Comments on: The Modern Online Copywriter: Why a Programmer’s Editor Might Be In Your Future

By: Tom Chandler

Tom Chandler — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:12:07 +0000

Tom Morris: I do all my writing – for humans and for computers – in Vim. It has some specific benefits for writing in natural languages: it’s super-fast, runs on every platform, has a built-in spell checker, and the modal interface allows for more efficient editing without having to use the mouse. If you spend all day rejigging paragraphs, deleting words and reinserting them elsewhere, Vim is very, very handy.It has a downside: a very difficult learning curve. I’m not sure that it would be worth it for non-programmers. Once you have learned how to use it, you reach a state of Vim nirvana where the key bindings are wired into your fingers and you can type and edit using it completely naturally. Editing becomes a reflex action. Also, MacVim has a nice full-screen mode.

I wanted to like the GNU Emacs editors (which I tried several times over the years) but I always abandoned them because they lacked the kind of prettified formatting features that were needed when clients would print everything you sent them. I do have the GUI-friendly VIM running on my LInux machines, and have found the learning curve a little steep, especially given that Bluefish does such a nice job and most of what I need are simple html tags. Still, I may give it another try; I'm a slow learner...

By: Tom Morris

Tom Morris — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:28:49 +0000

I do all my writing – for humans and for computers – in Vim. It has some specific benefits for writing in natural languages: it’s super-fast, runs on every platform, has a built-in spell checker, and the modal interface allows for more efficient editing without having to use the mouse. If you spend all day rejigging paragraphs, deleting words and reinserting them elsewhere, Vim is very, very handy.

It has a downside: a very difficult learning curve. I’m not sure that it would be worth it for non-programmers. Once you have learned how to use it, you reach a state of Vim nirvana where the key bindings are wired into your fingers and you can type and edit using it completely naturally. Editing becomes a reflex action. Also, MacVim has a nice full-screen mode.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Thu, 21 May 2009 13:42:50 +0000

Rolf: if on Mac, try Smultron.

regarding the publishing functionality: if your text is in plain text files, there are tons ofs scripts that convert those into PDFs et al.. Also try to understand La TeX.

By: Tom Chandler

Tom Chandler — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:54:27 +0000

Heather: I’m using editors with less overhead than the WYWSIWYG Dreamweaver stuff (on Windows, something like Notepad++), but heck, whatever works. Choice is sometimes overrated in our culture, but clearly not when it pertains to getting words down.

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 03:28:23 +0000

You are correct they are perfect (nearly), I use dreamweaver (code view) for my writing as im one of those who is interested in statistics and i like seeing easily what line i am on :P It also has an inbuilt ftp system so publishing is easy.

In the old days I always used ms word. Other programmers programs I’ve heard people use is visual vb and xml suite.

By: Tom Chandler

Tom Chandler — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 15:47:58 +0000

Rolf: I’d take “free” in a second, but I’ve bought (and discarded) plenty of really bad word processors in my day (anyone remember Fullwrite Professional on the Mac?), so I’d throw down in a second to get what I want.

By: Rolf

Rolf — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:13:53 +0000

Oh, how I long for the combination of
a) fullscreen editors (such as Q10, which you have mentioned earlier)
b) combined with good project and file organization (like the programmers tools)
c) and great online publishing solutions.

How I’d swim in an ocean of delight, if such solutions were presented to me – for free!

By: Tom Chandler

Tom Chandler — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 21:00:18 +0000

Vadim: I’ll check Buzzword out. Google Docs and Zoho both show noticeable lag, but then, I get upset with regular word processors, suggesting I’m intolerant of these things.

RD: How old is the odesk.com site? If the writing aspect of it is relatively new, then growth on the site would probably occur regardless of the economy.

Still, growth in freelance jobs during a downturn isn’t exactly a shock; having been through a couple downturns (including several industry-specific crashes), I’ve seen competing effects.

First, marketing budgets are often slashed (which is bad), though more technical writing projects and marketing projects close to the revenue stream (upgrade DM projects, etc) do better.

Second, organizations sometimes layoff their own staff, or look beyond their expensive ad/marketing agencies for help.

Hopefully, quality writing projects will continue to be available. I think everyone’s holding their breath to see how bad the economy might get.

By: R.D.

R.D. — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 00:51:27 +0000

A great post, thanks Tom. I wanted to comment, since you mentioned trends for copy writing jobs. I literally JUST came across some trends for freelance writing jobs (inclusive of copy writers) and I wanted to hear your thoughts. If the chart on here is correct: http://www.odesk.com/trends/Tech%20Writer, then jobs in freelance writing are on the rise. Impressive in this economy, don’t you think?

By: Vadim P.

Vadim P. — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 19:12:44 +0000

I only use acrobat.com’s buzzword for my own things, and it doesn’t lag.

But in regards to collaboration, I’d -really- recommend Gobby. It’s very, very quick, even on a poor connection.