Writing with FocusWriter

Word processing used to be the authoring tool par excellence. Thanks to extensive formatting functions and embedded tables and graphics, anyone can create beautiful and informative documents one way or another, and word processing seems like incredible progress compared with the pen or typewriter. However, many users do not take full advantage of all the word processing tools that are available. Moreover, many can do without tables of contents, headers and footers, and like elements and consider toolbars and layout-based work a distraction from what's most essential: writing.

Even if you do manage to concentrate on the text, system messages and other invasive events can distract you from your text creation. For example, as soon as you're engrossed in your work, an IM comes across from one of your pals or the operating system notifies you of six urgent software upgrades.

Tools for "distraction-free writing" can help remedy this situation. They bring the old empty page metaphor back to life by opening a page in full-screen mode and eliminating everything else. The author sees only the empty page and the rest disappears into the background. The functions are reduced to a bare minimum. The idea is to format the text later in another program or hand it over to someone else to perform the layout.

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