Long-form editor

A long-form editor is a writing space for articles, guides, reports and landing pages, as opposed to short posts or ad copy. It usually includes an outline, headings, sections that can be drafted or rewritten one at a time, and a view of the whole document. Anyword, Copy.ai, Frase, Jasper, SurferSEO and Writesonic are listed as having it.

Short-copy tools lose the thread across a long text, and drafts tend to repeat themselves or drift from the point. A proper editor makes it easier to keep a structure, work on one section at a time and hand a finished document to a colleague. You need it if you publish blog posts, guides or white papers. You do not need it if you only write social posts or short ads.

• Test a complete article of the length you normally publish, and see whether the tool holds the structure together.
• Check whether you can start from an outline and regenerate one section without redoing the rest.
• Ask how drafts and versions are saved and whether they can be exported.
• See whether comments or sharing are available when someone else must review the draft.