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Survey: Back to School Writing Tools for Mac

Survey: Back to School Writing Tools for Mac

by , 4:10 PM EDT, September 2nd, 2008

For those headed back to school, there are some great free and commercial word processors for the Mac, in addition to the standard Microsoft Word, according to The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tuesday.

In part I of the review, Brett Terpstra focused on just word processing applications -- those applications that target formatting and page layout -- as opposed to information organization or specialized text editing apps.

Free word processors include:

  • Bean
  • NeoOffice
  • OpenOffice

Commercial word processors include:

  • Schreiben
  • Mellel
  • Nisus Writer Express
  • Nisus Writer Pro
  • Pages

The article isn't an in-depth review of these applications, but rather serves to introduce the reader to word processing applications, other than MS Word, that may suit the Mac user's budget, needs and style. Links to all mentioned applications are included.

In the course of examining these word processors as potential replacements for Word, users should make sure that the candidate word processor can both export to and import from MS Word with imbedded graphics intact and properly formatted. Otherwise, one could end up spending unnecessary time converting between file formats. Note also that every Mac application, via the print menu, can write any document out as a PDF file, and if that's an acceptable target and delivery format, that can make these word processors handy and inexpensive alternatives to MS Word -- that is, if they can do the intended job.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:iJack Posts: 313 Joined: 13 Jun 2001
Subject: Mini Review

I recently spent about four days looking at all the available alternatives to MS Office. I had two rigid(ish) requirements: it must be able to open MS generated documents, and they had to look "Mac-like," with tool bars and menus in some familiar and convenient arrangement. Here's what I ended up getting (and even paying for). All of these opened MS Office docs without a qualm.

- Bean
Wonderful, quick, good looking, Java-based app, and completely free. I use it for 75% of all of my word-processing. The author, James Hoover is very responsive to any problems and features suggestions. He even put my suggestion in for the next, but one release.
http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html Free

- Nisus Writer Express
Super, clean, with lot's of formatting features, but not so many as to overwhelm the user. I love it. $45
http://www.nisus.com/Express/

- Tables
Ah, yes. What to do for spreadsheets? Check this one out. It doesn't disappoint. $46
http://www.x-tables.eu/more/overview.html

Of course, a few days after I bought my new "office suite," I read an announcement (right here on TMO, I think) that Sun Microsystems had released a Beta of Star Office for Mac. I downloaded it and was wowed by it. I don't know if I would have bought it rather than Nisus Writer Express and Tables, but I might well have, and once it's out of Beta, I might still. It is a really handsome piece of software. $70 when released. The fully functional Beta here:
https://cds.sun.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/WFS/CDS-CDS_SMI-Site/en_US/-/USD/ViewProductDetail-Start?ProductRef=SO9-BETA-MP-G-F@CDS-CDS_SMI

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