EXCLUSIVES

WORD PROCESSING

Words by Ned Derpa

When the Macintosh was first released in 1984, there were two programs that came bundled with it: MacWrite and MacPaint. MacWrite’s innovation was placing black text on a virtual white page, each letter on screen was in the same place as it would be on the printed page.

Today, there are a lot of programs available to process text on the Mac. The current descendent of MacWrite is AppleWorks 6.2.9, last updated in 2003, which combines a word processor, as well as drawing, painting, spreadsheet, database, and presentation programs. At one time, AppleWorks was bundled with all consumer level PowerPC-based computers sold by Apple, although it can be purchased separately for $79. The recently released Pages 2, part of iWork ’06, specializes in creating documents from included templates. As a stand-alone word processor it is clunky and cumbersome.

In the 22 years since Microsoft introduced Word, it has continued to upgrade the program, making it the de facto standard. Word, like many Microsoft products, has bloated over time. It does everything, from creating webpages to recording audio. Perhaps the next version will remind you to floss and choose your Lotto numbers for you. In its stand alone version it retails for $239, or can be yours as part of the Office:Mac 2004 Suite for $399.

You don’t have to spend a fortune to get a good word processor. AbiWord 2.4 is an open-source word processing program under the GNU Public License which runs on Mac OS X. A core of dedicated programmers have continued work on AbiWord. The program is a word processor which doesn’t match Word feature-for-feature, but is adequate for basic text wrangling. Best of all, it’s free.

Nisus Writer Express 2.6.1 is a flexible program that supports tables, footnotes, columns, graphics with a user interface that is clear and intuitive. Rather than clutter the desktop with toolbars, the program window groups the mostly need tools in drawers The program is fast and opens most Word documents without a problem. It lacks some basic features, however. There is no easy way to print envelopes, for instance. Although for $60, the program, which is available in a Universal binary, gives a lot of bang for the buck.

The program that offered the greatest balance of features and value is Mariner Write 3.7.1. Write is only 3.9 MB and can import and export Word documents. The interface is intuitive, so you can be productive in a matter of minutes, although the PDF documentation is clear and thorough, if you need it. Creating styles is much easier than in Word and the program can be “trained” so that one style will follow another, a boon for screenwriters or authors of heavily formatted materials. The program runs fast on a PowerPC Mac or under Rosetta on an Intel Mac. It comes with an 80,000 word dictionary and supports multiple languages, including English, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese, and German.

Our iWard for best word processor goes to Mariner Write.