WORD PROCESSING FOR THE MAC FOR MAC OS
WORD PROCESSING FOR THE MAC SOFTWARE
WORD PROCESSING FOR THE MAC FREE

WORD PROCESSING FOR THE MAC FREE

Since installing OS X 10.9 Mavericks on my Late 2008 Aluminum MacBook in October 2013, I have been migrating my word processing and spreadsheet files from AppleWorks running on my Mac mini with OS X 10.6 to free LibreOffice using the Microsoft Excel. That said, because it was written for PowerPC Macs, it is not compatible with OS X 10.7 Lion and later. Update, March 2014: AppleWorks 6 works just fine with OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard as well. Although the last major revision (AppleWorks 6) was introduced in 2000, it works very well through Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, the most recent version in use at Low End Mac headquarters. I also use the spreadsheet in AppleWorks. It is the word processor I use when I need to print output, just as Claris Home Page is my word processor when I need to write and edit for the Web. * Publisher’s note: I still use AppleWorks (formerly known as ClarisWorks) daily. I’m actually considering developing my own word processor, just for me – though I’m sure I’ll never actually do it. I know that the word processor is largely an irrelevance and that I should shut up, sit down, and get back to work putting one word after another, but this is about an aesthetic experience, and it turns out that such things matter to me. There’s something not quite right about writing a report on a terrible event while your computer makes soothing new-agey chirping noises. It’s actually quite nice, but it doesn’t suit the temperament of a journalist. The latest big thing in Mac word processors is OmmWriter, a really strange application that plays ambient music as you type. I particularly love WriteRoom‘s simplicity, but it’s not ideal for all situations. I’ve tried Bean, I’ve tried Jer’s Novel Writer, I’ve tried LightWayText, Mariner Write, Mellel, Scrivener, Ulysses, and more. None of them quite suited, so I travelled the byways of more obscure software. I’ve been through all of the popular applications: Word and its open source cousins, ClarisWorks* back in the day, and Nisus Writer in many of its manifestations. For me, this means it must be “Mac-like”. I haven’t done a mail merge since I was at school, and I’ll do my layout in Quark XPress or InDesign, thank you very much.įinally, and most nebulously, I want to be comfortable using it. Good-bye Microsoft Word, OpenOffice, and NeoOffice.

All I want is a word count, a blank page, and some very basic formatting options. Thirdly, I don’t want to be irritated with ridiculous features that I have no use for. For a start, it means most text editors are out of the picture – monospaced type? No thanks. Surprisingly, this does rule out a few applications.

WORD PROCESSING FOR THE MAC FOR MAC OS

Secondly, I want decent type rendering and support for Mac OS X’s built-in text services, such as dictionary access.

WORD PROCESSING FOR THE MAC SOFTWARE

This requirement alone rules out Apple’s Pages, an otherwise excellent piece of software that is a joy to use.

I may be a lowly hack, but I still have certain demands to make of my writing software.įirst of all, I want its native file format to be Rich Text (RTF) or something similarly open and universal. If I really had to, I could write on my iPhone or the back of a napkin. I would just rather not. Still, forget about the nomenclature for now – there is a more pressing matter to think about: Which word processor should I use? After all, I’m a mere journalist, not a lofty writer, but there’s more to words than processing. Yes, I greatly appreciate the ability to edit as I work, to correct typos and move entire paragraphs around, but processing sounds too much like what goes on in sausage factories for my liking. I don’t want to process words, I want to write them down, one after the other, in things called sentences. It is not just the means by which we express ourselves it also has a palpable effect on our thinking.Ĭonsider the term word processor – only an engineer could have come up with such an appalling appellation. Language, with all of its complexities and contradictions, is truly a thing of beauty.

I’m no postmodernist, but Umberto Eco’s joy in language is something that speaks to me – I challenge anyone with a love of words to read The Name of the Rose and not be struck dumb by it’s revelations. They are, of course, the way I make my living, but they mean so much more to me than that.

Word processing for the mac