Hello, I am an archaeological consultant in Great Britain and frequently have to write reports, say, 50 to 100 pages long. I have traditionally written them in MS Word but have recently moved to a hierarchical outliner for the writing, switching to Word only for the final formatting. My current outliner of choice for writing is TreePad Business Edition, which I am very impressed with. I tried Whizfolders, but its table support was not yet adequate for my needs.

My question is, are there other hierarchical outliners that major on writing tools (fonts, formatting, bullets, etc.) that I should be considering? I do not need the ability to link to external documents and do not need fancy PIM tools (I have Mindsystems Amode for that - a wonderful programme, IMHO). Export to Word would be an advantage but, failing that, copy and paste would suffice.

Any advice on how I might indulge my CRIMPing tendencies would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Derek
.

I very rarely have to produce nice-looking documents, so I used Word for many years just for outlining. I think it does a pretty good job.

I've since switched to OmniOutliner, which I like better.

It sounds as of Apple iWorks Pages is probably too simplistic for you, but it has an outliner like Word's and produces very nicely formatted documents.

hth

Have you looked into The Journal? It is a pretty robust writing environment.

www.davidrm.com

Although NoteMap has taken a beating from some of the guys here on this forum I'm still using it at work going on three years now. Here's where it be found: http://www.casesoft.com/notemap/index.asp . gB

Use NoteMap at your own risk!!!

1. Be prepared to COMPLETELY lose what you've written if it is in a single outline item and approaches a page in length. I know, it happened to me.

2. ALL development has stopped. The developer sold it to another company and even the most trivial of fixes have not been done.

I tell you this, having once recommended it ... until I tried using it to write a book.

-cassius

Derek Cater wrote:

(...) >My question is, are there other hierarchical outliners that major on writing tools (fonts, formatting, bullets, etc.) that I should be considering?

IMO, the first thing to ask yourself is, what type of outliner are you looking for:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliner

- 1-pane outliner (i.e. notemap, OO)
- 2-pane outliner (there are many)
- Style-based outliner (i.e. MS Word), basically, not a real outliner, but an outline view of your document

Each of these have pluses and minuses for writing a large document (100 pages)

You said that you had tried Whizfolders, but the table support was insufficient. That is indeed one of Whizfolders' weak points. I use Whizfolders, and for my table-rich documents I simply copy and paste the table into MS Word, work on it, and then copy and paste it back to Whizfolders.

Graham

If one doesn't need to work with numbers in a table, one can always copy it and paste it as an image. FastStone Capture is extremely versatile and easy to use for this and you can find the last free version, 5.3, on the Net.

I'm sure everyone has their favorites, and I'm no exception . Personally, I have owned (or have contributed to) the following products over the past decade (which is scary when I look at the list):

- TreePad Business (http://www.treepad.com - then upgraded to Enterprise
- NeoMem (http://www.neomem.org - open source, but not developed anymore; great in its day
- My Notes Keeper (http://www.mynoteskeeper.com - developed in China
- Milenix MyInfo (http://www.milenix.com - developed in Bulgaria
- SQLNotes/InfoQube (http://sites.google.com/site/infoqube/Home - waiting for it to mature
- WjjSoft's myBase (http://www.wjjsoft.com/ - just purchased yesterday for half-price on BitsDuJour

I no longer use TreePad or NeoMem, but keep them on my system because of archived data. I use My Notes Keeper (MNK) for most of my writing -- I'm a textbook author and a professor who writes the odd research article. I use MNK because it has paragraph formatting, bullet/number formatting, and an actual Ruler bar to set indents! (Now, these features don't always work the way I'd like, but it's better than other products I've used.) I also like MNK because of its strong exporting features (to CHM, RTF, etc). I purchased MyInfo last year, however, because I was concerned that the developer of MNK was not actively developing the software -- not very responsive to customers. MyInfo is much prettier and Petko, the developer, seems willing to meet the needs of his customers. Although I prefer working with MyInfo on a daily basis and with general information, I still use MNK for my writing tasks.

Unfortunately, not one of these products offers the "complete" package in my opinion. Right now, I have high hopes for InfoQube and the next version of myBase. I'm not putting anything mission critical into these programs yet, but I am learning what they can do. Also, I want to mention ConnectedText (http://www.connectedtext.com I have transferred a lot of my work into this personal wiki and have used it to write a couple of research articles. It is an fantastic product, especially for the more technically-inclined, and the developer is amazingly responsive. However, it is a desktop wiki, as opposed to an outliner -- different animals, but may be of interest.

Hope that helps,
Glen
British Columbia, Canada

Thank you everyone. What a great response!

In respect of PP Landry's question/advice, I'm pretty sure that it's a two-pane outliner that I'm after. The kind of reports that I have to write have multiple sections and sub-sections and the same archaeological site will be discussed in many different sections, in respect of its description, value, how it might be impacted upon, and how those impacts might be mitigated, etc. I find it easiest to revist what I said in earlier sections by negotiating a separate tree, leaving the note pane free for writing. I'm sure something similar can be done in single-pane and style-based outliners, but the two-pane arrangement works for me.

