11 Best Writing Apps for iPad
The iPad is a great device for doing a lot of things, and writing is of course no exception. You can use your iPad to edit documents, compile notes, or even write a novel.
Discover the 11 best writing apps for iPad, choose the most convenient app from the list below, and write there what you want and wherever you are.
Let’s start!
11 Best iPad App for Writing!
1. iAWriter
iAWriter is a writing app that has been praised by just about every fashion magazine out there: TIME, Forbes, The Guardian, and many others.
While earning the status of one of the best writing apps for iPad, iAWriter provides you with a clear and distraction-free interface so you can fully focus on your writing. If you really need to focus, you can turn on focus mode that darkens everything but the paragraph you’re working on. If you write at night, choose the “light in the dark” mode, so your eyes don’t get tired.
Since sometimes even people with excellent writing skills make mistakes or use inappropriate words, there is a built-in editor that helps make sentences more coherent. Ready texts can be saved in HTML, docx, pdf, or exported to WordPress, Medium, etc. So, if you are a blogger or a writer or some other type of content creator, this is probably the best option for you!
2. Ulysses
Ulysses is another mainstay of writing apps for iPad. It is easy to use and has all the necessary tools to deal with editing, formatting, etc. This app is great for students, novelists, bloggers, and any other fan of writing.
At the heart of Ulysses is a simple yet powerful markup-based text editor with an extensive set of tools. It also has a distraction-free editor that lets you focus on writing, editing, and more writing!
Unlike other writing apps, Ulysses uses simple text editing instead of formatting templates. While there can be a bit of a learning curve if you’re unfamiliar with this style of editing, it also gives you greater control over how your final product will look.
By the way, you can save your work in many different ways – HTML, PDF, docx. You can even publish it directly to WordPress or Medium.
3. Werdsmith
Fitting its description as a “portable writing studio,” Werdsmith is a writing app for your iPad, iPhone, and even your Apple Watch.
Aimed at fiction writers, Werdsmith comes with templates for writing stories, blogs, poems, and screenplays. It’s a great place to take notes, organize ideas, or work on the final draft of a big project.
Though Werdsmith lacks the rich editing features of other apps on this list, such as image or table support, it opts for motivation-based features like writing rituals and word goals to help you keep working on your stories every day.
All in all, if you are a writer, this one is for you.
4. Scrivener
Scrivener is a writing tool for larger writing projects. If you’re working on a screenplay, movie, or theater production, then Scrivener is one of the best iPad writing apps for the job.
Scrivener puts an emphasis on organization, allowing you to group documents, store images and PDFs as research material, easily reorganize your content, and search your entire project. All of this makes it a must-have app for those undertaking larger writing projects.
Scrivener’s premium app offers a wealth of features:
- Export a variety of formats for Word, PDF, Final Draft, or plain text
- Convert your work to markdowns
- Zip your project into a zipped folder
- Take snapshots to save previous versions of your draft
- Write anywhere with the iOS, macOS, and Windows apps
5. Note Writer
As you may have guessed from the name, Notes Writer is primarily intended for taking notes, rather than producing polished documents. Despite being designed for notes, this app still allows you to format text and export a variety of files.
It’s perfect for capturing your thoughts during a conference, meeting, or brainstorming session. You can write down your ideas or use an Apple Pencil to handwrite them.
Notes Writer gives you the ability to draw images, annotate PDFs, fill out forms, sign documents, insert clip art, and more. Once your notes are complete, you can share them to a variety of cloud storage services.
There are many other bells and whistles as well. These include distraction-free mode, live counters to track document length, find and replace, and dark mode.
You can download and use Notes Writer for free, but Note Writer Pro for iPad is also available, which removes ads, gives you an unlimited number of notebooks, and adds password protection.
6. Bear
Like Notes Writer, Bear is designed to keep notes organized. But its simple design and easy organization make it another one of the best note-taking and writing app to use on your iPad.
Bear is great for everything from short notes to long essays. It offers a variety of formatting tools, online image support, links, checklists, and more. Keep your writing organized using the folders in the sidebar, which you can customize with different icons for quick navigation.
Best of all, Bear is completely free to use on your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. However, to sync your notes across other devices, you need to sign up for Bear Pro for $1.49 per month. The premium subscription also unlocks beautiful themes and powerful export options.
If you’re looking for the best writing apps for taking notes on your iPad, Bear is probably it.
7. Pages
Available for free on the App Store, Pages is Apple’s own writing app for iPhone, Mac, and iPad. In case you didn’t know, you can also download Numbers and Keynote for free and use the entire Apple iWork suite.
Pages makes it easy to create beautiful documents. It gives you full control over the layout of text boxes, images, and shapes. You can even use free templates to create digital books, newsletters, reports, and more.
With full iCloud compatibility, Pages syncs documents across all your Apple devices. You can even sign in to iCloud.com to work on documents through a web browser. It also supports collaboration. So, you can work with other people on the same document and keep track of the changes they make. However, you can only collaborate in iCloud from your iPad, not Dropbox, Google Drive, or other cloud storage services.
8. Microsoft Word
Any list of writing apps for iPad will be incomplete if it doesn’t include a Microsoft Word app. Microsoft Word is the default writing tool for many people, and there’s nothing stopping you from using it with your iPad.
Unsurprisingly, Microsoft Word for iPad is a mobile-friendly version of the desktop app. It supports images, tables, graphs, footnotes, equations, and more.
Just as Pages allows, you can collaborate with others and track the changes they make. One big difference is that more of your colleagues are likely to use Microsoft Word than Pages. Therefore, you will have a larger group of people to collaborate with. In addition, you can access Microsoft Word documents through OneDrive, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, Dropbox, and other cloud storage services as well, which is much more convenient than Pages.
You can use Microsoft Word free on any iPad with a 10.1-inch or smaller screen. Unfortunately, for larger iPads, you need a Microsoft 365 subscription.
9. Google Docs
Google Docs makes it easy to write, edit, share, and collaborate on important documents. With it, you can work with online images and a variety of formatting options to create your resume, report, letter, or other important documents. You can even take advantage of Google’s variety of stylish templates to speed up the process. Also, Google Docs supports DOC and DOCX files, so you can open Word files or export Word files for others to use.
Download Google Docs on your iPad, iPhone, Mac, PC or Android device so you can use this writing app wherever you are. Alternatively, you can always edit your Google Docs from a web browser.
Like other Google products, it’s completely free, if you don’t mind sharing your data with Google.
10. Editorial
Editorial is a customizable writing app for iPad. The app has lots of cool details, like a built-in web browser, Dropbox integration, smart keyboard, and even Python Scripting, all to make your workflow more efficient. If you want to automate your writing, the app will help you save time by doing half of your work for you.
11. Grammarly
Writers, bloggers, note takers, content creators… We all have to take care of our language! Being literate in the modern world is essential. It shows the level of education and general culture. However, sometimes we all make mistakes. To avoid them, just install Grammarly!
Grammarly is an app that corrects grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors while also explaining the rule why it should be spelled this way and not that way.
What’s great is that Grammarly can be used as a separate writing app and combined with other apps. Its main function is to help avoid mistakes. If you’re not always sure if you’re using the right word or if you need a comma in that place, you should get this app!
Choose The Right Writing App for iPad
These are the 11 best writing apps for iPad. All of these apps can provide you with the necessary tools and inspiration to get yourself writing. Whether you want something minimal and distraction-free, or a full-featured program to sketch and build the world to your heart’s content, the apps above are great options to try.
Use your iPad as a writing device with the best iPad writing app!