While thinking about writing, I do like stripped-down markdown editors. I don't draft blog posts in Word, and I'm not sure I'd want to. I suspect moving text from Word to a web platform might be a little fiddly. That said, I will have a look. Perhaps Word now has a funky focus mode and export function.

I have two desks, with a chair between them. Facing West, I'm on Windows; facing East, I'm on Mac. For the moment, I'm shifting my keyboard and mouse from one to the other. Both are Bluetooth-enabled and can pair with three devices each.

IA Writer works, so I installed that for immediate use before investigating further. I have the application on both Windows and Mac, and I am accessing the same library. Moving from one to the other is seamless if a little jarring. IA Writer is good. It's opinionated, well-designed and supported. Its makers are even launching a paper notebook—my type of people. Functionality is not identical cross-platform, though. On Mac, I can publish directly to my blog; on Windows, I have to copy and paste. It's hardly a huge inconvenience, but it's a difference. I'm guessing this is a Windows thing, as none of the markdown editors I've found publish directly on the blog platforms.

The good news is that there are plenty that I can try, including Typora, which I had heard good things about. In any event, I quite like IA Writer anyway. I'm giving Typora a run out on a free trial, and first impressions are positive.

At the risk of stating the obvious, a writing application's job is to get out of the way, and both IA Writer and Typora do admirably on either platform.

I have been using Grammarly this year, and as expected, this works on both platforms. I also use Text Expander for snippets, which have also ported across without incident.

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