Freeware Outliner for Authors: TextTree 1.3

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

(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.

Comments (19 Responses)

December 7th, 2009 DarcKnyt

This!
Freakin’!
ROCKS!

LOVE this program! Thank you Bryce!!

December 7th, 2009 Vanessa (DarcsFalcon)

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

And for the record, TextTree rocks.

December 7th, 2009 Bryce Beattie

Thanks, you guys.

December 19th, 2009 Roslyn Schleker

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

Thanks!

December 19th, 2009 Bryce Beattie

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

January 31st, 2010 Joanie Raisovich

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

February 8th, 2010 Flynt

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.

February 18th, 2010 Lou Prado

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.

March 13th, 2010 Horror Reviews

Good program, will give it a look tomorrow

April 1st, 2010 Alex

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!

April 27th, 2010 windows tricks

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.

May 28th, 2010 pingback

Snowflaky « Notebook Pages

October 7th, 2010 1st birthday dress

Thanks, specially to release it as freeware. It’s working fine in WinXP and Win7, but I’m not able to use it in Win2008 Server, it just crashes, weird, don’t know why….

March 25th, 2011 Noah L

I used Text Tree to outline my own zombie horror novella and I have to say that it was a big help. Now I’m using it for the sequel

August 21st, 2011 Toumas Katz

Having always been a pen and paper outliner i have to say a huge thankyou for Text Tree not only has it saved several reams of paper but also shaved at least two months of my normal development time for a novel. Thank you

August 22nd, 2011 Bryce Beattie

Glad you find it helpful!

September 1st, 2011 Margo

I downloaded it a while ago, but didn’t realize the template did not work. And I thought I saved the work I created but it was gone when I opened it back up. How do I register it so I can use the templates/

October 11th, 2011 William

That’s a super cool move to release it as freeware, your helping people from all over the world get that one step closer to releasing they’re novel.

This is an awesome piece of software and something that I will definitely be implementing in my writing and meeting plans.

December 30th, 2011 pingback

Arriving at My Perfect Writing Tools « Quirk

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... by Bryce Beattie