[simon1]

Looking at getting a word processor and was either going to get appleworks or MS office (student edition).
Which one is better?.

[pete]

Try Mellel. I've used word and appleworks and both are fine for word processing - word being much more advanced with more features. BUT, if you just need word processing ability and not perfect MS compatibility, go try Mellel at http://www.redlers.com/. I've been trying it out the past few weeks and I've been extremely satisfied with it. The upcoming version will, according to the publishers, also feature more complete word compatibility.

Give it a try! If not for you, I'd still go with word over appleworks anyday simply because it's a more developed product.

[OreoCookie]

Three other pieces of software.

Ragtime, www.ragtime.de, which is for free for private use: a mix of DTP and word processor, really mature (as it was developer no. 3 for the orignal Macintosh!).

Papyrus, http://www.rom-logicware.com. Also in the market for a long time. The most respected German news magazine gave it its top marks in all categories: speed, stability, as well as functions. Word, for instance, got only average, average, good, instead of excellent, excellent, excellent.

Last, but not least, Nisus Writer Express. It's the only Cocoa word processor that I know of.

All of the above are about as expensive as AppleWorks and way cheaper than M$ Office.

[NeXTLoop]

Another options is NeoOffice/J. It's a Java version of OpenOffice, the open-source alternative to M$ Office. It's as compatible as you can get without actually having office. It has virtually the exact same feature set as Office. And while it's not as good looking, it runs well.

And best of all... it's free.

Here's the link...

[bergy]

Originally posted by simon1:
Looking at getting a word processor and was either going to get appleworks or MS office (student edition).
Which one is better?.

If you are sharing and emailing files with pc users, go with Word for sure. If you want Appleworks strictly for your own use its great.
Easier than Word. However, its good to learn Word as it's the defacto standard word processor in the world whether we like it or not. Many jobs require a working knowledge of Word.

[juanvaldes]

I would advise against Appleworks as it has not been updated in 2 or 3 years and it is sorely lacking IMO.

I use textedit over Appleworks.

[Cadaver]

Given the choice, I'd definitely go with the MS Office Student Edition. If you are at a college/university, check with the campus computer store. Often you can find Office X for even less than the Student Edition price.
I'm on faculty at the University of Michigan, and I bought Office X for $12

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by Cadaver:
Given the choice, I'd definitely go with the MS Office Student Edition. If you are at a college/university, check with the campus computer store. Often you can find Office X for even less than the Student Edition price.
I'm on faculty at the University of Michigan, and I bought Office X for $12

I personally don't like it too much. It still doesn't offer support for long filenames (you cannot save it with longer filenames) -- a really turndown for me.

There are faster and cheaper alternatives -- we have offered a couple for free. I don't see any reason why you shouldn't check out those free alternatives before you put down money.

[Cadaver]

Wow... the java version of NeoOffice just got cut & paste working.

At least MS Office is a mature package. It has its faults, but its a whole heck of a lot more stable and it works.

[Keiretsu]

Originally posted by simon1:
Looking at getting a word processor and was either going to get appleworks or MS office (student edition).
Which one is better?.

If you are entitled to student pricing Office is a no brainer, just get it and use it (and be sure to load all the updates ... sorry that 80+ MB)

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by Cadaver:
Wow... the java version of NeoOffice just got cut & paste working.

At least MS Office is a mature package. It has its faults, but its a whole heck of a lot more stable and it works.

There are a lot more options than this. Ragtime is absolutely mature and stable, and even usable on a bondi blue iMac with 96 Megs running Jaguar. Plus it's free!

Really, this is ridiculous. There are other options that you should check first.

[cpac]

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
Really, this is ridiculous. There are other options that you should check first.

not necessarily.

As the first person suggesting buying Office mentioned: it all depends what you need to do.

If you need to be able to exchange documents with PC using people, you *need* to buy Office.

There are other options out there if all you're doing is writing papers and printing them out to turn in, but most of the other options have one of 3 major faults:

(1) X11 or java or some other thing that makes them "hackish" - non-conforming to Aqua standards, etc. This includes AppleWorks, OpenOffice, etc. (Using OpenOffice in X11 is no better, and probably a worse experience than just using Office on a Windows machine).

(2) Immature - Mellel, Nisus Writer Express, etc. fall into this category - they show promise, but they aren't there yet (whether because they lack tables, footnotes, page numbering, or whatever, they just aren't feature complete yet).

(3) Lack of Office compatibility. Whatever you choose to use, most other people will continue to use Office and so being able to open/read/modify/save as Word format documents is an important thing to be able to do. (OpenOffice and Appleworks are probably close to the best in this category).

So answer? Take advantage of the student pricing and get Office. You may even qualify for a free upgrade when the next version comes out this summer.

