Confession time - before Christopher offered me the chance to review Byword, I had never heard of it. For those of you who, like me, have never heard of the app, Byword is a plain text editor with Markup support and a few other tricks to help it stand out from the crowd.
The installation process is simple - all you need to do is select whether you want your documents synced to the cloud. Byword offers the option of connecting to your Dropbox or iCloud account. As a heavy Dropbox user I opted for that although for the Apple die-hard, having the option of iCloud is nice. One thing to note however is that the prompt screens are in a grey colour, making it slightly harder to read than many other apps - not a biggie, but worth noting regardless.
Once installed, the first thing I noticed about the app was its minimal interface. Byword is clearly all about text and nothing else. Create a new document and all you have is a blank screen. No toolbars, no icons, no nothing. Start typing and your text appears in an eye-friendly san serif font. A counter at the bottom of the screen shows your word count, but in such a way that there is absolutely nothing to distract you from the task of writing.
Once you have entered some text, you can tap on the writing pane to show a similarly minimalist menu bar at the top of the screen. On the left is an icon which allows you to browse your existing text documents, in the centre is the file name which you can change from the default 'Untitled.txt'. On the right is a settings icon behind which lurks a few tricks.
As mentioned previously Byword supports Markdown syntax, the Settings menu allows the option of previewing the text you have entered with markdown formatting. I'm not a heavy user of markdown, but it is nice to be able to add some emphasis to an otherwise ordinary plain text document.
The app preferences allow for a total of 4 font choices along with the ability to add auto-capitalization, auto-correction, spell checking and Text Expander support. These settings make Byword pretty flexible, even if it is only supposed to be a text editor.
The option to export your Markdown formatted document to HTML is nice if for instance you choose to use Byword to create blog posts rather than the shockingly poor Wordpress app (as I have). You can pipe the resulting webpage out to your cloud file storage or through iTunes documents for syncing back to your PC. You can also send your document via email directly through Byword, again with various output options for ultimate flexibility.
And in the event you are lucky enough to own an AirPrint device, you can also create a hardcopy version of your document.
However, the real power of Byword is unleashed when twinned with the desktop version of the app. With the desktop and mobile apps, text documents can be created and amended from anywhere on any Apple device using cloud storage.
Byword will not replace CloudOn as my app of choice for
freelance copywriting projects, Microsoft Office is just too ingrained in what I do and what customers expect. That said, Byword is perfect for quick notes, brainstorming and blogging when recording an idea is more important than the final output format. And it is for these purposes I will continue to use Byword.
Pros
- Great for creating documents and notes quickly without distraction
- No time-wasting bells-n-whistles
- Quick, efficient
- Markdown syntax support
- iCloud and Dropbox support
- Multiple output formats
Cons
- Some menus are hard to read because of the colour scheme
- Works best when twinned with the Mac app which is an additional purchase
- Cannot edit document titles for files created "offline"
So there you go - if you need a text editor with a few extras, Byword is certainly worth £1.99/$2.99 although you will probably need to invest in the desktop app to get maximum value.
Byword - Metaclassy, Lda. (iPad)
Byword - Metaclassy, Lda. (Mac)
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