Word Processor

[powermac]

I have been using M$ Word for my daily word processing, and not that unhappy with it. I recently stopped using Apple Works. I am looking for a recommendation from users that have used another word processor. I have seen Mariner Write and now Nisus Writer Express.
I don't need half of the features in M$ Word, and I am looking more for a word processor that is more Mac Like. Has anyone used a word processor they would recommended?

 

[DanTekGeek]

Im fairly certina OpenOffice.org is avaliable for mac. It has full word compatibility, and has pretty much all the features you need. If its not avaialbe strictly for mac, im sure you can get it to run anyway, it being a linux app.

 

[perfessor101]

Take a look at Nisus Writer Express 2. A true Cocao application that is compact, elegant, fast, reasonably priced, good MS Word file compatibility, and IMHO the best styles management of anything on the market. If you can't tell from the description I am really high on NWE 2. It is not the old Nisus Writer and a far cry from NWE 1.

 

[twister]

I use text edit.

 

[Pengu]

You can't go past Mellel.

 

[Orbit]

openoffice is not really mac like and it has most of thee features of word.

 

[mdnky]

OpenOffice is a great app, only downside for the Mac OS X version is they're still using X11. You take a slight performance hit because of this, but it's still usable (more so than MS's product according to some).

I've switched all darkside computers at our office off of MS Office (2000) in favor of OpenOffice 1.1.3 with no problems so far. Runs fine, even on the resource limited laptop (Dell, PIII-700, 128mb RAM, Win XP Pro). Compatability is excellent so far...no problems with any DOCs or XLSs we had from before.

I'm hoping they get going faster on the OS X native port as I think I've finally convinced my boss to go all Mac (yay!). Means a DP G5 for me and 2 to 3 G5 iMacs for everyone else...

 

[fryke]

Erh... The thread's about AVOIDING the slew of features and the app to be more Mac like. Please use an OpenOffice.org thread for OOo?

I say: Try to put TextEdit to good use. It can achieve many things. However, it _is_ very restricted. I'd say: Choose between Nisus Writer Express and TextEdit, depending on the features you really need. In Tiger, TextEdit will become a bit more mature, although it's mostly background stuff like what kinds of files it can open and handle... (Word tables.)

 

[Pengu]

Here's an idea. download DEMOS' of each app, see which you like the best. This is what won me over with Mellel. Once I'd used it, I refused to go back to anything less.

 

[Viro]

My vote goes to Abiword. It's (IMHO) the best word processor in the Unix world. It's a lot snappier than OpenOffice, includes most of the features you'll actually use.

Only problem was it used to only be available via fink. Not anymore. Head on over to http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/abiword/AbiWord-MacOSX-20041025.dmg.gz?download and download the mac binary. It's currently Alpha quality, so give them more reasons to finish the port.

 

[powermac]

Thanxs all for the replies. I am currently trying Nisus Writer for 30 day demo. I started using it, but so far I like the features and the fonts are smooth and bold. I try it for its demo period, and if I like it I will purchase.
Still hoping for a Appleworks update or office version from Apple!!!!!

 

[RacerX]

If you are going to give a Cocoa word processor (TextEdit/Nisus Writer Express/Mellel) a try, I would suggest getting the following:

• TextExtras
• Nisus Thesaurus
• OmniDictionary

and reading the following wouldn't hurt either:

• text services
• color selection

Cocoa has a lot to offer applications written in it, and it is helpful from a user's point of view (who uses Cocoa apps a lot) to be familiar with some of these.