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Favorite Word Processor?

Z

ziggyonice

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Mar 12, 2006
2,385
1
So my mother (who isn't much of a tech genius) is in need of a really streamlined, easy to use word processor. I recommended Pages, but that's too much for her -- she wants to go all the way back to AppleWorks do her typing!

Anyone have any favorites they like to use or recommend?
 
ziggyonice said:
So my mother (who isn't much of a tech genius) is in need of a really streamlined, easy to use word processor. I recommended Pages, but that's too much for her -- she wants to go all the way back to AppleWorks do her typing!

Anyone have any favorites they like to use or recommend?
Click to expand...

Abi Word might be a good option for her.
 
Writeroom might do the trick for her.
I use TextEdit for little things, including webdev stuff, PHP, css etc.
Pages if it's really urgent, like a report for work.

Google docs for everything else. :)
 
ziggyonice said:
So my mother (who isn't much of a tech genius) is in need of a really streamlined, easy to use word processor. I recommended Pages, but that's too much for her -- she wants to go all the way back to AppleWorks do her typing!

Anyone have any favorites they like to use or recommend?
Click to expand...

TextEdit, especially if you set the preferences for wrap to page.

iText Express, free & more featured than TextEdit

Why not use AppleWorks? AppleWorks 6.2.4 or 6.2.9 work very well on PPC & Intel Macs running OS 8 all the way to OS X 10.5.2.
 
Another vote here for Bean. It's wonderful, and wonderfully simple. A chimp could use it to write a Shakespeare play, it's so simple!
 
AppleWorks really did have the best word processor for anyone not working in a large office.

Look at Mellel, and Pages.

Bean looks nice, too.
 
for now Mellel, but in the future ...

I use Mellel to write scientific papers for publication, however I do the final layout (inserting figures, etc.) in Pages
Mellel plus Bookends is currently the best bibliography plus word processor, IMHO. However, I plan to switch to Pages + Papers once Papers acquires full fledged bibliographic capacity and once Pages better supports bibliographic programs.
 
What does your mother need to type up? If she plans on sharing her documents with Microsoft Office users, just sit down and teach her how to use NeoOffice.
 
I would also suggest NeoOffice - it can be just like Office, and she does not need to use all the bits that are there.

Or as others have said, TextEdit might be even easier for her.
KingYaba said:
What does your mother need to type up? If she plans on sharing her documents with Microsoft Office users, just sit down and teach her how to use NeoOffice.
Click to expand...
 
For almost 10 years now I've been using TextEdit as my primary word processor. And I have to say that it was a welcome change from what I had been using up to that point (writing in SimpleText and moving the content to ClarisWorks/AppleWorks for final formating and spellchecking).

Between the vast number of improvements and feature additions made since it was first introduced as a demo app back in 1996 and the third party services that extend it even further beyond where Apple has taken it, it is easily the single most used application on nearly all my systems (and it is constantly running on all of my systems that have it).

I've outlined on a number of occasions the things it can do (two examples of this can be found here and here), but I'm constantly surprised that people overlook it... and they seem to do it mainly because it is already on their systems.

Literally by the time I reach the point where TextEdit can't do what I need, I've reached the point where I would require a page layout app rather than a word processor.
 
What are her problems with Pages? You can remove items from the toolbar so that it looks very stripped-down. Change the default template so that it always opens with as simple an interface as she wants.
 
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