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Word Processor for Snow Leopard

I forgot to mention that I am downloading Mellel as I write this. I'm always eager to try new software, (OK, so I'm a software junky) So I will give that a serious try, too.

Spacemagic, I've favored MS Word for years, too. As word processors go, it's definitely the standard. When you really get into it, you find it can do as much page layout detail as any program designed just for that. Some years ago, I even write a small manual about Word for beginning users.

But now, I'm trying to have a MS free-zone and I'm really close. But, in the end, I may have to install a version of Word anyway. Luckily, I can do that , I think, without dual-booting Windows or using a Windows emulator. Cross-over does Word, I think.

BTW all, NeoOffice has proven to be very good with Powerpoint files but many people have abandoned PP in favor of making videos.
 
Slrman said:
Well, as a matter of fact, I have had OpenOffice and it had the same problems. It cannot handle graphics placement well and, when going back and forth between it and actual Word (as happens when exchanging documents with others) any graphics may or may not move from where they should be. So OpenOffice is not an improvement.
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The only solution to that would be to stop using Microsoft Office since the graphics handling problems and a lot of other things are being caused by Microsoft Office. If OpenOffice.org fails on this than don't even try iWork and TextEdit since they have really crappy Office import/export filters compared to NeoOffice/OpenOffice.org and other alternatives which will make it even more messy. When using OOXML or ODF things might improve but expect documents to break in a horrible way. Even going back and forth between different Word versions will cause some breakage when using the old .doc format (again, ooxml might do better).

All of the problems you are posting here are caused by Microsoft Office and the use of it's old native proprietary format which even Microsoft gets wrong from time to time. When working with Microsoft Office one should be prepared that layout will be broken if you exchange documents. It does not matter with whatever application that document has been created, it can (and mostly will) happen with any application including Microsoft Office itself.
 
dyn, all you say is true. The real problem is, how do I get everyone else to stop using MS office, especially Word? One thing that will work is converting the documents to .pdf format so nothing can move. But that is often not an acceptable solution to clients because they normally want files that can be edited when needed and don't want to be locked into one provider (me).

I have Mellel now and am able to insert graphics just fine. Unfortunately, when reading Word documents, no graphics, headers, footers, or tables such as contents are imported.

So that doesn't look like a workable solution, either. (sigh) :confused:
 
exegete77 said:
With Papyrus, I wrote a book, 230+ pages including ~100 photos, with auto-captioning and chapter files. Movement of images was instantaneous and auto-numbering was updated very quickly. Never once crashed. Ultimately I produced PDFs that I sent directly to the printer, who then used them to print. The only really problem was two scanned photos that didn't do well (not the fault of Papyrus, even the printer couldn’t improve on what was done).

I don’t use Papyrus for any work that requires Hebrew. While it will allow each word to be written right-to-left, the words themselves have to be written in reverse order in the sentence. For anything requiring Hebrew, I use Mellel - superb word processor, and unmatched style sheets, and multiple independent note streams (footnote or endnote), and auto-titling.
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Are you using this in SL 10.6? Which version?
 
Slrman said:
dyn, all you say is true. The real problem is, how do I get everyone else to stop using MS office, especially Word? One thing that will work is converting the documents to .pdf format so nothing can move. But that is often not an acceptable solution to clients because they normally want files that can be edited when needed and don't want to be locked into one provider (me).

I have Mellel now and am able to insert graphics just fine. Unfortunately, when reading Word documents, no graphics, headers, footers, or tables such as contents are imported.

So that doesn't look like a workable solution, either. (sigh) :confused:
Click to expand...

Answer: buy MSO and use Word like everyone else.
 
Michaelgtrusa said:
Are you using this in SL 10.6? Which version?
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I have version 12.56 of Papyrus. When I worked on the book, I was using OS 10.4 on an eMac. Now, I have a MacBook Pro with OS 10.6.1 and Papyrus works fine. It does require Rosetta to run, but there have been no problems.
 
exegete77 said:
I have version 12.56 of Papyrus. When I worked on the book, I was using OS 10.4 on an eMac. Now, I have a MacBook Pro with OS 10.6.1 and Papyrus works fine. It does require Rosetta to run, but there have been no problems.
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Thanks for the answer. Getting an answer is getting rare here these days.
 
Slrman said:
What I don't understand is, if Mellel is so good, why the final layout with figures has to be done in Pages? Everything else is going to be just text and possibly tables. So why not just do the entire thing in the program that does it all?
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The answer is, at this point, somewhat historical.

Mellel in conjunction with Bookends (a bibliography program) is very powerful. Five or so years ago when I switched to Mellel + Bookends, Endnote was unbearably arcane and slow--as was msWord. Word was not intel native at the time and Endnote had been surpassed by other newer programs, Bookends being one of them. Bookends and Mellel are/were very nicely integrated.

Mellel allowed me to structure the document such that with one click I can change from NIH to NSF format (see style sets), something that no other program could do at the time. In Mellel, independent parameters can be set for each type of heading, paragraph, or list and grouped into a cohesive style set. I also set the style sets up such that I could toggle between the minimum, medium, or maximum font sizes and line spacing allowed--so as to keep to page limits.

Coming from msWord world, it takes a while to set up and to understand style sets in Mellel. Mellel's style sets, however, are more powerful than formatting in options in msWord.

Mellel had poor image placement tools--until recently. Even now, I still prefer Pages figure/image placement tools.

Pages did not exist when I switched to Mellel. When Pages came out it lacked Bookends/Endnote support.

While Pages has "style sets," I have not determined if Pages's Style Set implementation is as powerful as Mellel's. If it is as powerful, I might switch completely to Pages--even though the Bookends integration is not as nice as it is in Mellel.

Regardless of the program I wrote a given document in, I turn everything into a PDF file for submission or to share with colleagues.
 
Slrman said:
dyn, all you say is true. The real problem is, how do I get everyone else to stop using MS office, especially Word?
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Et voila, that's the core problem everybody has. There is a solution to that though: change the way you work on documents (see below).

I have Mellel now and am able to insert graphics just fine. Unfortunately, when reading Word documents, no graphics, headers, footers, or tables such as contents are imported.
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As I said this was to be expected.

My point was that you should look at the Word processor you most like but expect stuff to break when someone else opens the file. You can solve that by using other formats and stop using layout and other stuff as much as possible. When the content is approved start putting everything together and turn it into a document. You can use pdf in this case so people can take a look and mail you the changes. At this stage this will mostly be about the layout and such. In other words, the solution to this is to change the way you work on documents.
 
shwc said:
Coming from msWord world, it takes a while to set up and to understand style sets in Mellel. Mellel's style sets, however, are more powerful than formatting in options in msWord.
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I had used Word from 1990-2004, and so found a little trouble with stylesheets when I switched to Mellel. But once it was made, what a difference.

shwc said:
Mellel had poor image placement tools--until recently. Even now, I still prefer Pages figure/image placement tools.

Pages did not exist when I switched to Mellel. When Pages came out it lacked Bookends/Endnote support.

While Pages has "style sets," I have not determined if Pages's Style Set implementation is as powerful as Mellel's. If it is as powerful, I might switch completely to Pages--even though the Bookends integration is not as nice as it is in Mellel.

Regardless of the program I wrote a given document in, I turn everything into a PDF file for submission or to share with colleagues.
Click to expand...

Pages style sets will not come anywhere close to what Mellel provides.

And Mellel’s multiple, independent note-streams are unmatched.
 
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