What is the best word processing software for a Mac Computer?

Writing is the secondary activity on your Mac. Reading is first, of course. To read, someone first must write. A word processor is usually used, to, well, process (write) words.

We tend not to change word processors too often. What’s your favorite word processor?

Is it Microsoft Word? It could be. Besides Apple’s venerable AppleWorks, MS Word is the Mac program users love to hate—but they keep buying in record numbers.

And for good reason. MS Word has more features than its Windows counterpart and is, in typical Mac fashion, easier to use.

AppleWorks has been around since forever. First as ClarisWorks, an all-in-one application that combines word processing, spreadsheet, database, graphics, and more into well, frankly a very powerful, easy-to-use Mac application of the highest order (despite the fact that it’s relatively unchanged for years.

Why mess with something that works?

There are other word processors that proponents will tell you are all you need. Nisus Write and MarinerWrite come to mind. Both are fast, simple, have a number of very useful features, and won’t cost an arm and a leg.

There are also specialty word processors such as Final Draft and Final Draft AV. They’re word processors for the creative community; playwrites, screenwriters, etc.

There’s also open source (nearly free) such as the ThinkFree Office project. Like AppleWorks and MS Office, ThinkFree is a tank of a program, not for the faint of heart or those with a low learning curve threshhold.

So, what’s your favorite word processor of all time on the Mac? Word? Write? AppleWorks?

Could it be WordPerfect? If so, you’re still stuck in Mac OS Classicland. There’s a Windows version but nothing that’ll do you good in Mac OS X.

How about AbiWord? MarinerWriter? Mellel (still looking for time to try this one; many love it).

To vote for your favorite Mac word processor of all time, all you have to do is Click Here.

To see the results on how the voting is going, just Click Here.

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• Article by Alexis Kayhill • Published on Tuesday, June 3, 2008

• Category: Polls • 9 Reader comment(s) • Email This • Shop Now

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In my opinion, Pages, Apple’s counterpart to Microsoft Word and part of the iWorks suite, is a better fit for the Mac operating system. While it does allow for basic typing similar to Word, it has an easier interface for inputting images and more control over the layout of the overall page. Its design templates also offer a more modern look unlike Word which templates are basically the same since its creation. Since Apples are geared more for creativity, Pages takes full advantage allowing for simply typing to more elaborate layouts with an easier interface and more attractive templates to work from. With that said for simple typing Word works sufficiently on the Mac operating system. But if you want to do more than type a paper or a letter, Pages is definitely the better choice.

Mariner Write® is a powerful, yet streamlined word processor solution for everyone from professional writers, to educators, students, and the average user. Boasting an elegant interface, as well as hundreds of intuitive features such as the ability to read Microsoft Word documents and produce customizable headers, footers, endnotes, and footnotes, Mariner Write has everything you need to turn out great-looking documents.

Whether creating a simple letter or writing the next great novel, Mariner Write has the functionality to be your writing tool.

No kitchen sink syndrome here!

Are you working on that next great novel or authoring a must-read technical document? There is a good chance your word processor of choice, the tool that is supposed to be helping you, is hindering your efficiency by being either too feature-anemic or feature-bloated.

Try the perfect middle...Mariner Write.

The best value for the cost is: http://www.openoffice.org/

From their website:

OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

I have used it for years and one thing that is really nice, other than it is free, it is available on various platforms so that all are about the same.

Definetly pages, which is part of apple's iwork suite. It's word processor and presentation maker are way better than word and powerpoint. It is also cheaper

Office is somewhat different on the mac than on windows PCs, but it's still the best and most widely adopted regardless.

I would go for openoffice found at openoffice.org By the way, Why don't you use favoritewords.com for your list? It's a free tool, lacks some features but it's still in beta, so... I am pretty sure you'll love using it. Thanks for posting your words.

Use OpenOffice. It works just fine on Macs. Get it here: http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/