Microsoft Word or ?????

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Permalink Reply by Mariah de la Croix on March 5, 2012 at 4:54pm

Hi Mandy,

I'm not around Authors very often right now, but I caught this when I stopped in today.  In my opinion simple is often the best.  As I was accepted by a traditional publisher after a few rejections, the ones who took the time to contact me personally instead of with a form letter, let me know that they greatly appreciated me submitting simply in Word - I think I'm using good, old fashioned Word 7. LOL  I didn't and don't use any special author's software, but I would imagine that type of thing would help for formatting and other things, especially if you're indie published.  Wish I could be of more help; I'm sure there's someone here who knows much better than I.  Good luck and keep writing.

Mariah

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Permalink Reply by Jane Johnson on March 9, 2012 at 10:30pm

My take on this software is that if you want to organize all of your writing and media it could be effective. However, most schools and places of employment use Word and Adobe Acrobat. I would advise to stay with these two software applications, and if you can -- buy both. This advise is based on years of experience working for large companies like Royal Caribbean International, and on my attendance at Portland State University. If you do use the other software, make sure it is compatible with them.

Have a great time shopping this weekend,

Jane L Johnson

Community Manager 

Liibook.com

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Permalink Reply by Mandy Steinfeldt Crane on March 10, 2012 at 12:30am

Hi Jane,

Thanks for the advice. I am going to stay with word because I really like using that program. I am going to upgrade to the 2010 version. I also have Adobe also. My publisher sends my manuscrips back to me in Adobe.
 
Jane Johnson said:

My take on this software is that if you want to organize all of your writing and media it could be effective. However, most schools and places of employment use Word and Adobe Acrobat. I would advise to stay with these two software applications, and if you can -- buy both. This advise is based on years of experience working for large companies like Royal Caribbean International, and on my attendance at Portland State University. If you do use the other software, make sure it is compatible with them.

Have a great time shopping this weekend,

Jane L Johnson

Community Manager 

Liibook.com

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Permalink Reply by J. Helen Elza on March 20, 2012 at 2:15am

Mandy,

I use MS Word 2007 and it works just fine.  We can convert to other formats fairly easily.  I have found that upgrading usually brings bugs of some sort with it.  I don't like wasting time getting the bugs worked out of new software.

We can use Mobi pocket for kindle  http://www.mobipocket.com/en/DownloadSoft/default.asp?Language=EN

and Calibre for other file conversions    http://calibre-ebook.com/downloads

Hope this helps.

Happy creating

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Permalink Reply by Matthew Davenport on October 8, 2012 at 10:24pm

I'm a big fan of evernote for my writing. It allows me to format my work if I need to, but mostly it allows for easy copy and paste and then conversion when publishing to smashwords or kindle, depending on the platform I'm choosing.

I've also heard that Scrivener is great, but that its costs.

 

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Permalink Reply by Mandy Steinfeldt Crane on October 9, 2012 at 5:24am

Thank you Matthew,

I will look into it. Right now I am using word 2010 and have had a few problems with it. I ALWAYS back up my work on a zip drive as well as a copy on another computer just in case. I haven't lost it yet but been close a few times.

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Permalink Reply by Toby Whaymand on October 21, 2012 at 5:06pm

I use Libre Office and sometimes Open Office myself.  All you got to do is save it in a Word or  an Adobe document depending on the authors requirements :)

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Permalink Reply by john m rakes on October 30, 2012 at 5:27pm

I use ms word because I'm on the go all the time. I use different writing instraments and ms word is the only program I can use

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