In this article I will be examining the focused writing apps Poe and WritePlus, plus the more advanced text editor Code Writer. These apps aren’t just for people who own a Surface tablet or a convertible hybrid they also work on any desktop or laptop running Windows 8, although for heavyweight editing tasks you will probably want to use a classical text editor like Notepad++. As a general rule software of this kind deals with plain text or Markdown files.

For my general thoughts on focused writing apps please see my blog post A tablet computer as writer’s companion. However, the focused writing app is an important niche for the modern writer – and the Metro environment is perfect for applications of this kind. Windows 8 (aka “Metro”) apps have been criticised lately for their questionable utility on non-touchscreen systems. Devices like the newly launched Lenovo Thinkpad 8 are as small and light as an iPad, but run full-fat Windows. Whether or not they have succeeded is open to debate, but it cannot be denied that the lines have become blurred. More and more of us are using “post PC” devices instead of traditional computers, both for work and play, and Microsoft is attempting to bridge the gap with an operating system designed to work well on both tablets and traditional workstations.

Windows 8 is a controversial subject at the moment. I’m leaving the post up purely for historical interest. 2017 note: I no longer use Windows and don’t really recommend any of these apps.

Code writer app