Manuskript
Free open source tool for planning and drafting a novel, with an outliner, index cards and character notes.
Our verdict
Manuskript is the closest free thing Linux has to Scrivener, and it is worth saying up front that it is not a replacement of equal weight. It covers the planning side well: an outline of chapters and scenes, index cards you can shuffle, character sheets, plot lines and a place to keep notes about your world.
The writing side is decent. There is a distraction free mode, word count targets, and export to ODT, DOCX, ePub and HTML when you are done. What is missing is the depth of Scrivener's compile step, where the layout of the finished book is worked out in detail.
There is no import for Scrivener projects. Moving an existing book means exporting your text from Scrivener on Windows first, then rebuilding the structure here. For a book you have not started yet, that cost does not apply.
What's good
- Free, with an outliner, index cards, character and world notes in one window
- Distraction free writing mode with word count goals
- Exports to ODT, DOCX, ePub and HTML
- Your project stays in an open format on your own computer
What to know first
- Cannot open a Scrivener project, so a manuscript has to be moved across by hand
- Compiling and formatting the finished book is far more basic than Scrivener's
- Updates come slowly and the interface looks homemade
- The Flathub build is packaged by the community rather than by the developer
The details
- Cost
- Free
- Open source
- Yes (GPL-3.0)
- How you install it
- App store (Flatpak)
Windows apps it can replace
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