OmniOutliner Pro App Reviews

I know of no better tool for writing. From research, assembly, resequencing, formatting to final publication, look no further. I have abandoned any and all “word processors” in favor of this app. We would all be much better off if the ancient, paper constrained, linear document concept were totally replaced by outlining and this is “best of breed”. The catch phrase: “The index is the document and the document is the index.” applies here. Now, if HTML5 would only support OPML cross platform blogs and websites, I would be in heaven. All blogs and websites would do well to use this as a simple, consistent means of navigation, providing optimum use of screen space and minimizing the need for links and scrolling.

I’ve used Omni Outliner for several years, and continue to use it frequently. Outliner Pro is an excellent brainstorming tool, and my only real complaint is that, as Dan in Denver said, sometimes it’s hard to read the small fonts as you burrow down into a convoluted outline. I agree also that a zoom function would be nice. In the past I’ve gotten distracted by trying to redefine styles to overcome illegibility, but that is a diversion and time waster that a zoom feature would do away with. Nonetheless, OO is an excellent tool in the main and I use it almost daily. I’ve created scores of outlines, and OO is one of my primary “thinking” tools. It provides capabilities and features that are far beyond my simple needs, but I’m glad they’re there in case I ever need them. Finally, I have a lot of respect for the guys at the Omni Group… they’ve released a lot of quality Mac products over the years, and they’ve always been helpful and courteous when I’ve contacted them for assistance. Recommeneded.

This is one of those applications that you may not think you need, or will use, until you dig into it and try it. But, when you do, you realize that it’s a superlative way to do many different kinds of things you may want to do with text. The app is fairly intuitive, but in order to get the most out of it you will want to use the included help and tutorial. Essentially, Omni Outliner permits you to create virtually any kind of document with text and numbers, and customize it to an extreme degree. The uses range from simple note taking to creative writing, from lists to inventories, from invoices to journal entries — and pretty much anything else you would want to do with text. The customization options through the styles included in the application are exceptionally robust and powerful, and give you an extraordinary amount of easily accessible control over the look and feel of each document you create. I can’t recommend this application highly enough. It is expensive, but it is one application on the App Store that is worth the price of admission. If you spend any significant amount of time creating documents with text, you really need to check out this application!

This is the third OmniGroup app I have bought, and I’m finding that these guys have made a business of making their apps indispensable. OmniOutliner Pro lets you brainstorm quickly, and then quantify your brain-storming session. Want to noodle through a project plan and then sum up some estimates? No problem, I did that yesterday. Need to make a drop-down list to track the status of that really big project you’re designing and planning? That’s also rather easy.

I have spent 100’s and mabye 1000’s of hours in this program. I have used it for years. It has tons of strengths but a couple of horrible flaws. PRINTING is horrible. Unless you consider half of one line printing on page 2 and half of one line printing on page 3 acceptable. At least in the pro version you can insert manual page breaks at section headings, but sometimes it still ignores these. SHARING is pretty horrible too. It has no PDF export, so you are left to printing to PDF with the flaws above. Export to HTML is buggy and has been for years and years. They blame this on the browser, but I am a web developer and we build outlines in browsers that collapse and expand all the time, so the bug is in the OmniOutliner HTML. So this makes it very difficult to share you wonderful outline with others. Other drawbacks is the style interface.. it is pretty clunky and buggy if you use it a lot. But at least it has one. Now I am still giving it three stars. If it has a decent PDF export it would be right back to 5 stars. But not being able to easily share my work with people who don’t have the program is a HUGE drawback. It also needs a word count feature, it has been on the request list for years. I really hoping a public post like this will finally get someone’s attention over at Omni so they will fix these issues.

just updated to 4.4. had to hold shift while launching app - it was immediately crashing at first. but now seems to be working fine… in general have loved using this app in the past.

Dont buy this product, it is high probabilty that you will be dissapointed. You can barely import anything. You need to work from scratch to prepare anything. I am not bias with the product, I like Omni products and OmniGraffle is one of the best applications I am using. However, just avoid omnioutliner.