In an earlier post, I mentioned that one of the best things about having a Mac was that it allowed me to use Scrivener, a great word processing tool designed for creative writers. Since it’s a Mac-only program, I thought I’d have to make do with Word from now on. Now, I’m happy to report that I may have found a replacement for Scrivener that will run on Windows. It’s called PageFour and I discovered it through a link on the Scrivener website. Scrivener’s creator had all sorts of good things to say about it, so I thought I’d give it a whirl.
My initial impression was that PageFour is basically Scrivener for Windows. It has the same binder format that I loved in Scrivener, though here it’s called a ‘Notebook’. It also has the snapshot functionality that proved to be so useful when I was working on the first draft of my WIP (basically, it allows you to take a ‘picture’ of the page you’re working on that you can easily revert to if you don’t like the subsequent changes you’ve made). In fact, the snapshot tool was originally a part of PageFour and the creator of Scrivener liked it so much that he borrowed it for his program. PageFour also has a ‘Smart Edit’ feature that allows you to scan your text for repeated words or phrases, making it easier to identify and murder your darlings. I also think it’s easier to format text in PageFour since you have a toolbar that allows you to position text and change its attributes. With Scrivener, you had to do all that through a pull-down menu.
PageFour isn’t a carbon copy of Scrivener and it’s missing some of the bells and whistles of its Mac cousin. For example, it doesn’t have anything like the corkboard or the notecards. It also doesn’t look as polished (like almost all Mac programs, Scrivener was pretty). These issues aside, I really like Scrivener and I think I’ll end up purchasing the full version.
Codex Lochianus 