Bear is not available for Windows but there are plenty of alternatives that runs on Windows with similar functionality. The most popular Windows alternative is Evernote, which is free. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 100 alternatives to Bear and loads of them are available for Windows so hopefully you can find a.
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If you turn phrases for fun and/or profit, your best option for a Mac writing app depends on what you want to write, and how.
Sure, you could stick with a word processor to pour your thoughts onto the page — but you've got better choices. If you want something a little less stuffy, cluttered, and nine-to-five, or more focused on creative writing, we've found four solid choices that take two very different approaches to helping you express yourself. All are either Essentials or Editors' Choices in the Mac App Store.
Ulysses
The first three apps on this list all take a similar no-frills approach to writing. They sport clean, minimalist interfaces, keep all your writing in a single window, can swap documents between their iOS and Mac versions, and use some variation of the Markdown syntax to handle all text formatting.
Ulysses impressed me most among this crowd for its breadth of features and ease of use. An outstanding series of introductory texts ease you into using Ulysses, one simple step at a time. Their witty writing allows you to learn the program while you're using it.
If you want to track your own productivity, or challenge yourself to meet a certain word count, it's easy to set goals from Ulysses's dashboard. Don't know Markdown XL, Ulysses's native tongue? No worries — a handy cheat sheet of syntax waits behind a button at the top of the program. (Ulysses also supports old faithful keyboard shortcuts for bold, italic, and linked text, if you don't want to type Markdown XL's extra characters.)
Ulysses keeps these two features and a handful of others, including options to export your work to text, ePub, HTML, PDF, or DOCX formats, in pop-over menus that you can tear off and keep onscreen for easy reference.
Ulysses isn't WYSIWYG; you can download themes to change up its color scheme at the Ulysses Style Exchange, but you can't view the effects of your formatting until you preview or export it. The Style Exchange also offers a host of free templates for PDF, HTML, and ePub exports, with different looks, fonts, and styles.
Ulysses comes with built-in iCloud support to hand off documents between its Mac and iOS versions. It can also publish your work directly to your Medium or WordPress site, once you enter your account info. And its subscription model means that your monthly $4.99 fee unlocks the app on both the Mac and iOS.
Ulysses offers a lot of options in a polished, user-friendly package. Unfortunately, it has a good portion of its thunder stolen by…
- $4.99/month with a 14-day free trial - Download now!
![Bear Bear](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126441705/498890609.jpg)
Bear
Nearly everything Ulysses does, Bear does just as well, in an arguably prettier package. Bear's fonts and color scheme, while still clean and stark, go easier on the eyes than Ulysses's utilitarian gray. Its stats panel is much easier to read, though less detailed. And Bear strikes a happy medium between full WYSIWYG formatting and Markdown simplicity by clearly labeling different header tags as you create them, and offering the option to actually show text as bold or italic when properly marked.
I liked Bear's tagging system, which makes it really easy to organize files. Just type in a hashtag anywhere in your document, and Bear will either create a category for it on the fly in its list of documents, or add that document to an existing category. I was also impressed with Bear's ability to share a note to any program you've added to your Mac's Sharing menu, including Facebook, Twitter, and Reminders.
Beyond that, Bear duplicates a lot of Ulysses's virtues, from its overall interface to its friendly help files. And the program's basic version, which packs plenty of power, is absolutely free on both Mac and iOS. However, to match Ulysses's features, you'll need to subscribe to Bear Plus, for $1.49 a month or $14.99 a year. That subscription gets you features like iCloud synching, ePub export, and customizable export themes, all of which Ulysses includes right out of the box.
- Free to download, $1.99/month or $14.99/year Bear Plus subscription - Download now!
iA Writer
iA Writer is inexpensive -- just a one-time $15 fee -- and it packs a reasonably robust feature set. iCloud sharing and synching with its iOS sibling is built in, as is WordPress and Medium support. Like Bear and Ulysses, iA Writer offers downloadable export templates, and its help files include instructions to make your own with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. But for all these virtues, iA Writer still falls short.
Its stark black-and-white interface makes Ulysses look colorful. It feels brusque and utilitarian, not welcoming. On first use, the program dumps you right into its interface with no introduction. Its lean, efficient Help files explain the program well, but after Ulysses and Bear's gentler tutorials, iA Writer's lack of frills can feel jarring.
Word count and other stats are crammed into a tiny menu at the bottom of the window, and you can't set goals for any of those parameters. They're squeezed into the same small space as iA Writer's Format and Syntax menus, which can format text or quickly highlight all the nouns, adverbs, adjectives, or other parts of speech in your document — a nifty feature undercut by lackluster interface design.
