Free Productivity Programs Everyone Should Know About

Why pay for something when you can get it free? Especially in this economy. I have used and/or still use all of the following programs and can attest to their reliability and integrity.

OpenOffice – Why are you still using Microshaft Office? Why should you pay for yearly “upgrades” and “improvements” you don’t need? OpenOffice is 100% free and in many ways far superior to MS Office. Writer’s ability to add Post-It style notes to my stories while I’m writing has proven invaluable to me. Calc replaces MS Excel for spreadsheets, Impress replaces PowerPoint, Draw replaces Visio, and Base replaces Access. Everything you’ll ever need, all for free.

Scribus Open Source Desktop Publishing – Like Quark or MS Publisher. Create pamphlets, books, magazines, zines, etc. in a format that will be printer shop friendly.

GIMP the GNU Image Manipulation Program – Don’t have $1000 to shell out for Adobe’s Photoshop? Yah, me neither. Go get GIMP instead, it does all the things Photoshop does and it does them for free.

Meazure – What are the dimensions of that image? How big is this window? Does this layout fit on an NTSC display? What color are these pixels? What does this icon look like close up? How can I capture an arbitrary portion of the screen? USE MEAZURE. This tool is invaluable. Along with GIMP it helped me create the banner at the top of this blog.

Inkscape – An open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X. It’s an art program that allows you to draw without jagged edges.

PaintDotNet – Image and photo editing software. Not as extensive as GIMP for graphic design work but a much better tool to use if all you are doing is touching up your photographs.

FreeMind (mind mapping software) – A mind map is a way to diagram, visualize and structure your ideas or map out your story plot and character development. I created a mind map that contains everything I’ve read on the topics of plot, story development and English language usage along with advice and pearls of wisdom from my favorite authors. I have a look at it at least once a month, it makes for a good refresher course. Maybe I’ll share it with you all one day.

keynote-nf – A tabbed notebook rich text editor. Basically, it’s a better notepad. I use this to organize my story notes. Character sheets and development, plot outlines, research, world notes, etc. All organized and easy to find  in a document that I can keep open while I’m writing the story in Writer.

Bullzip or PDFCreator – These programs install themselves on your PC as another printer allowing you to turn any document you have into a PDF file.

Honorable mentions – Pencil, a drawing and animation program. Blender, a free open source 3D content creation suite. Moffsoft FreeCalc, a basic calculator with a simulated history tape. ESBCalc, a scientific calculator. ESBUnitConv, easily convert between units of measurement. PureText, allows you to copy text from a web page without its formatting. EditPad Lite, a general purpose text editor, if you use notepad a lot try this instead. WordWeb, a one-click English thesaurus and dictionary for Windows that can look up words in almost any program.

The Only Two Tools You Need To Write

I’ve tried it all. From Dramatica Pro to yWriter. While Dramatica Pro did teach me a lot about plot and character balance the only thing these programs really did was just clog up my whole writing process with tedium. Sure, it’s a good idea to have someplace to jot down all your character and plot notes. But Keep It Simple Stupid. Use a notebook and an old fashioned pen. Use a separate Writer document (or Word if you’re still using that bloated software). I use KeyNote-nf myself. I like KeyNote because it’s simple, fast and easy to figure out. It allows me to not only jot down my story notes but to spread them out in ways that allow my cluttered mind easy recollection. And, most importantly, it allows me to do this without slowing down the writing process.

But honestly, the only two tools you need to write are yourself (after all, only you can write your story) and a decent writing template to help speed the process along. Having dual monitors is nice too, but not as important.

I will show you how I made my template in OpenOffice Writer 3. I learned how to create one from this article by R.L. Copple. You are free to go to the source but I modified my template to allow for better transitions from scene breaks and easier navigation of the document for editing purposes. I also added a header in case you’re going old school and submitting to a publisher. You could download and save the template I made in Writer on your computer from here but then you would not learn how to make one for yourself.

STEP 1: Open Writer and set up your workspace.

• Hit F5 to open the Navigator and dock it to the left or right side of your workspace by dragging it there.
• Hit F11 to open the Styles Menu and dock it to the opposite side of the Navigator in your workspace.

STEP 2: Set up the page layout.

• Go to Format / Page and set up your margins: Left, Right, & Bottom to 1″ and Top to .75″

STEP 3:Set up styles: Novel Body. Chapter. Scene. Scene Break.

