Bridge players are often many other things, too.
For any bridge players who happen to write about bridge (or anything else), there are some great tools out there which can make the job of writing and editing a whole lot easier.
Here are some of the best ones, including everything from bridge term resources through to file converters that bridge writers might find useful.
The Bridge Writing Style Guide
Bridge writing, especially of the technical type, has a lot of nuances that you wouldn’t see writing about any other topics. This includes hand diagrams, suit symbols and other things.
The Bridge Writing Style Guide from RPBridge is one of the most useful guides out there regarding the specifics of bridge writing. Anyone interested in writing about bridge should start here to make sure they get things like formatting right the first time. I’ve referred back to it many times, and so should you.
For hand diagrams, use the BBO Handviewer to put them together.
This handy tool available at the above link contains everything you need to create bridge hand diagrams for your website, blog post or page.
The Bridge World’s Official Bridge Dictionary
Anyone can get stuck on the definition of a bridge term (or just what something might be called) once in a while. Here’s the official Bridge Dictionary from The Bridge World, with most common bridge terms and a few uncommon ones listed by the letter.
Conventions can be complicated.
For bridge writers, they can be essential.
BridgeBuff.com lists one of the most comprehensive dictionaries of different bridge conventions anywhere online. If you’re looking to track down a specific one, there’s no better place to go than right here.
Most writers out there would be surprised at how many repetitive words and redundant sentences sneaks into their work.
Here’s a great online tool that identifies any duplications and/or common cliché’s in sections of writing.
It’s a great algorithm-based time-saver.
File formats can present a nightmare for any freelancer these days.
Online-Convert is a free online converter tool that can turn most formats into other ones. It’s particularly great when used for document conversion, and it can be a huge help when working on the move.
Grammarly is one of the most powerful spelling and grammar-checking tools out there. It’s also free and pretty on-target, even when it comes to analyzing things like overused words.
A lot of what writing is involves finding different, often more creative ways to say the same thing.
For this, there’s the old-school dictionary route, but there are also faster (and lighter) online tools for it.
If you’re stuck trying to find the right word or an equivalent, try Synonym-Finder.
Here’s the link to the online, updated version of the Oxford English Dictionary: Again, it’s great for working on the move – and looking up quick definitions for anything online.