Freeware Outliner for Authors: TextTree 1.3

Posted in Writing by Bryce Beattie

Merry Christmas, everybody. Several years ago I wrote a little outliner program to make following Randy Ingermanson’s “Snowflake Method” of writing a novel easier. I put it up for sale and have been selling a copy or two here and there ever since. As it ends up, somewhere in the last two computer crashes I’ve lost the code for the latest version. And it doesn’t look like I’ll be returning to the idea anytime soon.

So I’ve decided to release it as freeware. Thanks to all of you who have supported TextTree in the past.

Download

Text Tree Windows Installer (1.5 MB)

Screen Shots

screen1 screen2

(click for larger)

Program Description

Text Tree is an outline based writer’s tool.  It is designed make structured, understandable documents easily and quickly.  Text Tree has been found useful for story writing, FAQ creation, novel planning, manual writing, software support, biographies, and lesson planning.

What really sets Text Tree apart from other outliners is its export abilities. In other outliners, you make a outline of everything, then you have to cut and paste or go node by node to get your information out. Text Tree allows you to quickly export all or part of the information in your outline. For example, if you are organizing information to be displayed on the web, Text Tree can generate an html file with a table of contents to your information.  You can see an example of raw html output from Text Tree in the Text Tree Manual.

For novel writing, lesson planning, or biographical work, the text file exports are more useful.  In fact, Text Tree was originally written so that I could have a tool that would help me follow the snowflake process of writing a novel. If you are unfamiliar with the snowflake method, it is a process in which you distill your project to a single idea, then expand the parts of that idea, and then expand those parts, etc. until you get to the nitty-gritty details.  You then use the nitty-gritty details to write your work.  Text Tree help you expand those ideas in an outline, then allows you to export all that information, or just those nitty-gritty details.  For more information on how to follow the snowflake method with Text Tree, please watch the flash tutorial.

Text Tree also can import/export files from other outliners, including noterrific and Treepad lite.

Requirements

You need at least Windows XP with Java installed.

Java be obtained here for free.

posted on December 7th, 2009

12 Responses to “Freeware Outliner for Authors: TextTree 1.3”

  1. DarcKnyt, on December 7th, 2009 at 4:53 pm Said:

    This!
    Freakin’!
    ROCKS!

    LOVE this program! Thank you Bryce!!

  2. Vanessa (DarcsFalcon), on December 7th, 2009 at 8:04 pm Said:

    I think it’s awesome that you’re doing this!

    And for the record, TextTree rocks. :)

  3. Bryce Beattie, on December 7th, 2009 at 10:10 pm Said:

    Thanks, you guys.

  4. Roslyn Schleker, on December 19th, 2009 at 9:34 am Said:

    I am very interested in this download, do you think it will work ok on Windows 7, 64 bit?

    Thanks!

  5. Bryce Beattie, on December 19th, 2009 at 5:55 pm Said:

    I assume that it will. If you give it a try, please let me know if it works.

  6. Joanie Raisovich, on January 31st, 2010 at 4:25 pm Said:

    The link to the flash tutorial for using it with the snowflake method is broken.

  7. Flynt, on February 8th, 2010 at 11:09 pm Said:

    Thank you for this program.

    This is exactly what I’ve been looking for to help keep track of things that was slowly but surely being spread across 16 different Word documents.

  8. Lou Prado, on February 18th, 2010 at 10:39 am Said:

    Thank you for this fantastic editor. It helps me manage my random thoughts like nothing else. I am actually using it to write a software specification. I use this tool every day and want to show my appreciation. Please e-mail me your mailing address and I’ll send you an amazon gift certificate.

  9. Horror Reviews, on March 13th, 2010 at 7:19 pm Said:

    Good program, will give it a look tomorrow :)

  10. Alex, on April 1st, 2010 at 12:12 pm Said:

    I’ve been looking for a piece of software that will give the flexibility of TextTree for a very long time. Back in 1989 there was a piece of software called ‘Framework’ (not Microsoft!) that ran under DOS which was provided free by the Open University which provided a similar flixible way of putting ideas down. I’ve been looking for something similar off and on for years. I just loaded TextTree on my laptop running windows 7. I’m very happy to have discovered your web site – thank you!

  11. windows tricks, on April 27th, 2010 at 11:16 pm Said:

    Mmm it seems to work in Windows 7 as well. I activated the Windows 7 compatibility mode tobe sure not to incurr in any issue.

  12. Snowflaky « Notebook Pages, on May 28th, 2010 at 4:39 pm Said:

    [...] with Text Tree and I have to say, I endorse this stuff. It’s fun, and I ended up writing some of the most [...]

Leave a Reply

© 2010 Baby Katie Media, LLC
Custom wp design by Baby Katie Media | resources | Alien Fiction | Zombie Book

Action Adventure Fiction and Other Stuff from Bryce Beattie