Many thanks to Stephen Zeoli for drawing my attention to The Journal. From what I can see from its website, I could definitely imagine feeling at home there. I will download the trial and give it a go.

I must confess to being less enthusiastic about NoteMap. I used to use Franklin Covey's PlanPlus for Windows (formerly TabletPlanner), until it lost my notes. I can remember the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I realised the loss, as the gas pipeline construction meeting turmed to the topic of archaeology - and I don't want to go there again.

I suppose I could create the tables in another programme and then import or copy them into my outliner. In practice, though, I think that would be unworkable. My tables tend to be text-heavy and their creation is almost always an iterative process. Their creation in a separate programme would necessitate frequent re-importations, which would soon get tedious.

Glen, many thanks for your very thoughtful post and excellent suggestions. Most of those programmes are on are have been on my radar. I too have high hopes for InfoQube, I just need to find some time to understand it ;-). I would be interested to hear why you have put TreePad on the back burner. You said you use MNK, in part because of its ruler and bulleting capabilities; TreePad Business has options for a horizontal and a vertical ruler and will number each line, if you should so wish. It also allows you to set indents and adjust line spacing, and offers numbered and lettered bullets (upper and lower case!), at least in the latest Business version, which is on my system.

From what has been said here and elsewhere, I definitely need to check out ConnectedText.

Anyway, the happy quest for outlining perfection goes on...

Many regards

Derek

Hi Derek,

Since your interest is in structirng your writing more than collecting/organising information, I suggest that you take a look at the following two applications (I hope your CRIMP will not object to the first one being free :-)

Chapter by Chapter: http://pagesperso-orange.fr/sebastien.berthet/cbc/index.html

Page Four: http://www.softwareforwriting.com discussed here http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/1064

In addition, the following threads extensively discussing writer software may be of interest; you'll find many more programs mentioned there:

Scrivener-like outliner for Windows? http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/1074

Fiction vs. Nonfiction writing/software http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/842

Research Writing Software http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/928

Cheers and welcome to the wonderful and never-ending world of outlining
Alexander

Hello,

You may have a look on Scenari (http://scenari-platform.org/projects/scenari/en/pres/co/

It is used by many public services as a powerfull authoring tool and is now also used by several banks.

Regards

Hi Folks:

I'm going to flog one of my favorite topics, Styles. All of the outliners I have ever used (and I've used many) that have a way to transfer information to Word do not use styles. Some, like the former IdeaMason use headline style, but none of them style paragraphs and characters. They all use the lazy approach of just sending over the rich text.

The closest I've found for a style based editor is LyX which is TeX based.

The bottom line is that combining the structure of an outliner (I actually use each outline entry as a paragraph, or bullet item, or numbered list item, etc.) along with paragraph and character styles which result in a document that, when transferred to Word, can still be edited in a reasonable fashion (necessary when collaborating on documents) would be the ideal for me. I've built some of my own tools in this space (with something like NoteMap as the base - and when the outline item is just a paragraph you don't have the overflow problem described above - and my own text based coding scheme), but having real tools that are outline and style based would be my holy grail.

Thanks.

Charles

You may also want to take a look at RightNote (www.bauerapps.com) - 2 pane outliner based on freeware program KeyNote.

As a writer you may be interested in the predefined styles, predefined paragraph styles, text color and background color palettes features.

Regards
Rael Bauer

Derek Cater wrote:

[snip] My question is, are there other
hierarchical outliners that major on writing tools (fonts, formatting, bullets,
etc.) that I should be considering? I do not need the ability to link to external
documents and do not need fancy PIM tools (I have Mindsystems Amode for that - a
wonderful programme, IMHO). Export to Word would be an advantage but, failing that,
copy and paste would suffice. [/snip]

Derek,

I write articles quite frequently -- but not 50-100 pages in length.
I do this work within InfoQube & here's why:

Within IQ,
I can clip or link to bits & pieces of research data from virtually any source
I can order these bits & re-order many times, in multiple places in the outliner
I can write suggested paragraphs in the html window for each of these notes
I can keep track of my changes in different versions of the article
I cannot automate bibliographies, footnotes w InfoQube
I can set due dates for these projects, etc & set reminders as needed to urge myself on

And if necessary I can edit / format all the html data w Word from within IQ

And finally -- I looked at Mindsystems Amode -- and believe I can do everything that it can do within InforQube.
This last bit is important to me -- and may not be to you -- I want to work w the fewest number of programs as possible
Is IQ a mature program? That depends on what maturity means.
It's stable, has a good GUI, growing documentation, a helpful community, a dedicated & responsive programmer
Does it have a learning curve? You betcha.
But, for me, it was worth it.
And I'm still learning.

Just my .02 having worked with a lot of writing programs, outliners & PIMs over more years that I care to remember.

Is InfoQube the end-all that I seem to imply?
That I don't know but I can say that it offers such a variety of possibilities that it allows me to do everything I need to do on a daily basis, including my writing.

