[Hi I'm Ben]

TextEdit isn't sufficient enough. Appleworks is no better, is there a nice word processing program out there that people know of. I browsed through Versiontracker but I didn't come up with anything special.

I'm not looking for only free programs, I wouldn't mind paying if it ran better or nicer.

Please don't use this thread to tell me how well Word runs on your Mac because I don't care.

[D'Espice]

Mellel, OpenOffice or NeoOffice/J (free), NisusWriter Express, AbiWord (free) and lots more. This here might actually help you.

[Millennium]

You say that TextEdit isn't enough. What is it that you need to do? This is an honest question; there are actually quite a few alternatives out there, and we can use your answer here to figure out what may best suit your needs. Myself, I'm a recent switcher from AppleWorks to Nisus Writer Express, and I like it a lot, but it may not be what you're looking for.

[Mithras]

1. AbiWord. Free. Pretty good Word compatibility.
2. Nisus Writer Express. $60. Clean, crisp, style-based. Many swear by it.
3. Mellel. $40. Haven't used it much, but I gather the interface is well-liked.
4. NeoOffice/J. Free. Yucky interface, but lots of features.

[midwinter]

I'm working on switching as much as I can to Nisus Writer Express. It's in the midst of some growing pains, but it's nice and neat and clean and stays out of my way.

Aside: I'm trying to talk the Nisus folks into doing public beta threads here like the Omni folks do.

[Chuckit]

I'm not going to use this thread to tell you how well Word runs on my Mac, but I will tell you that none of the alternatives seem to be quite on par with it from what I've seen. Just FYI.

I use Abiword myself, but in my opinion, there is no such thing as a full-fledged Word substitute. Abiword just happens to be good enough for what I need it to do.

[Sharky K.]

Minimum functions for a word processor application for me:

• Auto Index
• List functions
• Good Table support
• Footer/header support
• Style and Chapter support (including page brake before, handy for heading 1)
• Basic layout support
• Good image support

[D'Espice]

I'm just curious, but in what ways did AppleWorks not meet your requirements? I took a look at it and the only thing that seems to be missing is the background spellchecker Word has had since like 1995.

[pliny]

Originally posted by Hi I'm Ben:

I'm not looking for only free programs, I wouldn't mind paying if it ran better or nicer.

what's your beef with word?

[D'Espice]

Originally posted by pliny:
what's your beef with word?

Probably too expensive. Which is a good point.

[pliny]

hmm, yeah.

didn't know about abiword, thanks for posting that whoever did. that seems like a pretty interesting program esp since it's cross platform.

[Chuckit]

If you download AbiWord, don't get the build on their download page, as that one's a piece of ****. Get the latest off their FTP server and you'll be much happier.

[pliny]

There's also MarinerWrite, by Marinersoft, a very good word processor.

[Hi I'm Ben]

My beef with word is that it feels sluggish. For what it does, it shouldn't be. On a PC Word is great.
I just wanted to try out the alternatives because i'm not thrilled with it and sometimes there could be better things I don't know about. I didn't use the search option because new things come out all the time. Thanks for everyone's input.

[D'Espice]

Have you tried disabling the Live Word Count and the background Grammar check? Makes Word (both v. X and 2004) a lot faster

[brettcamp]

This question was addressed last week in this thread . Here's a recent article that sketchily covers most of the major Word alternatives.

I'm finding that I hardly ever use Word's layout and other functions, as I haven't printed much of what I write in years (and I'm a journalist!), merely sent everything via email. Remember that you can now get some of the functions of Word in any OSX app via OSX services and contextual menus, things like spellchecking, word count and thesaurus. Which means it's possible to use some of the more specialized apps like Zwrite or CopyWrite, or even simpler substitutes like TextEdit (which seems to be getting more like a word processor with each version of OSX), and still have many of Word's most used functions.

Even though all the major alternatives, inluding TextEdit and Appleworks, can read and write Word files, you might also change the default save format on your WP, whatever it is, to rtf, which seems to be becoming a near universal standard. That way you can use your docs with any major word processor, and you won't get locked into a proprietary format.

Personally, I've found Mellel to be the best Word replacement (it's superior in many ways and quite affordable) for my needs, but am probably going to keep muddling through with AppleWorks for awhile, since I already have it and Word. I can use Word for final processing if necessary. I just don't want to keep using it for actual writing due to sluggishness, crashes, etc.

[Old Toad]

Originally posted by D'Espice:
Probably too expensive. Which is a good point.

If you're a student you can get it pretty reasonable.

[midwinter]

Originally posted by brettcamp:
Personally, I've found Mellel to be the best Word replacement (it's superior in many ways and quite affordable) for my needs,

I just can't do Mellel. That brushed-metal-iTunes thing is just fugly.

[Mr Heliums]

Originally posted by pliny:
what's your beef with word?

Could be because cutting and pasting in Word can reformat paragraphs seemingly at random, or that it insists on adding bullet points where you don't want them? Or maybe it's that annoying Helper icon that gets in the way. It's the whole underlying principle that it knows better than I do that I find annoying, particularly in something as simple as a word processor.

Or it could be that the text it creates simply doesn't look as good as TextEdit, or Mellel, or Nisus Writer Express? Or that its word count feature is flaky or that it's slow?

Word really is a vile program when you consider it's had 20 years to get it right. It peaked more than a decade ago. Excel, on the other hand, is an excellent program.

[D'Espice]

Originally posted by Old Toad:
If you're a student you can get it pretty reasonable.

True but the question remains if one really needs to spend 150 bucks on something you can have either for free or for way less than that

[Love Calm Quiet]

I need Word mostly for the outlining features - and ease of switching from outline to full text formats.

Has anyone used the 3.0 Omni Outliner with it's new in-line text to be able to evaluate if it is a workable item to:

1) Outline your paper
2) Fill in the text.
3) Export to a word doc (so I can email it to the "Word World")

???

If so, I'd consider getting OO just to be able to avoid sludging and bloating around in Word for most of my writing work.

[Lee33]

Try this. I haven't used it but it looks great and it's free. Here

[wataru]

Originally posted by Lee33:
Try this. I haven't used it but it looks great and it's free. Here

That was already mentioned, and the preferred implementation of it for Mac OS X is NeoOffice/J.

[Lee33]

Oops. Sorry. I read through the previous posts quickly and must have missed it.

[Amorya]

Learn LaTeX. You'll never look back


Amorya

[Turias]

Originally posted by Amorya:
Learn LaTeX. You'll never look back


Amorya

While it's not the easiest thing in the world, I agree.

It definitely makes the best looking documents I have seen.