• Novel Body: In the Styles Menu, right-click on the “Text body” style and select “New”
  • Replace the “Untitled” name it gives with “Novel Body”.
  • Select a font from the “Font” tab like “Courier New” and make it 12 point. You can choose any currently acceptable publishing font such as Times New Roman or Arial. I prefer Courier New because I find it easier to read after editing for several hours.
  • Select the “Indents and Spacing” tab, set the first line indent to “0.5″ and the line spacing to “Double.”
  • Click “OK” and your new style has been created.
• Chapter: In the Styles Menu, right-click on the “Heading 2″ style and select “New”
  • Name it “Chapter” and make “Novel Body” the Next Style in the drop down box below.
  • On the Indents & Spacing tab, make sure all indents are set to 0″. Set the Spacing Above paragraph to 2.00″ and Below paragraph to 0.75″. Set Line spacing to Single.
  • On the Alignment tab, select Center.
  • On the Font tab, select Courier New (or whatever font you chose for the Novel Body), Regular, 12pt.
  • On the Font Effects tab, under Effects, select Capitals.
  • Click “OK” and your new style has been created.
• Scene: In the Styles Menu, right-click on the “Novel Body” style you created and select “New”
  • Name it “Scene” and make “Novel Body” the Next Style in the drop down box below.
  • Click “OK” and your new style has been created.
• Scene Break: In the Styles Menu, right-click on the “Novel Body” style you created and select “New”
  • Name it “Scene Break” and make “Scene” the Next Style in the drop down box below.
  • On the Indents & Spacing tab, make sure all indents are set to 0″. Set the Spacing Above paragraph to 0.34″ and Below paragraph to 0.34″. Set Line spacing to Double.
  • On the Alignment tab, select Center.
  • Click “OK” and your new style has been created.

STEP 4: Set up Header Hierarchy.

• In the Tools menu select Outline Numbering.
  • In the Numbering tab, select “1″ in the Level window.
  • In the Paragraph Style drop down box, select Chapter.
  • In the Number drop down box, select 1,2,3, …
  • Under Separator, in the Before box, type “CHAPTER ” in all CAPS with a space at the end (no quotations). In the After box, type a “:” (a colon with no quotation marks). Select 1 in the Start at drop down menu.
  • In the Position tab, select Space in the drop down menu for Numbering followed by.
• In the Numbering tab, select “2″ in the Level window.
  • In the Paragraph Style drop down box, select Scene.
  • In the Number drop down box, select None. Character Style, select None. Show sublevels, select 1.
  • Under Separator, leave the Before and After boxes blank. Select 1 in the Start at drop down menu.
  • In the Position tab, select Space in the drop down menu for Numbering followed by.

STEP 5: Set up the header.

• Go to Tools / Options, under OpenOffice.org Writer in the tree menu, find “Compatibility” and check “Use OpenOffice.org 1.1 tabstop formatting”.
• Go to Insert / Header to pull up a header box at the top of your page. In all CAPS type your last name, a space, a forward slash (/), a space, TITLE (the title of your novel will go here). Now hit TAB, then hit CTRL +R, Insert / Fields / Page Number to add a page number that is right justified. Finally, hit the enter key to add a second line to the Header. This second line, along with formatting the Top Margin to .75″ makes a printed copy look better in my humble opinion, adding a little more space between the first line of text on a page and the Header. Making editing a printed copy a little easier on your eyes. Keep in mind if you’re submitting to a publisher the editor may prefer the old standard way of doing it. In that case, make the top margin 1″ and remove the secondary line from the header.

STEP 6: Save the template. Go to File / Templates / Save. Select “My Templates” and give the new template a name like “b33m3R’s Really Cool Novel Writing Template”… Or you could just call it “Novel” like I did!

USING THE TEMPLATE

Select your template by going to File / New / Templates and Documents. Start by changing the “TITLE” text in the Header to the actual name of your novel. Select “Chapter” in the Styles menu (if it’s not already selected) and type the name of your first chapter. Note what happens in your Navigator. Hit enter and start writing your novel.

Traditionally, for a scene break, one would Enter twice, center the # sign and Enter twice again. In my template all you have to do is type in a # sign, go to the Styles menu and select Scene Break by double clicking on it, and the # sign will be centered on the page with approximately 2 double spaces below and above it. Now note what happens when you start typing your next paragraph in the Navigator. The new scenes first paragraph of text will show up in the Navigator nested under the Chapter. Now you have easy access to every segment of your manuscript through the Navigator. This will make the editing process easier for you.

R.L. Copple’s original article has another way of marking off scenes by setting it up as another heading and using a scene summary but I find using the first paragraph as the marker enough for me to remember what it is just by looking at it in the Navigator.

When beginning a new chapter, make a Manual Page Break (Insert / Manual Break / Page Break) at the end of the previous chapter and start the new chapter on a fresh page. This is old school but it also makes editing easier.

For submission purposes I’ve always done the cover sheet in a separate file. I’ve made a template that you can modify to suit your needs here.