Finally, a real-time preview window can show you what your text will look like when it's finished and formatted. But it feels odd to have the same text side by side; if you want to see what text looks like when formatted, why not just have a WYSIWYG editor?
iA Writer isn't bad on its own merits, but with such impressive competition, it can't help but suffer in comparison.
- $15 - Download now!
Scrivener
At the opposite end of the spectrum from its spartan rivals, Scrivener is a jumbo-sized Swiss army knife stuffed with a sometimes overwhelming array of fun and useful tools. The other programs in this roundup are undeniably more versatile, lending themselves just as well to note taking, blog posts, journalism, or technical writing as they do to writing fiction. In contrast, Scrivener's built to serve the needs of folks writing novels, short stories, screenplays, and — given its ability to store pictures, cached web pages, and other research material alongside a given text — possibly term papers. For $45, you'll definitely get your money's worth.
Scrivener's somewhat long in the tooth compared to its rivals here, with a dense but coherent interface filled with the kinds of colorful icons that seem to have fallen out of fashion among Mac apps. It arguably needs such a crowd of buttons to display even a fraction of the features stuffed into its every nook and cranny. (My favorite: A ridiculously options-laden name generator for authors in need of inspiration.) Scrivener's user manual, however engagingly written, is 546 pages long. It's not messing around.
Even after years of using Scrivener, I still sometimes find myself hunting through its menus in search of that one command I need. Consistently formatting text files in a given project to anything other than Scrivener's default settings can be a pain, and it keeps its settings for targets and statistics in separate popup windows.
But despite this complexity, Scrivener does a good job of getting out of your way. Scrivener offers an outline mode, and a corkboard mode that displays each of your scenes as virtual notecards on which you can hash out what happens when. But if you just want to start writing without worrying about its bells and whistles, you won't have a problem. Because it's so like the Finder, Scrivener's system for storing scenes in various folders makes sense immediately. And like all the programs mentioned here, Scrivener offers a fullscreen mode that blots out everything but the text you're working on, to avoid distractions.
Scrivener also offers a respectable if occasionally glitchy screenplay mode. It won't replace Final Draft, but if you want to have fun writing a cinematic masterpiece about Dominic Toretto battling Dracula, you'll end up with a decently formatted final product.
Scrivener also shines when it's time to publish your work. Its voluminous list of export formats includes all the usual suspects, plus ePubs, Final Draft screenplay files, and even Kindle books. You can even select only specific chapters or files to compile and export — handy when you've got multiple drafts of a novel in a given file, but only want to create a PDF of the most recent one. However, this versatility has one glaring exception: Scrivener doesn't support iCloud, though it can share documents between its iOS and Mac versions.
- $45 - Download now!
Which app is best?
If you want a jack-of-all trades writing app with WordPress, Medium, and iCloud support built in, Ulysses is your best bet. If you're not willing to shell out $4.99 a month indefinitely, try the similar Bear first. You may not ever need its advanced features, which would give you a terrific writing app for free.
But if you're serious about creative writing, and you want a stalwart companion to help drag stories out of your brain, Scrivener's your best bet. Its learning curve is steeper, but its powerful features make that climb worthwhile.
Bear Mac App Review
Got any favorite apps we haven't mentioned here? Let us know in the comments below.
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An excellent note-taking app to collect and organize thoughts is a blessing in disguise. People use Evernote, OneNote, Bear Notes, Google Keep, and others, as a digital file cabinet. Today, the note-taking space is so crowded that if you want to move from one app to another or someone needs to pick a new option, the task appears more daunting than ever. That said, Microsoft OneNote is an excellent note-taking app if you're quite comfortable with using MS Office apps. It's free, available on all platforms, and comes with handy features. Bear notes is another capable offering with a prime focus on UI and reliability.
On paper, both OneNote and Bear Notes may sound identical, but they differ in various areas such as note organization, sharing, editor, and user navigation.
In this post, we are going to compare both OneNote and Bear Notes on the Mac. We will also talk about the mobile app experience on the iPhone. Let’s get started to pick a relevant note-taking software for you.
Cross-Platform Availability
OneNote is available on iOS, Android, Windows, iPad, Mac, Web, and as a Chrome extension. Bear Notes is focused on the Apple ecosystem. It is only available on iOS, iPad, Mac, and as an extension on the Chrome web store.
If you plan to use the notes app either Android or Windows, your answer ends here. Go with Microsoft OneNote.