--
Jan Rifkinson
Ridgefield CT USA

Derek

Maybe you would like to take a look at Normall Manager:
http://www.normfall.de/products-en/normfall-manager/overview.html

Dominik

Hi Charles,
OmniOutliner Pro 3.x (on the Mac) supports exporting (paragraph) styles to Word. Unfortunately it doesn't support clones (yet!) or I would be using it A LOT more.
Moritz

CRC wrote:

Hi Folks:

I'm going to flog one of my favorite topics, Styles. All of the outliners I
have ever used (and I've used many) that have a way to transfer information to Word do
not use styles. Some, like the former IdeaMason use headline style, but none of them
style paragraphs and characters. They all use the lazy approach of just sending over
the rich text.

The closest I've found for a style based editor is LyX which is TeX
based.

The bottom line is that combining the structure of an outliner (I actually
use each outline entry as a paragraph, or bullet item, or numbered list item, etc.)
along with paragraph and character styles which result in a document that, when
transferred to Word, can still be edited in a reasonable fashion (necessary when
collaborating on documents) would be the ideal for me. I've built some of my own tools
in this space (with something like NoteMap as the base - and when the outline item is
just a paragraph you don't have the overflow problem described above - and my own text
based coding scheme), but having real tools that are outline and style based would be
my holy grail.

Thanks.

Charles

Many thanks for all the posts since I last replied. If I had at least a passing acquaintance with the software referenced by the first tranche of posts, the most recent ones have lifted the veil on a whole writing software ecosystem I had no knowledge of. Thanks also for the related threads that respondents have directed me towards.

Regarding InfoQube, I agree with Jan Rifkinson that it is a massively capable programme, the development of which I am keeping a close eye on. I plumped for Amode (not necessarily to the exclusion of InfoQube) for various reasons. Firstly, because of its ease of use: I reckon that anyone who has used a two-pane outliner, an electronic calendar and a Gantt-chart-producing project management package would feel at home in Amode within half an hour. I did. Secondly, because it has very robust project management tools and I have to spend much of my life in Gantt charts. Amode allows you to define custom work calendars, set hourly or daily rates per resource and establish start-to-start, finish-to-finish, start-to-finish and finish-to-start dependencies, within and between projects, something which I think InfoQube does not allow, with the exception of the last of the above dependencies. On the other hand, I accept that InfoQube better handles the kind of tabulated data that lends itself to grids. However, I have found InfoQube to be a massively complex programme that requires more practice than I have had time to give to date.

Many regards

Derek

Dominik,

Normfall Manager looks like a very powerful application; I am surprised I've never seen it mentioned before (not even by the lawyers here, to which it is originally aimed). Once again, it is a product of the 'German School'; to me it seems like a cross between Sycon IDEA! (in terms of the outline organisation) and AskSam (in terms of importing the actual documents).

Thanks for the heads up,
Alexander

Dominik Holenstein wrote:

Maybe you would like to take a look at Normall Manager:
http://www.normfall.de/products-en/normfall-manager/overview.html

Dominik Holenstein wrote:
> Maybe you would like to take a look at
Normall Manager:
>
http://www.normfall.de/products-en/normfall-manager/overview.html

Although their website claims Norfall is Vista compatable, it apparently doesn't like Vista Pro (64 bit). I sent an email to their tech-support a couple of days ago, but haven't heard back. I'm hoping there will be a fix soon.

I was quite impressed by Normfall Manager's presentation, so I downloaded and installed it. Sure enough, it has a 3-pane outline layout (tree, attached files, notes pane) reminiscent of IDEA!, Zoot and the majority of e-mailers. I admit to being quite attracted by this layout as it permits organising a great number of items, while still maintaining a fairly modest tree.

However, Normfall, a .NET 2.0 application disappointed me greatly in terms of performance; CPU usage reached 75% while I wasn't doing anything; even if it was indexing the 2-3 files that I had imported, it is still too much.

Performance is very important for me so I decided to uninstall it. The verdict might have been too quick, but time is rather scarce at this period in my life.

Alexander


Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Normfall Manager looks like a very powerful application; I am surprised
I've never seen it mentioned before (not even by the lawyers here, to which it is
originally aimed). Once again, it is a product of the 'German School'; to me it seems
like a cross between Sycon IDEA! (in terms of the outline organisation) and AskSam (in
terms of importing the actual documents).

Frederick Wahl wrote:

Although their website claims Norfall is Vista compatable, it apparently doesn't
like Vista Pro (64 bit). I sent an email to their tech-support a couple of days ago, but
haven't heard back. I'm hoping there will be a fix soon.

I did get an emal from Pascal Hassenpflug saying he was sorry for the delayed response, but their support department has been on vacation. He seemed very interested in solving the problems I've been having and I look forward to getting Norfall Manager working soon.

Frederick Wahl wrote:

Although their website claims Norfall is Vista compatable, it apparently doesn't
like Vista Pro (64 bit). I sent an email to their tech-support a couple of days ago, but
haven't heard back. I'm hoping there will be a fix soon.

I did get an emal from Pascal Hassenpflug saying he was sorry for the delayed response, but their support department has been on vacation. He seemed very interested in solving the problems I've been having and I look forward to getting Norfall Manager working soon.