Any decent and free word processor?

[xgsrpg]

I just bought a new 15" PB and I really have $0 to spend on anything else, especially MS Office 2004 (which would be ideal for me, as lots of my friends use Windows). Does anyone know a decent free word processor out there (for Mac OS X Panther)? Thanks in advance.

[Chaszmyr]

Okito Composer. get it from Versiontracker.com

It doesn't handle .doc files, but it works very well and uses the rtf format


If you need to open .doc files, i'm pretty sure TextEdit can do so in Panther.

[hello world]

http://www.openoffice.org/

A little work to install, and not pretty to look at, but pretty much does everything than MS Office does.

[SilentPanda]

Open Office

[javabear90]

Microsoft office 2004 is free...... if you know where to look :rolleyes: ;)

[FattyMembrane]

okito is now nisus writer and it's not free. if you need the full office suite, openoffice is probably the way to go and i'd recommend neooffice/j (http://www.neooffice.org/) which is a java front-end to openoffice (it's big, and bulky, and can be slow, but it uses your osx fonts and provides anti-aliasing and other nice things). there's also a native version of abiword available (their site seems to be down right now) which you can find in the downloads section for the 2.1 pre-release.

[Sun Baked]

Microsoft office 2004 is free...... if you know where to look :rolleyes: ;)And so are BMWs. :(

But I don't think that was the question.

[xgsrpg]

Thanks for the suggestions. I used OpenOffice.org on Linux, and I really like it, but what I really miss is the cool Aqua interface of OS X. I think I'll just opt with the Office 2004 Test Drive. Spanish sites are useful, you know.

[vgoklani]

TexShop - by far the best!

[Horrortaxi]

TextEdit. It's decent, free, and you already have it.

[King Cobra]

Agreed. And, with TextEdit, you can do .txt, .rtf, save as .pdf (from the Print menu item in File), and work with .doc files. Also, in your Panther Dev. tools, there's SimpleText and WorldText for OS X, but WorldText crashes pretty easily.

[annk]

I´m all for Open Office, at my workplace the people in charge of deciding what software we use are disgusted with Microsoft´s prices and Window´s lack of stability and we therefore use Open Office as a matter of principle (too bad we can´t afford to replace the Dell machine park with Mac´s!!). I have also downloaded it to the PB I´m writing on for the same reason, but there´s one thing you need to keep in mind; OO works great for reading any Office dokument, but editing can give unexpected results. Don´t expect to edit an Office document in OO and expect it to read the way you intend in MO.

Nisus has also been mentioned on this thread. True, it´s not free, but it´s definitely not expensive, and handles Chinese characters (among other things, I assume) REALLY well.

[phreakout13]

What about AppleWorks?

[Timelessblur]

If you are in collage there is a good chance that your collage is willing to give you a copy of M$ office for free. It not going to be 04 but it will be the version before that. That should cover you for a while. and the school general work on trying to get the lastest copy ASAP advible to the students for free.

That what I did for my computer. I did not install any word program. Went online log into my school network and download my legit copy for Microsoft Office 03 for PC.

[stoid]

After getting totally pissed off at MS Word while trying to write essays for college last fall, I now write my papers in TextEdit.

[MisterMe]

I just bought a new 15" PB and I really have $0 to spend on anything else, especially MS Office 2004 (which would be ideal for me, as lots of my friends use Windows). Does anyone know a decent free word processor out there (for Mac OS X Panther)? Thanks in advance.
AbiWord (http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14743)

[Horrortaxi]

If you are in collage there is a good chance that your collage is willing to give you a copy of M$ office for free.

There's probably a scruffy looking guy in a trenchcoat across the street who will give you mind-altering substances for free too. Well, the first time anyway. The 2nd time he charges and by the 10th time you need anusol after you meet with him.

So just because it's free doesn't mean you should use it. Some people need Microsoft Office, but please do not automatically buy it.

[Rend It]

TexShop - by far the best!

HaHa! I think he wants a text editor, not a TEX editor.

[King Cobra]

What about AppleWorks?
In most of late 2003, I intercepted a lot of Word files from Jim from J. B. Marketing Associates. I didn't have Panther at the time, so I couldn't use TextEdit to work with them. Most of the time, Appleworks was able to read the files. The problem was: It only worked with a MacLinkPlus translator, and it rarely saved font formats. For the rest of time Appleworks couldn't get the files to open, well... let's just say that Jim doesn't have a lot of compatible associates.

Oh, and don't bother doing PC/Mac "Save As [Word]" from Appleworks so that you can use the file on a PC. Most of the time, it doesn't work, period. So avoid Appleworks for managing .doc files.

[IJ Reilly]

What about AppleWorks?

Not bundled with PowerBooks, and hence not free. Frankly whatever Apple is charging for it these days is too much. This application is long in the tooth and it never did a particularly good job opening Word documents. Actually TextEdit in Panther works better for that.

No application other than Word is going accurately open Word documents, if they're at all complex. This is by design (the format is proprietary).

A slick alternative to Word is Mellel. Not free, but inexpensive.

[csubear]

I find that tex, and latex are not a bad option for formating. Write you paper in textedit, and then format using tex. When your writing a paper you should only be worring about the conent, and there are countless times that i have fought with word on formating while writing a paper. It just plain sucks and you lose track of what you are doing.