Index Card is created by DenVog. It provides two key views: index cards (natch) and outline view. This is not a dedicated outliner, so it only has one level (no indents, numbering, etc.) to the outline view. One great feature to this program is you can easily switch back and forth between index card view and outline view—this has many positive advantages if you are starting to write about something.
The final product in Index Card is an RTF (rich text format) file that can be opened by any word processor. You can also export in its native "index card" format if you wish to share a project with another person using an iPad. Like several other programs these days it integrates with Dropbox for syncing your work.
Index Card is more of a writing program (relative to CarbonFin Outliner), but its ability to change structure is still one of its most important features. As with physical index cards, on your iPad screen you can move around your virtual index cards as much as you want. In addition, you can "label" your index cards (using one of eight colors). In turn this makes is easy to create added structure to your project. The combination of moving around index cards, plus using labels, can be very powerful and intuitive for creating a structure to a new writing project.
As with typical note cards, each card has a title, but also you can write content on the card. This content need not be limited to the size of the card. The titles of cards get exported as "headers" in an RTF file, and the notes get exported as text under a specific header. The latest version of Index Cards adds the ability to write "secret" notes on the back of the card. In turn these secret notes on the back of a card do not get exported with the final RTF document.
The developer of Index Card is working with the developer of Scrivener to develop even better integration between these two programs. I don't know what form this integration will take, but for Scrivener users this is great news.
At $2.99, Index Card is a very affordable and handy writing app for the iPad. It's great for developing the initial structure for a new document (via cards that get turned into headers) as well as the initial writing that can easily be done in a chunked manner (i.e. card-specific associated text). And you can share the results of your work easily with other people, or regular computer programs, through the RTF export option. This is a nicely designed app that works smoothly, and the developer seems to be constantly working on new upgrades. A great tool to have on your iPad. Check it all out at:
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