Wordy Macs

Pages - part of Apple's iWork suite of applications. Photo / Apple Inc

There's a misconception out there amongst some Windows' users that for Macs, there's a paucity of software available. This isn't exactly true - not even for word processors, despite people thinking there's 'only Microsoft Word'.

Still, Word is a good measure. There are several camps - text editors that don't even begin to match Microsoft Word, others that do, and others still that either have a completely individual take on word processing or that add page layout features, most notably Apple's Pages, and actually even Microsoft Word:Mac itself in the last two versions.

Here's a round up of some - almost all have trials you can download.

Text Edit

Text Edit may be one of the secrets of OS X. Many people don't even realise it's in the Applications' folder. This is hardly surprising - these days many people don't even realise they have an Applications' folder; they think every 'app' they have is what they can see in the Dock.

Anyway ... Text Edit is a bear-bones free word processor with a couple of surprising tricks. It accesses the system-wide Dictionary (another Applications' folder denizen), so it has spell-checking. It looks weird when you open it the first time, but if you choose Preferences and tick Wrap to Page it looks more like what you expect from a proper app.

Type a few characters and choose Save - at bottom centre of the dialogue that's presented, you'll see File Formats. This lets you save as a (Microsoft) Word format doc of various types.

Alternatively, if you drag an MS Word file to the Text Edit icon in the Dock, the icon will darken. That means it can open it. Let go and it will - thus, for free, you can get away without Word at al, at least if your needs aren't comprehensive or too detailed.

Text Edit also has full Mac OS X speech capabilities (as does Mail, for that matter).

Select some text in Text Edit and press Command-T and you can change sizes, typefaces, character colour and even add shadows (press the 'T' in the white rectangle in the top bar of the Type dialogue).
It's really not bad. It's very fast, and it's already in your system. I use it quite a lot - it's a handy note-taker.

Apple's Pages

Part of the iWork suite ($183), Pages also opens and saves Word formats. (iWork is widely expected to be replaced very soon with an online-only iWork 2011 version, through the new App Store for Mac that goes online 6th January.)

Pages uses Apple's graphics chops to good effect and presents users with starter templates which look really slick.

The current Pages excels at creating beautiful newsletters and the like, with Word Processing bells and whistles available for 'just' writing. It's not up to full magazine production (that's Adobe InDesign's turf) but it's really good at lots of other stuff.

Microsoft Word

This is the word processor, really. If I have issues with it, it's that most people who swear by it actually use only about 5% of its power. But if you do want lots from your word processor, and perhaps more importantly almost seamless integration with the documents made with Word on Windows' machines, Word is the be-all, if not the end-all.
I appreciate that the latest version (from Office:Mac 2011) is leaner and faster with a good code rewrite, and I love the fact you can record audio straight into docs in Notebook layout, which has been there since 2004. See my review.

Also, it comes as part of the Office suite, with Excel and PowerPoint and more, for $259 or the more businessy version for $499.
But some historic grizzles have still not been addressed - Word (since at least 2004) seems to ignore UK spelling no matter what you set as the Custom Dictionary. It still has that weird selection thing where you select a letter, start to drag and the selection pops about, selecting things left and right. I think you can turn it off ... but where, in the labyrinthine Preferences?
Word Count doesn't let you keep typing as you write, and I wish you could just paste text with a key combination what matches destination formatting.

Nisus

I really like this 'nice us' Word Processor. It comes in Express and Pro versions, and it doesn't pretend to do layouts (I use InDesign for that, anyway).

Nisus is 'just' a writer, but boy what a writer. It has dictionaries for dozens and dozens of languages - even NZ English. It has style sheets. It's fast, and saves in the strong cross-platform .rtf (Rich Text) format by default. It opens and saves Word formats if you need it to, has a constantly visible word count, plus cross referencing, bibliography and all that stuff, and even tables. Pro costs US$79, Express $US45.

Good stuff (I wrote this with it) because they are both currently selling for 20% off until December 31. Just go to the site and use the coupon code 'festivus10' in the shopping cart to receive the discount.

While you're there, get a 15-day all-working full demo version of either, and be sure to download the always free Nisus Thesaurus, which works standalone but also flawlessly integrates with either Nisus word processor as a writing tool.

But there are plenty more, like Bean

Word too much, don't need to make newsletters, Nisus too expensive, Text Edit just not cutting it? There's always this free, small, easy-to-use word processor designed to make writing convenient.
Bean is Open Source, fully Cocoa, has word count on an in-depth statistics panel, and it autosaves and more. But it's no replacement for MS Word. It doesn't do footnotes or use stylesheets and is only partially compatible with Word's file formats. But it's elegant, fast and free, and more powerful than it should be.

Mariner Write has all the features you need for that important letter or technical document without the bloat Microsoft's flagship gets accused of. You can create customisable headers, footers, endnotes or footnotes, define styles, has loads of keyboard commands, mail merge and more, but it looks like it needs a facelift. It costs US$49.95.

Technical tasks? Mellel

The oddly named (which does seem a theme) Mellel by RedleX is a specialist Mac word processor for writing technical documents, and it's also for creative writers and scholars.
You can download it for US$49 (about NZ$66) or order a boxed edition for US$64.

Scrivener

'A clerk, scribe or notary' - this word processor for Mac costs US$45 (about NZ$61) and it's billed as a "powerful content-generation tool for writers that allows you to concentrate on composing and structuring long and difficult documents. While it gives you complete control of the formatting, its focus is on helping you get to the end of that awkward first draft." Good-oh.

Sound like you? Try it free trial.

Another that might be worth a look is myWritings, a US$14.95 application that also relies on style and simplicity for appeal.

WriteRoom and OmmWiriter

Finally, there's perhaps the strangest concept of all, but one that's being emulated in other areas with their new 'full screen views'. There are two main contenders:

Ultra-spartan, a new word processor called WriteRoom from HogBay Software offers distraction-free writing. Your focus becomes totally on your writing - but where are all the tools you might need? There's no menu for saving, no list of fonts, no page-break commands to insert. You can't see anything except the screen and what you're writing. Your document is autosaved in the background.
But it also offers synccing between work, home, and your iPhone via the SimpleText.ws sync service to keep your files synced, since the WriteRoom app for iPhone has SimpleText sync built in.
It costs US$25, or US$40 in a bundle with TaskPaper (approximately NZ$34 and $54 respectively).

OmmWriter D?na goes a step further with peaceful new age music in its fullscreen mode. This might be your thing, but it makes me want to gouge my eyes out. Mind you, I'm watching a documentary and listening to the radio as I write this, so I'm hardly the target audience.
Looks gorgeous, though - it's well executed. You can get D?na I for free, or pay at least US$4.13 for D?na II.

So, you won't exactly be lost for words on your Mac. Ay?

(Please let me know your thoughts on the Mac processor you use in the comments, or mention any I missed.)

- Mark Webster mac-nz.com