Switcher Question: If not Word, then what?
In the
comments to my last Mac n00b post, JJ asks:
“If Microsoft is so bad, what do you guys use for a word processor?” He then goes on to say that Appleworks,
OpenOffice.org via X11, and Abiword
all fail to please him for various reasons.
Unfortunately, I inevitably end up having to use Word sometimes. But if you like OOo and are just having trouble with the X11 implementation of it in OS X (they’ve actually end-of-lifed OS X development of OOo), you might find NeoOffice/J appealing. It’s a non-X11 dependent java-based port of OOo for OS X that is still in development and integrates rather nicely with OS X (although much of the interface still looks like an ugly Windows app).
Any other suggestions for JJ?
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Pedro said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
hello... iWork!
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Shane said 8:32PM on 8-01-2005
And what about Pages? iWork '05 only costs $80 (including Keynote) and both Pages and Keynote read and export to Word and Powerpoint, respectively. I haven't seen Pages yet, but it looks pretty nice.
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motech said 6:20PM on 7-10-2005
state the obvious?
pages is an incredible applicaiton,
ive been using it for weeks.
ive created me resume on it,
put together text/pictuer documents to fight parking tickets.
ive exported as pdf, and word.
the application works great!
imports word and appleworks flawlessly . .
and is really easy to use, and at the same time very powerful.
go buy yourself a copy of iworks and never look back!
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Kenny said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Pages?
http://www.apple.com/iwork/
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arkowi said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
I am a student, so I was able to pick up Office 2004 for my Mac for a fair price. Also, iWork was not out or even known about at that point. I have been pleased with office though. Although, I have considered picking up iWork...you know, just to keep it in the family.
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Peter said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
My animosity towards MSFT centers on the OS, not the office suite. Word is a fine word processor, especially the Mac version of it which isn't hindered by the Windows OS. Same goes for Excel.
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C.K. Sample, III said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
I didn't mention Pages, because I haven't had the opportunity to use it yet, and because several of the reviews I've read pitch it more as a page layout program than a word processor (and this made me think that JJ, who doesn't like Appleworks, might not dig it). Is this impression way off? Do I need to run out and buy iWork now?
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C.K. Sample, III said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Hey, Peter,
I would like Mac Word except for one insanely annoying bug that I continually experience: screen redraw problems. Sometimes when I scroll through a document I am working on Word's window goes all screwy drawing multiple copies of the bar at the bottom of the document through out my page. The only way to fix it is to quit Word and relaunch, and the problem occurs too frequently to make using Word pleasant.
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JJ said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
I'm considering Pages but since there's no way to see what it's about without buying it, I'm going to wait until there is more "unspun" information about it. I too get the impression that it's more layout-oriented and I'm sure it's a great application, but if I were to shell out the cash (small amount as it is) and find out that it's not what I'm looking for, I'm going to be pissed.
For example, it's compatible with Word documents, but can I just double-click a word file, edit it, and then hit command-s and send it back to it's author, or do I have to save-as and make sure I select Word from some format menu? I know this sounds like a pissant complaint, but do this 100 times a day and it gets old (or worse, forget and have someone freak out when they get their document back in a format they can't read).
I'm sure Pages kicks ass, but without being able to test it, I'm going to have to wait.
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fishpatrol said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
I stick with Word. I don't like it; I'm not happy about it. But for editing Word docs that have any formatting to them, that's what I use. For just text, try TextWrangler? Opens and saves Word docs natively.
I was at an Apple store a couple weeks back and fired up Pages. Definitely a page layout program. I can see how it's cool and useful and stuff. I cut my teeth on PageMaker back in the day, so until the layouts and styles are a lot easier to create and manage... Actually forget it, I'll stick with InDesign.
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Eric said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Mariner Write? http://www.marinersoftware.com/
Mellel? http://www.redlers.com/
I haven't used either extensively, but they seemed nice.
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Matthew said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Four suggestions:
Nisus Writer Express: http://www.nisus.com/
Mellel: http://www.redlers.com/mellel.html
Ulysses: http://www.blue-tec.com/
CopyWrite: www.bartastechnologies.com
I'd rather use any of these than Word *or* Pages, although Pages isn't too bad. Nisus has the best Word compatibility, in my experience.
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JJ said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
Hey, Mellel looks pretty cool and the price is right. I'll give it a beating and let you know how it comes out.
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Garrett said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
This might be over the top nerdy/geeky, but I use a XML/DocBook editor, which works amazingly well, if you care to deal with the overhead of learning the World of DocBook.
http://www.xmlmind.com/xmleditor/
The really nice part of this is that files are all XML and play nicely with version control systems like subversion, perforce, etc. With the right stylesheets + FO processor (nerdspeak very high here), you can create all sorts of quality output (PDF, RTF, HTML, etc.) And XML blah blah...eh, I like it.
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ant said 2:15AM on 7-05-2005
so just use Word! i don't really understand why people assume that apple users hate *everything* microsoft. Office X is great, Word is great, wouldn't use anything else. I just hate microsoft's sh1tty OS, and i love Apple's elegant machines - objects of beauty all of them.
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Jonathan said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
I'm a XML/DocBook geeky type too. I like XMLMind, I think it's the best thing out there for content-centric XML, but I wish there was something slick and Aqua that was just as good. (XMLMind is Java and consequently, not as pretty and sometimes a little slow and clunky.)
I'm starting to think of chucking it all and going to LaTeX, but it just doesn't seem like it should be that hard. I did find Mellel the other day and am going to try it out, it looks promising.
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Joel said 9:05AM on 11-18-2005
I still love to use AppleWorks. I think it was at its peak with ClarisWorks 4, but there really isn't another word processor or office suite product that truly integrates the different facilities of the app properly. I have never had to do anything that AppleWorks couldn't do for me, and I think it works well (admittedly, AppleWorks 6 is a little long in the tooth - it's still a carbon app) - for that matter, I don't think there's anything I need to do that Claris 4 couldn't do for me.
I guess beyond that it becomes a question of what you "like" better, and there really is no sane argument either way there. Except, that I personally really like using AppleWorks.
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Sean said 4:14PM on 6-16-2005
I will back up some earlier comments. MS makes a terrible operating system, but darn good (if bloated) office suite. I work at a place that was Lotus and wordperfect based, and we are moving to Office, because it is a better product. I really like Outlook. I really like Access (and am quite upset I need VPC to run it on my Macs). Windoze is just annoying/bad/evil, whatever you like. Oh, and the fact Gates keeps trying to run the whole world, don't like that either.
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