Tools and tasks

For most people and situations, office suites are the essential tools for creating content. The most common of these is Office 365, which can function as an online application for sharing and collaboration or a classic installed tool. Combining the benefits of both concepts can be seen as a bridge between traditional software and the cloud. Of the installed packages, it is necessary to mention LibreOffice and Apple products, such as iWork. Of the online tools, Google Suite or its alternatives such as Zoho Office, offer exciting possibilities for collaboration and sharing.      

For word processors, minimalist tools are designed primarily for systematic writing, such as Write! App, ZenPen or iA Writer. The advantage is that one can focus only on the text and is not distracted by an unnecessarily extensive menu. Also, the overall design is usually more minimalist and more functional. On the contrary, it is possible to use Scrivener or Bibisco for more significant and more structured texts. Although they are primarily intended for writing prose, they can have a much more versatile use.     

In the case of a spreadsheet, either application for statistical data processing such as TIBCO Data Science or tools for data visualization and graphing such as QtiPlot, SciDAVis, etc., are offered. More demanding users can then use the R or Gnu Octave options for more complex tasks.       

A specific item is the graphics rate, which we strongly recommend not leaving to a word processor. In addition to expensive and paid tools such as Adobe inDesign, you can use Lucidpress. For simple typesetting of a poster or, for example, a banner on a social network, an ordinary Canva will often suffice. One can work with vector graphics, for instance, in Inkscape.      

For photo editing, it is again possible to reach for paid applications such as Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. Still, there are also simpler and cheaper variants - from robust ones such as Darkroom or the Czech Zoner Photo Studio to Pixlr on mobile phones or the web. Krita, or GIMP or Paint.Net, is also suitable for some tasks.

Another exciting area is the creation of websites, either for personal use or for a project. One of the simplest (and most practical) tools is certainly WordPress (or WordPress on your own domain). New versions of Google Sites work very nicely, or one can use the Czech Webnode or foreign Weebly and Wix.       

If you want to have a blog, there is still a reasonably wide range of services that provide it. In addition to the already mentioned WordPress, it offers an aesthetically very nice Tumblr. For fans of classic services, it will be appropriate to use Blogger. Whereas, Ghost or Medium generally offer a somewhat more modern approach to blogging or publishing. In general, it is possible to see a strong inclination towards social interactions between the reader and the author or emphasize building relationships between individual authors.     

In programming, it is understandable that one will choose the appropriate development environment for one's favorite language - whether it is Eclipse or NetBeans or some specialized other development platforms. It is convenient to use documentation, sharing, or versioning services such as GitHub during development.