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DIRECTORY

Best Writing Apps for iPad

Showing 64 writing apps that match your search.

Werdsmith turns your iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch into a powerful writing studio that inspires you to write. With features to motivate you and help you break through writerβ€˜s block, youβ€˜ll find yourself writing more than ever.

Platforms: iPad, Mac, iPhone

Best for: Drafting, Book, Story, Poetry, and Free

Website: https://werdsmith.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$4.99 monthly

Syncs across IOS devices

Sets writing goals

Minimalist interface

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Also rated 4.7 β˜… on the App Store

In Outline you can create notebooks for your personal needs of widest range: travel or recipe book, any kind of journal or diary, photo album, daily planner, and so on and so forth. Just everything you could imagine!

Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac

Best for: Note-taking and Journal

Website: https://outline.app/

Base price:

$9.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

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Multi-touch gestures

Handwriting functionalities

Hightlight and annotate

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Also rated 4.2 β˜… on the App Store

Chapters lets you manage multiple notebooks, each fully searchable and with its own settings. Keep a personal journal, a photo diary, notes about that project at work, and a travel journal in a single app.

Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac

Best for: Note-taking and Journal

Website: http://slidetorock.com/apps/Chapters-iPad-notebooks.html

Base price:

$1.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

–

Password protected

Color code

Fast search

Create backup files

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Also rated 4.0 β˜… on the App Store

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Still looking for the perfect app to write your novel? Novelist might just be the perfect tool for the job!

Platforms: Android, iPhone, iPad, Online

Best for: Outlining, Worldbuilding, Drafting, Story, Book, and Free

Website: https://www.novelist.app/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

–

Goal setting

Rich text editor

Back up and restore

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Story Planner is an easy-to-use and yet powerful tool for plotting novels, screenplays, and any fiction story. It works great for writers, screenwriters, producers, directors, RPG masters … All kinds of storytellers!

Platforms: iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Story, and Book

Website: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/story-planner-outline-your-...

Base price:

$5.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

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Organize projects by tags

Link elements

Color code and organize plot lines

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Also rated 4.7 β˜… on the App Store

Ideas, stories, and life’s events. Capture them in a journal that’s easy to carry and offers more than bound sheets. Chronicle for iPad is about you and your words. Write comfortably and benefit from being able to find anything you wrote with built-in search.

Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac

Best for: Note-taking and Journal

Website: http://slidetorock.com/apps/Chronicle-for-iPad-journal.html

Base price:

$2.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

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Distraction-free writing

Password protect journal entries

Built-in search

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Also rated 4.5 β˜… on the App Store

OmniOutliner is a powerful tool for organizing (and reorganizing) information, so you can see the full picture and structure your information effortlessly.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Essay, and Blog

Website: https://www.omnigroup.com/omnioutliner/

Base price:

$19.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

$99.99 one-time payment

Resource folders

Multitasking

Document stats

Inline notes

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Also rated 3.2 β˜… on the App Store

Do you have a story to tell? Unlike conventional word processors, Storyist helps you track your plot, characters, and settings, and keeps all of your writing organized and accessibleβ€”so you can focus on telling your story.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Book, and Story

Website: https://storyist.com/

Base price:

$59.00 one-time payment

Premium price:

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Stylesheets for manuscripts

Flexible outliner

Story development tools

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Also rated 4.0 β˜… on PC Magazine

Notes is the best place to jot down quick thoughts or to save longer notes filled with checklists, images, web links, scanned documents, handwritten notes, or sketches. And with iCloud, it's easy to keep all your devices in sync, so you’ll always have your notes with you.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Note-taking, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, Blog, and Free

Website: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/notes/id1110145109

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

–

Create checklists

Add tables

Search in texts and scanned documents

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Also rated 3.3 β˜… on the App Store

Remember everything and tackle any project with your notes, tasks, and schedule all in one place.

Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Windows, Android, Mac, Online, Chrome, PC

Best for: Note-taking, Outlining, Book, Essay, Journal, Poetry, Story, Blog, and Free

Website: https://evernote.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$8.99 monthly

Syncs across devices

Search within documents

Clip web pages and PDFs

Dozens of app integrations and templates

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Also rated 4.4 β˜… on the App Store

Textilus Pro is a great word processor app for students and business people, also being excellent for writing reports, papers, blog posts, journals or ebooks! Textilus Pro can help you organize your research, generate ideas, and remove distractions so you can focus on the most important thing: writing.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Note-taking, Drafting, Blog, Essay, and Free

Website: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/textilus-pro-word-processor...

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

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MLA and APA format and citations

Create your own templates

Dark mode & split screen mode

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Also rated 4.5 β˜… on the App Store

iWriter Pro is elegant and minimalist text editor with built-in MultiMarkdown support. Distraction-free and subscription-free.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Drafting, Book, Story, Blog, and Free

Website: https://serpensoft.info/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

–

Distraction-free writing

Markdown highlighting

iCloud support

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Also rated 4.8 β˜… on the App Store

What makes a good writing app?

Put simply, what makes a writing app good for you will depend on the kind of writer that you are. 

  • If you’re an author, you might be interested in a writing app with outlining, planning, and formatting functionalities.
  • If you’re a student, you’re probably in the market for a writing app that blocks out distractions while you’re writing.
  • If you’re a screenwriter, you’ll want a writing app that’s specifically dedicated to writing screenplays.

Or, if you’re none of the above, worry not: that’s why we built this directory of writing apps. Whatever you need, we’ve gathered the outstanding writing apps of 2024 across multiple categories (drafting, editing, note-taking, etc) and platforms (Android, iOS, online browsers, etc) in one place. Feel free to use the filters to make your quest for the perfect writing app even easier!

So what are the best writing apps of 2024?

We can now put an end to the age-old debate of which writing app is best: Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs

The answer, of course, is neither! Hopefully, this directory will point you towards a much better match that actually fulfills your writing needs. We objectively evaluated each writing app based on four metrics.

  • Performance: How seamlessly does the writing app do what it’s purported to do? How good is the user experience, from top to bottom?
  • Features: How many bells and whistles are built into the app to augment its use?
  • Accessibility: Is it widely available on many different operating platforms (e.g. iOS, Windows, mobile, desktop, etc)?
  • Value: Is it worth the cost that it would take to download it?

Here are some general recommendations to give you a headstart.

The best writing app for authors

If you’ve been searching for an all-in-one outlining, writing, formatting, and typesetting tool, look no further than Reedsy Studio. Used by over 50,000 authors every month, it’s publishing’s most trusted companion to take them from a first draft to a professionally exported manuscript.

πŸ’° Price:  Free

πŸš‰ Runs on: Web

The best writing app for note-takers

Evernote is the king of written organization. In addition to its free organizational templates, Evernote also gives you impressive tagging capabilities, an omnipresent Web Clipper, and the ability to share notes with collaborators, so that you’ll never forget anything again.

πŸ’° Price:  Free basic plan, $4.99/month for premium

πŸš‰ Runs on: Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android

The best writing app for screenwriters

Along with standard scriptwriting features, Final Draft enables you to measure character traits using its inclusivity analysis feature, and tweak your “beat board” until you find your perfect arrangement. And when you’re ready to bring in editors, you can all work simultaneously in real time.

πŸ’° Price: Free trial for 30 days, $249.99 license fee

πŸš‰ Runs on: Mac, iOS, and Windows

I’ve found the perfect writing app. What next?

Congratulations! Now the fun part begins: actually writing the project that you’ve got in mind.

For authors, this means that you have a long and exciting road ahead. In addition to a writing app, we recommend that you arm yourself with some writing knowledge before you embark on it: whether it’s an understanding of story structure or careful thought put into your character creation, all of it can help you realize your goal of a novel.

If you don’t know where to start, check out the list of free resources below. Good luck, and happy writing!

Free online materials

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Which writing app is best for you?

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