Why Ulysses Is My Favourite Plain Text Editor on the Mac

Ulysses is a stunning writing app - my daily driver when it comes to writing on my Mac. I have been a Ulysses user for the last four years and have come to rely on it as my main tool of getting writing done on the Mac. I recently completed a writing course on Ulysses by the guys at The Sweet Setup. I have come to the realization of how advanced and fully functioned the app truly is after taking the course and delving deeper into the various functions. It has all the right touches when it comes to design and customization. It may not be the best tool for you, but it definitely should be considered in the running for your Top 5 writing apps.

In the many podcasts I listen to about the Apple and productivity community, writing apps, or what is often referred to as text editors, are often the most talked about when it comes to apps. Many podcasters I listen to, experiment with adopting a new writing app every few months. I think of Federico Viticci of MacStories as such an example. Perhaps it is because the majority of the podcasters are writers themselves. But I think it’s also because writing apps are one of the main activities knowledge workers use to express and give birth to their ideas. Therefore having an app where one feels ‘home in’, which facilitates one's creative writing process, is crucial. You want a writing app to get out of the way, to allow you to focus on the writing itself. This is why Ulysses is my number one text editor.

What is Ulysses?

First and foremost, Ulysses is a plain text editor, which uses a writing language called Markdown. Markdown was invented by writer John Gruber, of the popular tech blog Daring Fireball. Simply think coding for writing, but much much simpler. In short, Ulysses follows the Markdown philosophy of distracted free writing.

“Writing apps are one of the main activities knowledge workers use to express and give birth to their ideas. Therefore having an app where one feels ‘home in’, which facilitates one’s creative writing process, is crucial.
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Many people think of Word Processors when they think of writing apps on a PC or Mac. Word Processors are often essential when sharing documents with others or in exporting a final published piece. However, the problem with many word processors, is they carry too many ‘bells and whistles’, they are too bloated with formatting options. In doing so, these apps, such as Microsoft Word or Apple’s Pages, distract the writer from the writing itself. Instead of allowing the writer to focus on getting their ideas and words down, they present various options, often with the focus on formatting and layout. In other words making the end product ‘look good’, versus focusing on the words themselves. As Mike Schmitz of the Ulysses course states: “These tools [Word Processors]… come at a cost. Resulting in a cluttered and cramped writing interface, that can get in your way. When your goal is to simply get words on the page.”

As we know, what makes good writing is the content itself, not the formatting or the appearance of the writing. Apps like Ulysses allow for a distracted free writing environment, as the app presents a User Interface (UI) that is focused much more on the words themselves, over offering a host of formatting or layout options. It’s simply you, your words, and the curser, with added Markdown support.

How Ulysses Can Organize Your Writing

There are many powerful organizational features within Ulysses, such as the ability to organize your writing into folders within a nested hierarchy. Ulysses calls this hierarchy the ‘Library’. This Library accomplishes this hierarchy by allowing the user to write in what are called ‘Sheets’, nested in organized folders. Sheets can basically be thought of as sheets in a book. You can create an infinite amount of ’sheets’ within Ulysses. These sheets can be later merged to form larger sections (i.e. allowing the ability to ‘glue’ sheets together), in case you may want to form larger chapters or sections amongst these sheets.

Other Cool Features of Ulysses

Ulysses also offers excellent syncing capabilities using iCloud. In my time of using Ulysses, I have never had an issue with its iCloud syncing feature. Other external access support is also provided, using Dropbox. Ulysses has excellent searching capabilities, tagging support as well as the ability to set writing goals per sheet. Export functions are also great in Ulysses, with the added ability to export to PDF, DOCX, HTML, ePub or simple text, such as Markdown. You can even export to your Wordpress or Medium and now the open source platform Ghost. I’m still waiting on the added ability to export to Squarespace, because it would make it easier to share to my blog. However, I’m confident in the coming months this will be a possibility, as the creators behind Ulysses have said as much.

So consider Ulysses for your text editor. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed!