10 Awesome (mostly) Free Software Packages Writers/Creators Will Love
As a (struggling) writer, I am always on the lookout for a bargain. Free software is one of those things I am always interested in, and there are some really wonderful packages out there offered for no pennies. Most of the developers have donate buttons or there are premium options, which I heartily suggest as many of us as possible use when we have the cash.
Most of these I use for work, but I did sneak a couple in that are purely for pleasure, because we all need downtime too. I could not live without any of them.
Calibre - eBook Management Software
Calibre not only manages all your ebooks for you, including your devices if you wish, but it also converts between formats that do not have DRM. If you wish to read your Kindle books on your PC in PDF format, Calibre can convert them for you in a flash. It will even do them in bulk, just leaving out the ones with DRM.
It is also wonderful for converting eBook for publishing. As long as you start out with a clean eBook version, Calibre can convert to just about any format you wish. It also has eBook creation functionality as well. This is an all singing, all dancing piece of software when it comes to eBooks.
It has a very use friendly interface and it updated regularly. There are also plugins, for example, one that can help you keep your Goodreads profile up to date or another that can download fanfiction for you etc.
It is completely free to download and use, with a donate button for those who can afford to give a little back to the creator.
PSPad - Text Editor
PSDPad is a freeware editor that allows you to edit all sorts of text based files. For example it is very good at HTML editing and CSS editing as well as simple text file editing. It allows you to have as many files open as you wish at a time and its search functions are very easy to use. This is my go to text editor.
As you can see it has a great coloured interface and you can have the text wrap or continue all on one line as I have in the above image.
As I said, the software is free and they also have a donate button for those who can afford to give a little for such a useful program.
Audacity - Recording Software
This is the software I use to make all the recordings for SoundCloud and Youtube. It has a very user friendly interface, everything is easy to adjust and understand. Best of all it has a really useful noise removing filter that comes in very handy when recording anything. All you have to do is remember to record some silence at the beginning of your recording and then it can remove the underlying hum from everything.
It's completely free, with the usual donate option and it has all sorts of plugins, including saving to mp3. This is a great piece of software for those new to recording and those who have been doing it for a while.
Malwarebytes - Anti-Malware
This piece of software is brilliant. It is not 100% free, but the premium version is well worth it.
If you download it for free it will scan your computer and remove any malware from it. It is a good idea to do it twice or even three times the first time you use it, because malware can be tricky, but it is very good at disinfecting any machine.
If you pay for the premium version it also runs real-time and prevents any new infections. It blocks malicious sites known for trying to add malware to your machine and it also scans once a day like a virus checker to make sure nothing slipped past. It even warns about software that isn't technically malware, but that you might not be aware of or want on your system.
yWriter - Novel Writing Assistant
Now if you've been to my Tasha's Thinkings Blog I know you've heard me mention yWriter before. It is a great free novel writing package which is being updated all the time. I love it so much I wrote an entire post about it at my Tasha's Thinkings blog, last year.
Once again it's free, but you can register it for $11.95 to help the developer spend more time making it even whizzier :)
FileZilla - FTP Software
With the cloud and Google drive and everything else out there these days, FTP seems a bit old and clunky, but I still use it regularly. Well, these days sFTP - so it's secure. I use it to update our Wittegen Press website and to upload files for use in posts on sites that do not offer large storage space etc. (yes they do still exist).
I've been using FileZilla for years now and it's a very reliable FTP solution. It has a nice site manager functionality and it has clear and precise error messages if anything goes wrong. Best of all it's free. As ever there is a donate option to help the developers keel developing.
VLC Media Player
VLC is quite simply the best media player for just about everything and it's free. It will play everything; it plays most codecs without needing to fiddle around and download anything; it can repair files; it runs on literally everything.
I have never looked back since I first downloaded this player and I have never needed to look for anything else. It is distributed and maintained by a non-profit org which you can donate to if you wish.
Nitro Reader - PDF Reader
The simple reason I love this PDF reader is one function it has that is so very, very useful. You know when a friend or a colleague sends you a PDF and you need an image from it? Nitro lets you export all the images from any PDF document quickly and easily. It's brilliant.
There seems to be a pro version and a free version of this now. I have the free version and it's really good, does everything I wish it to.
KeePass - Password Safe
This program helps generate safe passwords and then keeps them for you so that you don't have to remember them all. It's really useful - just never, ever lose your master password :)
It's completely free and even open source, with the usual donate button if you feel so inclined.
DVD Profiler - DVD library
This is the one that is purely for pleasure. When I first used this software it was completely free, these days it's free up to 50 DVDs, but then you have to buy it. Since it's only $14.95, it doesn't exactly break the bank :).
I've been using this for a long time and it's very, very good and I couldn't keep track of my DVDs and Blu-rays without it. You can add you DVDs in several ways - the easiest being by EAN (barcode), but you can do it by title and inserted disc as well. The database online is huge and many users help to keep it up to date as well, so it's forever growing.
You can also upload your collection so that you can give the links to friends so they can see what you have. It even has borrowing facilities for you to keep track of who has what. I wouldn't be without it.
Experienced Sales Associate @ Walmart with Writing & Editing Skills
5 年I just downloaded yWriter and it looks good. The mobile version isn't free, and need to work on transferring things from my smartphone or from handwritten notes