iOS SOFTWARE
A streamlined tool for serious writers
A comprehensive writing app, a duplicate photo finder, and more
Ulysses lets you concentrate on writing and editing simple plain text
Requires subscription (£4.49/month or £35.99/year) FROM Ulysses, ulysses.app needs iOS 10 or later
Ulysses was originally designed as a tool for creative writers, when co-founder Marcus Fehn was writing a novel
back in 2003. The creative focus is still there, but Ulysses has developed over the years and now offers many features that will appeal to technical users and other types of writer as well.
Ulysses isn’t a conventional word processor – there are no fancy fonts and newsletter layouts on offer – as the app eliminates those distractions and just allows you to concentrate on writing and editing simple, unformatted plain text.
It’s easy to get started, as the app’s familiar three-panel interface is cleverly modelled on Apple Mail. Like Mail, Ulysses has a Library panel on the left, where you organise your documents into ‘groups’ (similar to the mailboxes you get in Mail), which you can break down into subgroups.
The Sheet list to the right shows all the documents, referred to as ‘sheets’, within each group; then there’s the main Editor window where you write and edit each sheet.
In another example of a feature shared with Mail, Ulysses lets you add attachments to your documents. However, the Attachments panel in Ulysses also allows you to add text notes to documents, as well as keywords to help you sort through and locate any related documents you have.
Clear and creative space
Creative writers can experiment with a number of tools to help them focus on their work. For example, there’s a dark mode, plus a Typewriter mode that fades everything except the single line of text you’re currently typing. Ulysses also includes Markdown, which can be used to define the structure of a document, and this latest version gives you the ability to insert blocks of code and highlight syntax for manuals and technical documents. There are a number of little extras too, such as being able to set a writing goal.
You may be happy to stick with Pages or Word for routine word processing, but if you’re a professional writer and need to churn out page after page every day, you’ll appreciate the app’s ability to shut out distractions.
It’s a shame that Ulysses requires a subscription (costing £4.49 per month or £35.99 per year), but it does cover both the Mac and iOS versions.