Other Word Processing Programs?

slcboston · Dec 31, 2007

I did a quick search and didn't see this question addressed, but apologies if it's been asked and answered before. I also suspect that my interest in this is largely a stalling technique, i.e. "let's play with something new" rather than work on the old... anyway...

Aside from the standby of Microsoft Word, what other programs out there do people use? And what are your opinions of them? I'm not looking for something to make suggestions in my writing or anything else, just a standard word processor to take down what i write.

I've been using Word for Mac bcs Apple's word processing interface hasn't changed since the days of the old Apple PC's I used back... well, long ago in the dark ages when the internet was brand new and Bill Gates wasn't a household name. Other than my aversion to all things MS, this latest jump in Office 2007 to a new "doc" format that only Office 2007 can read has me rethinking my use of Word in general.

You see, the only reason I haven't really tried out anything else is bcs of my concern over the common use of the "doc" format, and not wanting to convert all my files. Again. (Did that fourteen years ago when switching to Windows... when I switched back I thankfully didn't have to convert anything.) But if MS is going to make that a moot issue...

So, what else do people use, and what are their thoughts on them compared to MS Word? (which I'm reasonably certain everyone's used at least once.

)

kuwisdelu · Dec 31, 2007

If you look back in the Tech Help forum, among other places scattered around here, I'm sure I've seen this topic before, albeit not toooo recently.

I use NeoOffice, the mac port of OpenOffice.org, and I love it. It's free, open-source software that mimics MS Office and most of its components.

NeoOffice Writer (or OpenOffice.org Writer) has all the features I would need from Word. Certainly it doesn't have EVERYTHING, but I haven't noticed any features missing that I use a lot. The majority of the missing features are things that only businesses would need to use for networking purposes. Anyway, it's more than enough for me.

Best of all, it's free and open-source, which means it's been scrutinized by a massive army of geeks across the internet, so it's pretty stable. For me, at least, it's been more stable than MS Word, and loads a lot faster since it's native OS X.

Oh, and it also supported the Word 2007 format (.docx) even BEFORE a patch came out for Word 2003/2004 to support it. I guess that also brings up the fact I forgot to mention, NeoOffice and OpenOffice.org support just about all the major filetypes you'll need to use. You can save to .doc easily. It's my default setting. And of course it also supports open document format, which many people are trying to make the new standard instead of doc.

slcboston · Dec 31, 2007

Cool, I've been playing around with Neo Office anyway and have been fairly impressed with it. Thanks!

kuwisdelu · Dec 31, 2007

Always glad to pass on the greatness that is open-source software

kuwisdelu · Dec 31, 2007

I don't use it myself, but I hear Abiword is also good.

L M Ashton · Dec 31, 2007

There's a sticky in the tech help forum called, interestingly enough, Writing Software.

san_remo_ave · Dec 31, 2007

If you have a Mac, I highly recommend you check out Scrivener

It has storyboarding features as well as a word processor. I've found it incredibly useful for plotting as well as writing.

Chasing the Horizon · Jan 1, 2008

I hate Word with unending passion. I won't even use Word for Mac (except to open documents sometimes). I mainly use Appleworks. It's the word processor I learned to use when I was six (though it was called Clarisworks back then) and I can't imagine trying to use anything else for most of my writing. I have Scrivener as well and it's a good program. If I wasn't so used to Appleworks I'm sure that's what I would primarily use. As it is, I mainly use Scrivener for editing. I've used Text Edit from time to time and it seems to work well without being overloaded with unnecessary features (which is the main reason I hate Word so much). If I'm forced to write something on a PC (which I'm quite convinced stands for Piece of Crap

) I use WordPad instead of Word, since it's fairly straight forward and creates documents which easily go back onto my Macs. I didn't like Apple's new iWork program at all. It was incrediby confusing, at least to me.

slcboston · Jan 1, 2008

sanremoave said:
If you have a Mac, I highly recommend you check out Scrivener

It has storyboarding features as well as a word processor. I've found it incredibly useful for plotting as well as writing.

Yeah, I don't know. I've seen things like this before, and honestly in my hands I think they'd end up more something to play with rather than use, and it would be a hindrance rather than a help.

Most of my notes and things come in the form of pen and paper, and then I write from there. I can't imagine the horror of being organized.

But I will check it out.

Triangulos · Jan 3, 2008

I have a pretty low-spec laptop, so the easiest and most convenient utility is Window's own Wordpad program. It has everything I need as long as I do spell checking on my bigger home PC via Word, although scrolling does slow down when something novel-sized is in memory.

T.

Other Word Processing Programs?

slcboston

Pasture-ized

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World

slcboston

Pasture-ized

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World

kuwisdelu

Revolutionize the World

L M Ashton

crazy spec fic writer

san_remo_ave

Back at it

Chasing the Horizon

Blowing in the Wind

slcboston

Pasture-ized

Triangulos