I hate NeoOffice -anything better available?

[tigrr]

I need to use a word-processor now and then (term papers etc.) and I chose NeoOffice because it's (more or less) micro$oft Word compatible and of course because it's free. But I'm sick of it for a variety of reasons:

1) it's slow and sluggish, feels like a very "heavy" and "bloated" application
2) it's hideous to look at and has a very un-Mac user interface. If I liked that sort of thing I would have bought a PC and installed Linux, but I prefer Macs and aesthetics are a great part of the Mac experience. Never mind the "Aqua version" of NeoOffice. It's still a Linux/Windows application visually.
3) it's got a million menues and sub-menues, icons and functions most of us I dare say will never need. The functions we do need however are buried so deep inside that you need a Ph.D to figure it out. Most of us mere mortals have by far given up by then. If you ask other Neo/OpenOffice users for help the solutions they seem to give are along the line of hacking. I bought a Mac because I want to do things the easy way, not the geeky and hard, time-consuming way.
4) I don't care about the "all in one" package. No wonder it takes forever to start and it feels bloated. I've used Excel one or two times in my life but never used or needed Powerpoint.
5) it keeps bugging me to download the latest beta version. There's no way I can turn off this automatic update function either (I've asked). I really don't care if I don't have the latest version. I just want to write my term paper or whatever I'm working on!

what it all comes down to is that I just need a good, working word-processor made for the Mac!
I know about the Mac-Office package, but I also prefer to stay away from micro$oft, so what else is out there that just works and isn't overly complicated to use? Free is of course great, but it seems you get what you pay for, and I'm prepared to pay (a reasonable amount of money) for something that works well.

[eric2006]

You can't go wrong with iWork, and it's compatible as well.

[tigrr]

Yeah, I've been thinking about iWork actually, and I see that 2005 and 2006 versions are for sale really cheap at eBay. Are they still usable, or does the iWork '08 have features you can't live without?

I've also heard that Mellel and Mariner write should be good, but I really have no idea what to choose as I'm barely a novice when it comes to word-processing. It's just that I want to buy something that has all the normal features that I'll need for most common situations, even if I don't know about those needs right now.

I think I'm looking for something that isn't just bare bones (I could almost just as well do with TextEdit then), but then again not something so complicated that I'll never be able to figure it out (not much use with those advanced features if I don't understand how to access or use them).

So, tell me more about iWork: your experiences, it's strengths and weaknesses etc.

[lbj]

I would like to plug Bean. It's become my default reader (but writes and edits as well).

[Mikuro]

I was also going to suggest Bean. It's sort of like a beefed-up TextEdit. The problem is that its Microsoft Word compatibility is the same as TextEdit's. I only recently started using Bean, but so far I like it.

Personally, I only use NeoOffice when I need to open Microsoft Office files. And then I copy what I can into TextEdit or Bean.

[fryke]

Why not _write_ it all in TextEdit and only use NeoOffice for final formatting (if what TextEdit does isn't enough)..? I love TextEdit for "just writing" without interruption.

[Ashka]

Leopard's TextEdit has had a good makeover. Lots of new options under the hood although it looks somewhat the same when first opened. I have Pages'08 installed so between the two there's no need for anything else.

[reid]

Tex-Edit Plus is worth a look and can perform most writing tasks in a simple straight forward manner. It has a free and a paid mode (£7.50)($15). http://www.tex-edit.com/
It is currently at version 4.9.8
I find it very useful for quickly preparing items for other documents.