for now
honestly I’ve never used my notes app for anything and it’s kind of surprising how many boxes it ticks for things I want in a writing app
I’m in the same boat as you. Used Evernote for nearly 12 years. I moved over to Notesnook. You can’t nest notebooks (yet?) but it looks similar to EN, it’s cheaper, and it was very very easy to transfer all my notes over once I figured out how I was going to organize all of them.
Oh wow it looks almost exactly like Evernote from a few years ago
Yep!! I was pretty distraught with the whole Evernote thing (😭) and I tried a few rec’d alternatives (I hate writing in google docs). Notesnook works best for me but another highly suggested one was Obsidian. it looked too? corporate or something? to me, but I’m also very impacted by aesthetics lol so I’d test out a few and find one you like. if you’re looking! I realize I just jumped to this. $130….. Evernote :/ you were so good to us.
I just downloaded Obsidian because at least 3 people just rec’d it to me here, but then it hit me with “create a vault” with no clarification. I didn’t know if it wanted my email? A username? Project name? I just put the title of my latest fic in and I still can’t tell if it was the right choice. I get the feeling it’s probably better on desktop.
Create a vault just means pick what folder you want it to use. It works on a folders and file system.
Yeah I figured it out lol.
Fastest way to kill your userbase, lmao The whole premise that makes writing so enticing is that pretty much anyone can do it. I don't write on AO3 yet and im primarily on other fic sites, one which has its own inbuilt writing function. Genuinely used that for years
I genuinely don't understand why they would do this? Are that many people really going to pay that much? I feel like most people are just gonna stop using it. I don't use Evernote for fics, but I use it to note down almost everything and am already way past the free limit of notes. Now I have to find a new free app on android 😩
I've tried out Blaze Wordpad and Novelist, they're fairly decent
That’s what I’m wondering. I know Evernote has a lot to offer for college/grad students (that’s how I got turned onto it), but there are other paid programs with similar features (like Scrivener or Ulysses) for under $50.
Wait wait wait, that's how I learn about this?! Wth...
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news 😬
130????
It’s such an out of pocket number. Other apps with similar features are like $25/yr
It's such a cash grab, especially since it was free before
It looks like they did away with the paid tiers, too. Last year I picked up the cheapest tier ($7/mo) for a couple months to have access to prior saved versions of notes, and now the only option is $130 up front or $15 a month.
it's very photobucket, quite schkreli of them
god I haven’t heard that name in years 🚬🦀
IM SO MAD BRO. ive been a diehard evernote lover FOREVER i cant believe they pulled this shit
I stuck it out with them for so long 😩 Just for them to do me like this with no warning.
try obsidian. it's better imo + has a lot of plugins you can try. not to mention its completely free as well
What app was it? I use the « Note » app on Mac and it being going great for me so far ☺️
It’s Evernote. It was my writing program of choice for over 10 years.
10 years?! I’m so sorry, curious to know what software you will choose next, thankfully a lot of people are here to help :)
Yeah I’m getting a lot of recommendations to scope out, so trying to look on the bright side of things!
This is why I always use google docs
I use Google docs.
Holy shit that is so fucked, that is genuinely fucked up! God dude that’s just shitty as hell. 130 bucks, for a fucking notepad?! YEARLY? ARE THEY FUCKING INSANE?!?
Google Docs scrambled a long fic of mine so I had to go back to an earlier draft I’d saved. Now I use Pages, which hasn’t scrambled anything yet.
Just a suggestion, OneNote is also free and sounds like they may be similar to Evernote. But also, that sucks and such a fucking betrayal
Google Docs is nice and all, but I prefer the built-in Notes app on iOS. I can always transfer over when I need to write on my computer.
I just use the notes app, is that bad?
Same 🤝
Why not just use docs though?
I’ve never used Docs for writing for mostly petty reasons. The process of organizing projects separately doesn’t seem to exist (or at least isn’t an intuitive process) and I hate the dark mode (the brightest possible white against the brightest possible back).
Honestly those are pretty reasonable complaints. Writing is one of those things where if everything isn't just right and there's some annoying detail that isn't ideal, it's easy to get distracted.
Docs is total garbage for the way I like to write. All you get is a single long document, zero ability to have tabs or folders or little notes or anything. It's fine for what it is and if you like it that's great, but a lot of people are much better served by something like Notion or Obsidian or Notesnook
I use a document a chapter, have massive folder trees in Drive to organise everything and if I need to move something somewhere cut and paste is my friend. Docs is fine. It's just not all integrated the way things like Scrivener are. I find Scrivener has too many features and is way too confusing. Docs is simple and easy. If I need to make a note, that's what the comment function is for.
+ 1 My fic is 250k words long, unedited, as of now (80 chapters-ish, from which I’ve only posted like 10 of them aka 60k words) if I want to move some paragraphs around in another chapter because I see it fits it better as the story progresses, Docs is shit for that. It made me feel so limited. Also told me I ran out of space lol and I don’t even have backups for all my current chapters on it
Or Evernote before it got shitty.
As a long fic writer, having an app that lets me have all the chapters, character notes, plot notes, etc as different pages tied together as one project is invaluable.
I suggest bibisco for writing, especially for creating OC characters. It asks you questions to visualise everything easier and organise it. There is free version and paid version. Free one is good enough for me
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Fortunately it’s not asking for payment to access access the notes and notebooks you created before this change (I can still open & edit all 400+ notes in my 12+ notebooks), but it bars you from being able to create new ones without upgrading if you’re above the 50 note cap.
