Writers word processing feature

Question

Question

Writers word processing feature

by dmconov Jun 11, 2014 4:24PM PDT

Is there a feature in a word processing program that allows scrolling notes to be created beside the main word processing window? In other words, there would be a side scroll area where bits of text, paragraphs, etc. could be swapped in and out of the main text as needed. Another way to use this feature; the notes area would consist of separate notes that could be scrolled up and down so that spontaneous ideas that did not seem to have a proper place at the time of their occurrence could be possibly inserted when and where it seemed appropriate.
To me, this seems like such an obvious feature that it must already exist in some program but I just do not know about it.
I own Word 7 now but I can't find this functionality within it. If it exists and I do not know how to use it, please inform me, or if there is some kind of add on that would create this kind of functionality, please inform me of that.

Thanks for any help.

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3 Posts

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Just a note.

by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jul 22, 2014 2:47AM PDT

Test your links in your posts with the Preview button. That way folk don't have to decode what link your really wanted to share.
Bob

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timeyyy · Answer 1 · Jul 22, 2014 2:44AM PDT

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Answer

Scrivener, and a new development in the works!

by timeyyy Jul 22, 2014 2:44AM PDT

Hey

For writing in specific there is alot of hype around scrivener ($45), http://literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php, There is also a demo version. It includes tools for notes, research, and powerful search options for navigation. You can organize various snippets of text and then assemble them all together in a final document at the end. Check out some tutorials or videos online.

I'm also developing a more general tool myself which will be avalible for beta testing in the next week or so, it enables a user to save notes bound to a file. The notes are easily accessible to view or edit via hotkey. If you would like i can tell you when its avaliable for testing, (i'd love some feedback).

Jimmy Greystone · Answer 2 · Jul 22, 2014 12:27PM PDT

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Answer

You could try OneNote

by Jimmy Greystone Jul 22, 2014 12:27PM PDT

You could try OneNote. It wouldn't be exactly what you're looking for, but it is good for letting you just kind of jot down things quickly and it's not half-bad as a sort of poor-man's desktop publisher letting you move things around easily to play with formatting a little before you recreate it in Word. At work I've been using it to kind of slap together a changelog for some macros I create for my department and as a convenient excuse to just learn the program a little. Word is definitely better on the whole, but OneNote does let me kind of play with the formatting a bit before I might move things over to Word. And sometimes I need to stick some numbers or a bit of text somewhere on a temporary basis and OneNote can be good for that too.

For serious note taking, I'm not sure I've ever come across anything better than Evernote. It's a bit of an investment, time-wise, to learn how to use it properly, but there's a reason it's big in academia where there are a lot of citations you need to keep track of.

Writers word processing feature

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