Alright, that might be an exaggeration. There are probably more reasons as to why I started my Substack The Hobbyist, but it’s mainly so that I had an excuse to use Ulysses.
Being a scientist, I am constantly writing manuscripts. The main tool I’ve used for scientific writing has been Microsoft Word—a decent product that gets the job done. But I’ve grown bored of the damn thing and it’s awful to collaborate on Word documents with others (i.e., OKACTUALLYFINALTHISTIME-FINAL-final-manuscript-v15-mjk-lmk-2024-07-11.docx). Lately, I’ve been using Google Docs, which has been awesome for collaborating on manuscripts, but is equally as boring.
For my personal writing, I wanted something with a clean interface that allowed me to set up writing goals, such as 500 words per day or 1,000 words total on a given document. In my search, I came across Ulysses. I think I’m in love.
It’s a beautiful, Mac only product, that organizes all your writing in one place with iCloud backup. The interface is clean, crisp, and intuitive.
If you are familiar with writing in Markdown, Ulysses supports Markdown and also has it’s own language called Markdown XL that is very simple to learn. Ulysses has tutorials built into the interface when you first fire it up, so you can always revisit these if you forget the nuances of Markdown XL.
But probably the thing I love the most is that you are able to change themes much like how you can change the syntax highlighting when programming. To check out some available themes, click here. My favorite theme for awhile was Solarized XL, but now I am on a Yosemite kick. See, not boring!
Also, do not fear if you want to avoid (or can’t use) iCloud backup. Ulysses also supports external folders, such as Google Drive.
There are so many more features that I could highlight, but I’ll leave some exploring to you.
Now, I don’t use Ulysses for my scientific writing. This is mainly because I prioritize collaboration over interface when it comes to my day job. However, for my personal writing, I’ve found it exciting to break away from the boring tried and true tools for a sleek product.
What do you use to write? If you try out Ulysses, please let me know! I would love to hear your experience.
Thanks for sharing, Matt! I've been using Ulysses for a couple of years now, and its simplicity and elegance have converted me to markdown. There's something liberating about writing without formatting distractions—it lets you focus on the words themselves.
I haven’t used Ulysses but this has gotten me intrigued 😁