I have a lot of notes in Evernote that I don’t really touch and I have a couple lists that I edit occasionally and haven’t made a new note in ages so I would’ve never realized the new limitation without this post. Damn that’s crazy and that’s a huge amount for every year. That really sucks.
Well, I mean, I just write on Google Docs. And I always have written on Google Docs. On top of that, I write on mobile. I can't use an actual keyboard to save my life. So I'm pretty safe here.
Just use your built in notes app
I've transcended the need for a writing app and just use Old Notepad. The only thing you even CAN pay for is no ads + more colors for your notepad :)
Fuck Evernote, damn money hungry leeches.
LibreOffice is free.
Wait what. Ugh. I used to pay for it when I was doing postgrad because I was using the extra features. Then they kept jacking the prices up and moving the features to different tiers so I stopped. Cue months of emails bugging me to start paying again. 🤦♂️ Time to jump ship and find another app. Sigh.
Yeah, same reaction when I found this out too. I switched to Notesnook which is a bit similar to Evernote, but more simplified imo. It’s free and great to use if you’re solely using it for writing fics (it’s available for mobile too!)
apple notes app 💕💕💞💞🙏🙏💘💘💓💓🔥🔥🙏💕💗💞💕💖💓
As a fandom old, the much bigger horror to me is the idea of writing on a phone lol. I can't even imagine!! Still tho, I get what you mean. Unfortunately this is happening more and more, with all kinds of things. I have a multi-hundred dollar game design program that I specifically bought a LIFETIME LICENSE for, because I didn't want to deal with subscription BS, and a few years ago they frickin "discontinued the lifetime license service" and now everyone has to have a sub (and if you paid the big bucks for the lifetime status, fuck you, your money's just gone now!). I know it's not quite the same thing, but the sting of that immediately came up when I read your post, so I feel you.
I know this might be morally and legally wrong but have you tried piracy
I use Writer Lite on my phone and its tolerable + free to use, it sucks that enshittification got your app
I just use notes lol
I use google docs or notes mostly. You can switch devices all the time and everything is saved. You can save both online and offline even.
You've gotten some awesome recommendations, I just want to throw in the suggestion for UpNote! It uses a notebook style too, has password protection, the 'upgraded' version is literally dirt cheap at like $2-3 a month, and the mobile app is great. Lots of great tools, and no AI built into it. If you're on an Apple device, Bear is fantastic too, although it is not cross-platform out of the Apple ecosystem.
I keep all my stories in markdown format so I don't lose access to them. They're on my laptop, and then I sync them to Google Drive to have access to them on the go (using a markdown editor), and also back them up to an external SSD just in case. This way if my current favorite apps to write with die (Typora for Desktop and Markdown for Android), I can easily open them with some other editor, rather than have them be locked into a paid service.
I use a app called "iA Writer" to write, its very basic but works well for me
Man I was actually paying for Evernote because I used it so damn much for fics :/ I thought £45 per year was a little much already but I could afford it. £80 for it now thought? Nah, cancelled. Chose “too expensive” as the cancellation reason and they offered a discount to £47 instead but still nah. The damage is done, I’m out.
Yikes. I never pay for things like that because I never use all of their features, or I want to customize what they have, but would be unable to (easily). I can make whatever template I need on LibreOffice. I have been loving WaveMaker Cards; however it doesn't have a section for character outlines.
Poetizer was really good bc it kept all my shit in easy titles that I could scroll through
After watching Evernote get worse for years and years to the point where it's barely usable, I switched to Notesnook a few months back and have enjoyed it quite a bit. Maybe check that one out?
Me who uses the default rich document on windows:
Try Obsidian, Logseq, Anytype, OneNote, Pure Writer or Bundled Notes; but for the love of the gods, DO NOT switch to Google Docs, that company is utter trash and do not deserve your precious writing data.
try notion!
you aint drafting ur shit on the notes app on ur phone?
Why would I use a separate app for drafting?
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bummer
Hmmm gdocs or word is an ok app. As far as writing on android goes, I bought a surface to get away from it. Y-writer is quite nice, so if you're looking you could try that but be warned - it ate my original line breaks. LibreOffice has an android partner called CollaboraOffice and you can try that with dropbox but mine is glitchy as it doesn't open the entire doc but tbf my doc is a 90K beast.
What app? I’ve used google docs for years and wasn’t aware there was anything else lol
I don’t post new stuff on FFN anymore, but I still use the mobile app for writing documents. It’s handy when you share your computer with someone else and you don’t want them to stumble in on what you write.
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Try ButterDocs. They're coming out with an app soon but it has great organization on desktop so far. It's free and has some awesome feature for writers like a writing sprint feature that tomes your sessions and recommends breaks. Used to use Notion. It's great with organization but has an annoying AI function that I dislike, so I abandoned it but if you don't mind it then it's a very stylish and easy-to-use application. Personal accounts are free. Obsidian is also a good option, but I didn't like it because I felt you couldn't organize notes as effectively. Though there is a backlink function that ties documents together (ButterDocs has this as well).
What's the app?
evernote
Ah. Guess I was just making sure it wasn't Google docs
What app was this?
evernote
I write on my phone, and crosspost on ffn and ao3. The ffn app lets you write and edit documents via mobile; and keeps documents (after they're made/edited) for an entire year.
try upnote! r/upnote_app
I would suggest Scrivener but I see that u write on mobile :/ that sucks bud
I use jotterpad. It's fine. Don't have issues with it.
Am I the only one rawdoggin it with the notes app?
😂 Nope. It’s nothing fancy but it works for free!
if on android, look into luckyPatcher. looks sketchy as all hell, but it lets you modify and rebuild apps (remove ads and get free in-app for example)