[pete]

Hmm, I'm thinking more about this now and I might have to agree with the others who tell you to go with Word. It's a difficult choice when you find a software that works as you work but lacks the ability to interact with people who you work with. And it's a nuisance! I've been trying Mellel, but unless they really introduce a method for saving in .doc format without lots of compatibility issues, I'm going to be forced to use Word again.

it's just not worth the hassle of dealing with people unable to read your work (I'm an academic), not to mention that it doesn't look professional to send people incompatible files. The sad thing is that Mellel suits me so much better than word because of its ability to handle Chinese characters without any of the bugs word exhibits. It also has a nicer, cleaner interface, is snappy, handles footnotes better, and just works the way I expect it to work. Always. That's nice!

But, again, word compatibility really is a must. Go with word if you get a good deal and then try out the other ones if you feel word is not for you. Don't get me wrong, word has pretty much anything you'll ever need in word processing - it's the heaviness, bugs and slowness that make me want out.

[JKT]

Originally posted by pete:
Hmm, I'm thinking more about this now and I might have to agree with the others who tell you to go with Word. It's a difficult choice when you find a software that works as you work but lacks the ability to interact with people who you work with. And it's a nuisance! I've been trying Mellel, but unless they really introduce a method for saving in .doc format without lots of compatibility issues, I'm going to be forced to use Word again.

it's just not worth the hassle of dealing with people unable to read your work (I'm an academic), not to mention that it doesn't look professional to send people incompatible files. <snip>

Um, but if people are only reading your work, then any WP app is suitable - just print it to PDF. That way, you have 100% compatibility with everyone on every platform, not just those that have Word.

If you need to share files that are being modified by others, then there are only two real options - Office (near 100% compatibility but NOT perfect) or OpenOffice.org/NeoOffice (very good compatibility of about 90% but NOT perfect).

At present, I'd recommend choosing OOo (or perhaps NeoOffice/J) if you don't need the near 100% compatibility that Office v.X offers, because:

1. Office v.X has some really serious usability flaws (although, this is also the case for OOo and NeoJ, btw - however, the flaws are different so it depends on whether you can get by with them or not... v.X's are much more annoying IMO - lack of >31 character filename support - WTF?!).
2. Office 2004 (right name??) is due to be released at some point this year, which one would hope would solve the bigger issues that Office v.X has, so is it cost effective to buy v.X now?
3. OOo/NeoJ are free/the cost of a download, so why not start with them first?

If you find that OOo/NeoJ don't suit your requirements or don't suit your UI aesthetics, you can always buy Office later.

Regardless of all that, AppleWorks simply isn't worth the money right now.

[-Q-]

Originally posted by JKT:
Um, but if people are only reading your work, then any WP app is suitable - just print it to PDF. That way, you have 100% compatibility with everyone on every platform, not just those that have Word.

The market penetration for Word/Office is greater than the penetration for Windows. You have a very good chance of having the recipients of your docs be able to open them. And as people migrate to Panther, more and more will be able to open word docs.

1. Office v.X has some really serious usability flaws (although, this is also the case for OOo and NeoJ, btw - however, the flaws are different so it depends on whether you can get by with them or not... v.X's are much more annoying IMO - lack of >31 character filename support - WTF?!).

I don't know - I find the interface of OOo downright annoying. And interface is key for me. At least office tried to get it close to Aqua.

But I have to agree: the 31 character thing is hella stupid.

2. Office 2004 (right name??) is due to be released at some point this year, which one would hope would solve the bigger issues that Office v.X has, so is it cost effective to buy v.X now?

If it can be had for $12 like one poster could get it, hell yes. I'd give up pizza and a pitcher one week to get it.

3. OOo/NeoJ are free/the cost of a download, so why not start with them first?

While I'd generally agree with this, I'd say needs should dictate over giving something a go b/c it's free. If the poster finds he needs to exchange office docs, probably best to go with office. And if you use pivot tables at all, go with Office. OOo doesn't support them at all.

Regardless of all that, AppleWorks simply isn't worth the money right now.

Agreed. If it didn't come free with your mac, it's not worth it.

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by -Q-:
The market penetration for Word/Office is greater than the penetration for Windows. You have a very good chance of having the recipients of your docs be able to open them. And as people migrate to Panther, more and more will be able to open word docs.



I don't know - I find the interface of OOo downright annoying. And interface is key for me. At least office tried to get it close to Aqua.

But I have to agree: the 31 character thing is hella stupid.



If it can be had for $12 like one poster could get it, hell yes. I'd give up pizza and a pitcher one week to get it.



While I'd generally agree with this, I'd say needs should dictate over giving something a go b/c it's free. If the poster finds he needs to exchange office docs, probably best to go with office. And if you use pivot tables at all, go with Office. OOo doesn't support them at all.




Agreed. If it didn't come free with your mac, it's not worth it.

Well, there's still RagTime which has quite good import/export options for word docs.

[tdvorak]

While I have Ragtime and AW, I still USE Word. It seems to do what I want and with predictable results.

I find more and more though that I just pop into TextEdit, it saves as Word files and opens quickly too.

[Eug Wanker]

Office.

If you want to communicate easily with the rest of the world, everything else is simply a waste of time.