While we’re on the topic of not-quite-wordprocessors for the Mac, it’s probably also worth mentioning a couple others that come up: WriteRoom is designed to provide a distraction-free writing environment Bean is apparently a very competent, barebones, and FREE (as in free beer) word processor. It’s a simple and elegant piece of software and I understand its attractions. Scrivener has a lot of online fans (including Eric Rauchway of UC Davis and Edge of the American West), for whom it’s a critical part of their workflow (and Scrivener users seem to be the sort of people who use the word “workflow.”) On the strength of such recommendations, I downloaded Scrivener and gave it a spin about a year ago. Have any of you tried to switch from MS Word to any of these other programs? If so, what advice can you give? ![]() I imagine that much of our small exclusive readership uses word processors in similar ways to me. How long will it take me to get up to speed in these other programs? Do these word processors have similar features and if I’m relying on others opening my documents in other word processors, will they see my comments?ģ) Learning curve: I know MS Word. And it’s how I collaborate on written projects. This is how I read and mark-up student papers these days. Can they open documents that I produce on these other word processors?Ģ) Mark-up: I’ve become addicted to MS Word’s editing functions. It’s apparently a champ at dealing with large documents, footnotes, etc.ġ) Compatibility: So much of my life involves sending people soft copies of documents. And Mellel is specifically designed for academic writing. Each of the three alternatives I’ve mentioned is supposed to be more stable than MS Word. In principle I’d love to entirely free myself from Microsoft and their bloated, buggy software. So why don’t I just switch? After all, I avoid the rest of the MS Office suite at this point I use Mail.app and Keynote and basically don’t use spreadsheets at all. Pages is a relatively new addition to the iWork suite (which I already own, so I could use it for free). Lately, however, I’ve been reading about people using three other Mac word processors that, in principle seem attractive to me: 1) Pages, the iWork word processor 2) Nisus Writer Pro and 3) Mellel. And though I’ve been aware that some colleagues in the sciences and social sciences have done their work on LaTeX for years, that never seemed like a viable option to me. We get MS Office for free at my institution, so price is just not an issue. It’s been years since I’ve seriously considered using another word processor. Lots of delays while the old color wheel randomly spun and two outright colorwheel crashes. Prices are in US dollars and don't include applicable taxes, if any.I lost about an hour worth of worktime this morning due to Word 2008 misbehaving on my Mac (mid-2007 MacBook Pro 17 inch running the latest version of OSX 10.5, fwiw). If you already own Bookends, you are eligible for a discount on Mellel. The Bookends/Mellel bundle can be purchased here. Special offer: buy Bookends and Mellel together for $89. If for any reason you can't run Bookends on a Mac on which your old version of Bookends is installed, please send your registration code to Sonny Software and we'll provide information on how to upgrade. Download and launch the new version of Bookends on a Mac where Bookends is already registered and you will be guided through the process. Purchase of an upgrade registration code is performed within the Bookends application itself. You are eligible for upgrade pricing if you bought or upgraded to Bookends 11 or later from us or the Mac App Store. Upgrade (with 2 years of free updates) : US$39.99 + tax/VAT. Note : if you are using Safari v11 or v12, please use this purchase link instead. There is a 10% discount if you buy 2 copies, and a 25% discount if you buy 3 or more. New (with 2 years of free updates) : US$59.99 + tax/VAT. Once the code has been entered in Bookends you can have an unlimited number of references. ![]() When you order Bookends you will receive a registration code that unlocks the free demo version that can be downloaded here. Try Bookends before you buy.Īll sales are final once the registration code has been provided. Read about some issues that might affect you.
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