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DIRECTORY

Best Writing Apps for iPad

Showing 64 writing apps that match your search.

Capture your thoughts, discoveries, and ideas and simplify overwhelming planning moments in your life with your very own digital notepad. With OneNote, you can plan that big event, seize that moment of inspiration to create something new, and track that list of errands that are too important to forget.

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

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

Website: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onenote/dig...

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Sync across devices

Share and collaborate

Secure notes with password

Pin important pages and notes

★★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.5 on TechRadar

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:

Organize projects by tags

Link elements

Color code and organize plot lines

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.7 on the App Store

Super-clean writing space with a lot of configurability that stays out of sight when you don’t need it.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

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

Website: https://papereditor.app/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Plain-text writing environment

Syncs with iCloud

Works across Apple devices

★★★★★ Performance

★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.2 on the App Store

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Zoho Writer is a fully-featured word processor on the cloud, designed for collaborative work that gives you everything you need to create powerful documents. With a clean UI, intuitive interface and document modes, it introduces you to a new way of writing.

Platforms: Android, Windows, PC, iPad, iPhone

Best for: Drafting, Book, Essay, Journal, Poetry, Story, Blog, and Free

Website: https://www.zoho.com/writer/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Focus mode & Night mode

Auto save

An AI-powered writing assistant

Hundreds of templates

★★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 3.4 on Google Play

Ginger is more than a grammar checker, spell checker, and punctuation checker. Ginger is an all-in-one writing tool that includes Rephrase to empower you to write your best in ways that traditional online grammar checkers can’t.

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

Best for: Editing, Proofreading, Book, Essay, Story, Blog, and Free

Website: https://www.gingersoftware.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$6.99 monthly

AI-powered

Grammar and spell checker

Sentence rephraser

Punctuation checker

★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.6 on the App Store

Diarly is built for the best journaling experience. With every feature you will need and a beautiful interface, starting a journal has never been so simple.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Note-taking and Journal

Website: https://diarly.app/

Base price:

$2.00 monthly

Premium price:

Built-in gallery and maps

Timeline

Notes

Custom fonts and templates

★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.8 on the App Store

Freedom blocks distractions across all your Mac, Windows, Android, iOS, and Chrome devices so you don’t have to fight off the temptation of distracting pings, notifications, headlines, and emails.

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

Best for: Productivity, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, Blog, and Free

Website: https://freedom.to/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$2.50 monthly

Block the entire Internet

See the time you spend on sites

Set your daily limits on sites

★★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.4 on Google Play

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

★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on the App Store

Joplin is an open source note-taking app. Capture your thoughts and securely access them from any device.

Platforms: Android, iPhone, iPad

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

Website: https://joplinapp.org/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Multimedia notes

Shared notes with friends and family

Web clipper extension

★★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.3 on the App Store

Unload your thoughts by creating a personal layout with notes, links and media in a second to visualize your creative process and move forward faster.

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

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

Website: https://xtiles.app/en

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$8.00 monthly

Realtime collaboration

Visual search

Organize visually

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.9 on Capterra

Open to write and follow the prompt suggestions, it's that easy. Good for poetry writing, journal writing, storytelling, narration, cinema, and more. All using a patented artificial intelligence technology.

Platforms: iPhone, iPad

Best for: Brainstorming, Story, Book, and Poetry

Website: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/creative-writing-prompts/id...

Base price:

$1.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Thousands of prompts

Set a daily writing goal

View custom writing stats

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.6 on the App Store

Mellel is a word processor designed from the ground up to be the ultimate writing tool for academics, technical writers, scholars and students. Mellel is strong, stable and reliable, and is the ideal companion for working on documents that are long and complex, short and simple, or anything in between.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, and Essay

Website: https://mellel.com/

Base price:

$49.00 one-time payment

Premium price:

Outline

Bibliography

Footnotes and endnotes

Multilingual support

★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★ Value

Also rated 3.2 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.

💰 Price:  Free

🚉 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.

💰 Price:  Free basic plan, $4.99/month for premium

🚉 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.

💰 Price: Free trial for 30 days, $249.99 license fee

🚉 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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