Get OneNote for MacGet Bear Notes for MacAlso on Guiding Tech
Apple Notes vs Microsoft OneNote: Which App Wins
Read MoreUser Interface
If you have used Microsoft Office apps, then you would feel right at home with the OneNote. The major options, such as drawing, editing, and view, are tucked inside the ribbon at the top. The notebook, pages, and sections are on the left side.
Microsoft has stuck with the winning formula for UI and UX over the years. And it works well with the OneNote software. OneNote also supports the night theme, which I rarely use but might find useful in dark situations.
Bear Notes is known for its intuitive user interface. The app uses a slick-looking UI with notes and tags on the left sidebar. Using Bear Notes, you can easily witness the company’s close attention to the UI.
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Bear Notes also support multiple theming options. You can go to App Preference > Themes and choose from the dozens of available themes.
Notes Organization
This is one of the main differences between the two apps. Notes organization can be the deal-breaker for many users. Some may prefer OneNote’s Notebook style, while others might prefer the tags-based organization in Bear Notes.
Let’s start with OneNote first. Microsoft mimics the physical notebook style in the software. You can create an OneNote Notebook, add sections in it and further create pages to write notes.
Bear Notes doesn’t offer any Notebook-style organization. Instead, it relies on tags to quickly search through and differentiate notes in the app. So it's entirely your personal preference on the organization style you like.
Note Editing
Microsoft brings the familiar Word editing options to the OneNote with a couple of changes designed for a note-taking app.
With OneNote, you can change font, style, fonts, use different headings, choose from multiple color options, and even use various tags like Question, Remember, Important, To-Do, and more.
OneNote also lets you insert a table, files, images, audio recording, and even maths equation. You can integrate some built-in stickers too.
OneNote offers drawing capabilities. It’s mostly useful if your PC or tablet has Pen support. You can use Pen, Marker, and Highlighter, change the ink color and intensity and use the eraser to undo mistakes.
While OneNote throws every possible option at you for editing, Bear Notes smartly hides them to keep the note-taking area clean. When composing a note, you can tap on the little pen icon at the bottom to open the floating menu with editing options.
It covers the basics but lacks the rich-editing options offered by OneNote. The lfunctions include different headings, line separator, quote, code block, to-do, highlighter, file integration, and more.
For note details, you can tap on the info icon at the upper right corner, and Bear will display modification date, words, characters, read time, and paragraphs. I like how Bear Notes mentions keyboard shortcuts for editing options in the app.
Speaking of keyboard shortcuts, you should memorize OneNote keyboard shortcuts to fly through the app and editing options.
Also on Guiding Tech
Top 12 OneNote Tips and Tricks to Use It Like a Pro
Read MoreNote Sharing and Syncing
OneNote syncs all the created notebooks and data to Microsoft’s OneDrive platform. Bear Notes uses Apple’s iCloud storage to keep the data in sync.
Bear Notes allows you to share the note in PDF, HTML, DOCX, and JPG format. Just tap on the info button at the top and choose the file type to share the note. Unfortunately, you can’t invite others to make changes to the note.
OneNote lets you share an entire Notebook with others. You can use the invite link and ask others to collaborate with you on the notebook. Sadly, you can’t share a section of the notebook separately. However, you can share a page of a section as PDF.
A Word on Mobile Apps
![What What](/uploads/1/2/6/4/126441705/383689100.jpg)
Bear Notes is only available on the iOS platform and that's why we will talk about app experience on the iPhone. OneNote sticks with the same note organization as the desktop. Open Notebook, go to the section, and start filling-up pages. I like how Microsoft has integrated Sticky Notes add-on in the OneNote mobile app. The search function also works as expected.
Bear Notes iOS app is a joy to use. It feels and looks more polished and responsive than OneNote. You can find the same editing options as well as theming choices.
Price
OneNote is free but has a catch. It uses the OneDrive service to store notes and data. OneDrive only offers 5GB of free space. After that, you need to pay for the additional OneDrive storage to keep using OneNote.
Bear Notes work on a monthly subscription. It costs $1.5 per month to use. Bear Notes does offer a free trial to test out the service.
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Both OneNote and Bear Notes are excellent note-taking apps. If you want something free and works across all platforms, then go with OneNote. Bear Notes offer better UI, robust organization with tags, and a bunch of theme options to spice up the software experience. As for now, I’m sliding with OneNote and I will keep a close eye on Bear Notes for their swift development process.
Next up:Apple Notes is the default choice for iPhone users. Read its comparison with Bear notes to choose a better app for you.
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Brian Eno composed the old and popular Microsoft Sound.