Comments on: Share Your Favorite Free Online Tools for Writers

By: Chris

Chris — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:39:46 +0000

I love OpenOffice, but the latest release is such a memory hog and crashes often for me. I’m using AbiWord Portable.

Speaking of portable, portable apps on a USB drive are wonderful. You can have your browser, with your customized settings, with you always (FireFox), your email client (Thunderbird), and more.

By: Jennifer Mattern

Jennifer Mattern — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 20:03:22 +0000

I’d stick to tools for this one – think things you can “use” (whereas anything you could read could technically be a “resource”). :)

As for online – it could be something you use on the Web (like a blogging platform) or something you find there and download for use (in most cases at your computer, but I suppose downloadable forms and templates could be another acceptable example).

Deborah – Thanks for the Google Documents addition. :)

Isaac – Do you have any favorites? For the top ten list, I likely won’t include free blog hosts simply because the platforms for self-hosted blogs are also often free (and self-hosted is generally better from the professional standpoint). But include them anyway.

The plan as of now is to put together a “master list” (which I’ll then continue to add to and publish later here). When we have enough (between here, others I find, and some forum submissions from DP), I’ll try to setup a poll here with 20, letting readers narrow down the top 10. :)

By: DeborahDera

DeborahDera — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:17:58 +0000

I really think freelance writers should learn how to utilize Google Documents for file sharing!

By: Isaac

Isaac — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 05:12:33 +0000

How about any blogging site that hosts blogs for writers. This gives writers an online presence and a promotional tool.

By: Amy Blades

Amy Blades — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 22:28:46 +0000

Hm, I’m a bit stuck on what would be considered a “tool” versus a “resource”, and what is meant by “online”, but I’ll happily share a bunch of the free applications and services that I use regularly as a part of freelance writing.
BTW – This comment field is giving me trouble and not translating the “Enter” key as a carriage return, so sorry for the weird list-style here:
Google Docs, Q10 (a writing software), PayPal (though you might not consider it free), PortableApps, Thunderbird, RememberTheMilk, PrintableCEO.