Best free programs to write novels, books, ebooks, blogs and any type of text or document on the computer
Who uses the computer for writing books, notes, blogs or documents, you can check here if you are using all the appropriate programs for your job. In fact, having just any writing program is not enough if it is possible to optimize ideas, take notes and organize the structure of the text to be written.In this article we will show you the best free programs for typing on computergiving more prominence to applications that have targeted optimizations for bloggers, fiction writers, mystery writers, aspiring e-book writers or even just for taking notes for a dissertation.
READ ALSO -> Top 10 free Microsoft Office alternatives for PC and Mac
1) Google Docs (online)
The best program to write new books and new texts on the computer is definitely Google documentsaccessible directly online as a web app and available with any web browser (Chrome, Edge or Safari).
Google Docs or Google Docs works like a normal word processing program but adds interesting features to help aspiring writers in drafting the piece: we can in fact benefit from the voice dictationthe immediate translation of texts and quotes, the rapid sharing of the content created and, in the case of co-writing, we can share the document with our colleagues and choose whether to have the content revised or add new chapters to the text already present.
For more information on Google Docs, please read our ai guides best tricks for writing with google docs come on how to add features to google docs with add-ons.
2) Microsoft Word online
For those who want to write the new novel directly with Word but don’t want to pay the user license to install it on the PC, they can use it Microsoft Word Onlineaccessible for free with a simple Microsoft account.
By opening Microsoft Word Online we will have almost all the tools seen on the famous Office program available for free, so as to be able to effectively write the new novel or the new thriller with a pleasant and familiar interface.
The online version of Word also offers quick sharing via link or Outlook email and co-writing (via access sharing); compared to the installable version though all documents will be saved on OneDrive and will only be accessible online unless you sync your OneDrive folder with a compatible Windows PC.
On this web service we invite you to read our articles about how to sync and upload folders in Onedrive come on how to activate free Microsoft Office Online as a web application.
3) LibreOffice Writer
LibreOffice Writer is definitely theBest free alternative to Microsoft Word to download and install on your PC. With this program every writer will have an excellent “word processor” program suitable for writing documents, long and well formatted texts for free, without having to spend a penny for the Office license.
LibreOffice con Word, Excel e Powerpoint gratis per Windows, Mac e Linux is the reference office suite in the open source world and includes programs very similar to those integrated in the Microsoft Office suite.
In the specific case of Writer we will have a writing program equipped with automatic completion, automatic formatting, spelling checker in Italian, the possibility of including images and graphics, footnotes, tables of contents, headers and much more.
With LibreOffice you can also save your work in PDF format, making the document ready to be shared with others; in this regard, we invite you to read our guide on how to print to pdf from pc.
4) Caliber (e-book creation)
After creating the new novel, the new thriller or our new fiction book with one of the programs seen above, we will have to convert it into a format compatible with modern e-book readers, so that it can also be delivered to Amazon for sale.
The best e-book manager and converter for PC is definitely Calibre, a free and open source program optimized for e-books. With this application we can add documents in PDF format or Word format and apply instant conversion in EPUB format or MOBI format (Amazon Kindle format), so as to format our books in a format compatible with e-book readers modern.
The conversion of the books can also be done before sending our work to a personal e-Book reader: to proceed, all we have to do is connect the reader to the PC via USB cable, open caliber and press the button Send to Device, choosing the reader from the drop-down menu; the program will proceed with the automatic conversion of the book into a format compatible with reading by the reader, without further modifications.
To learn more, we can read our guide on how to open epub files on windows 10 and 11.
5) Evernote (notes and memos)
Evernote is considered the best application for keep notes saved online and take detailed notes, complete with images; it can be the best help tool for writing a book, given that it can also be called up quickly from a mobile phone to mark new notes, new chapters, ideas to finish the book we were writing.
All contents become available from Windows PCs, Macs, Android smartphones or tablets, iPhones and iPads, keeping all notes and notes synchronized; you can also share your notes with others, and it’s a perfect tool if you’re collaborating on a large project.
On tools to keep notes in sync we can read our articles on how to use Microsoft OneNote for Windows, Mac and smartphones and on best apps for taking notes and notes on android and iphone.
6) Canva (book cover)
A good book always starts with a beautiful cover; to create a new cover for our book it is better to use an online editor like Canva.
To create a beautiful cover just open the site, type book cover o e-book cover in the search field at the top, open the image editor and choose one of the covers on the left, choosing the best image for our book.
After uploading the best cover we use the image editor to change the text and author, as well as other cover details (such as background or colors); at the end of the work we download the cover images and add them to the book using caliber or Google Docs.
For covers and images online we can read our guide to Free alternative sites to Canva for graphic and design projects.
7) Other programs for typing on the computer
Sigil is a great program for write e-books free. In fact, Sigil presents a good EPUB editor recommended for more experienced users. The tool is very powerful for updating the text and formatting of books and texts divided into topics, with tools to create an analytical index and a validator to make sure that the book complies with EPUB standards.
To create an EPUB we can use the free plugin Writer2Epubwhich can be integrated into LibreOffice Writer, which allows you to create E-Books professionally using your normal writing program, for an advanced level of formatting (we don’t even have to use caliber to convert the book).
TreeSheets is an interesting note-taking program with an unusual approach to organizing ideas. It works a bit like a spreadsheet, with cells, each of which can contain data, images, formatted text, and more; you could get a list of items, each of which contain other tables and images. The TreeSheets interface is not too easy to understand and perhaps may not appeal to most potential users.
Kiwix is another good program to complement writing applications, especially for who writes novels or any other type of text. This program allows you to access continuous information to document yourself and avoid writing inaccurate things, using Wikipedia in various languages as a source.
WikidPad is a notepad structured like a Wiki (Wikipedia-style) so that each note is easy to find and write. This program is a personal wiki, a tool for connecting ideas in an easy way.
FocusWriter it is a detail word processora which has the particularity of leaving all the space on the screen to the text, without toolbars, buttons or distractions. Menus appear only when you move the mouse cursor, with buttons for formatting text, searching and replacing words, aligning, indenting, spell checking, and so on. Extra options include the ability to set daily goals (such as working a full hour or writing a certain number of words), while the program status bar shows how close we are to achieving this goal. Focus Writer is a great program for novel writersbetter than Word or other document programs.
Open Live Writer instead it is the best program for blogging on the internet. The program connects to the blog database, whatever its type, and provides a Word-like interface for writing well-formatted articles on the computer and immediately previewing them before publishing them online. Windows Live Writer is compatible with all major blogging platforms, including Blogger and WordPress.
Conclusions
Anyone who wants to write a book can use all the tools listed above to get the right formatting, the right layout system and an export system to create books in PDF format (more common and accessible) or EPUB format (to sell it on websites like Amazon), using caliber to convert files from one format to another, and Canva to create a beautiful cover.
While writing we can also ask for the help of ChatGPT or artificial intelligence to write better and with style, as also seen in our guides on how to install ChatGPT app on PC and on best alternatives to ChatGPT that work in Italian.