Chris Davies

Writing in Ulysses

miscellaneous

I wanted to get back into writing, hence this blog. I have always liked writing in Markdown1, including when I was writing reflections for my portfolio during speciality training.2 However, I fell out of using it when I stopped writing as much - I no longer needed the quick and intuitive way of typing using Markdown when I was writing shorter notes. Apple Notes did me fine for a while for shorter notes, and Apple Pages when I wanted to write something longer. However, I missed the simplicity of Markdown.

I did trial Obsidian for a while, but I found it too complicated for my needs - I do not make daily notes or need the complex and customisable organisational structure it offers. It was, quite simply, too steep a learning curve for me when I wasn’t using it frequently enough to develop muscle memory.

So I edited my Markdown files in other editors for a while - VS Code being the most recent one I had settled on. However, I missed the simplicity and the ability to preview my writing that I had previously had in Ulysses, which was my Markdown editor of choice during my training.

Back to Ulysses

Why had I stopped using it? Well, it’s a subscription3 so an added cost on top of all the other SaaS subscriptions that are a feature of the 2020s. When I was writing less, I would rather not pay for it as I wasn’t using it enough. I did always feel it offered good value for money when I was using it though - the developers update the app for every major macOS/iOS/iPadOS update and make other QoL changes during the year4.

The main thing I like with Ulysses is the ease of writing and organising - as long as you know Markdown, you can just type. There are very few distractions, organising notes is easy - into projects, general notes sections, an inbox for notes that need to be sorted - and I find it far less confusing to navigate my way around the app than Obsidian. You can also set goals for writing - be that words, characters, or even reading time (slow/average/fast/reading aloud) - with a small and unobtrusive progress ring at the top of your draft.

Suggestions are also helpful in writing; they are hidden away in a menu but easily accessible and can suggest various changes such as capitalisation, style, punctuation,5 and typography.

The easy syncing to iCloud is helpful too, as I want to be able to edit the drafts I write on my iPad, MacBook, or iPhone depending on the day. It just happens in the background and I don’t need to think about it at all.

Exporting is easy, with a range of options from text (and you can format it in Markdown to easily save to a blog, for instance), HTML, PDF, EPUB, and DOCX.

Summary

I plan to stick with Ulysses now for a little longer at least. I will see if I continue to use it to write with - and if not, I can always unsubscribe again. However, be it for this blog, or even just note-taking at work, I’m sure I’ll find a use for it.

Footnotes

  1. A quick and easy way of writing using syntax that converts to nicely formatted text once exported or processed. It was created by John Gruber. ↩

  2. I do not miss this at all, for what it’s worth. ↩

  3. Current cost in the UK: £39.99/year. ↩

  4. Full release history available here. ↩

  5. It always suggests I change my hyphens to something like an em-dash but stylistically, I don't want to look like an AI! ↩