# 03/04/2011 - ehMac Mac Poll - Which Word Processor do you mostly use?



## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

Which word processor for your Mac do you use? Pages? Word? Other?

Let us know an why!


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Pages when I want to.

Word when I have to.


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## crawford (Oct 8, 2005)

Word, sadly.


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## rvxtream (Aug 12, 2010)

Actually really happy with Open Office! Its free and does what i need it to...Write.


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## John Clay (Jun 25, 2006)

This should be a multiple choice poll.

I use Pages whenever possible, but I also use Word when I need absolute compatibility with a Word user. Pages import/export function won't always cut it, and it's not worth the risk it'll fail on a crucial document.


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## MacDoc (Nov 3, 2001)

Text Edit is just fine for me and I love how it handles links and images.


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## The Doug (Jun 14, 2003)

I don't have to (or want to) do very much word processing at home, but when I do, I still use AppleWorks 6 or for jotting simple notes and stuff, I use TextEdit.


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## Lichen Software (Jul 23, 2004)

Appleworks 6. It pretty much does everything I want and it is backward compatible with my vintage machines.


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## Stephanie (Jul 21, 2004)

My vote was for Pages.

If I went by #s of documents on my hard drives, it'd be Appleworks 6, hands-down. I'm trying to migrate myself to Pages however; any new docs I create in Pages, or any old ones I now open & work on with Pages. 

I've also got Open Office which gets used if required.


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## Lawrence (Mar 11, 2003)

I still use TextEdit and before that I used SimpleText and before that...MacWrite

Heh


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Pages.

Odd time Appleworks, but less and less.

Word only when someone sends me a .doc file which I copy and paste into Pages immediately.


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## Macfury (Feb 3, 2006)

TexEdit by TransTex software (not TEXTEdit which still doesn't have a word count feature!) Once I'm done my documents I paste it into that red-headed step child of a program, Microsoft Word, for those who like to spend hours poring through documentation to turn off brutally unhelpful "features."


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## Kleles (Jul 21, 2009)

I used to use Word at the office and Pages and TextEdit at home and I saved all my files as rtf (with IronKey as the transfer medium). Now that I am not encumbered with Word (because I'm retired), everything I do is in Pages. When I send files to others, I convert them to pdf. I also use TextEdit for quick notes.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

John Clay said:


> This should be a multiple choice poll.
> 
> I use Pages whenever possible, but I also use Word when I need absolute compatibility with a Word user. Pages import/export function won't always cut it, and it's not worth the risk it'll fail on a crucial document.


This is my case as well.


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

John Clay said:


> This should be a multiple choice poll.
> 
> I use Pages whenever possible, but I also use Word when I need absolute compatibility with a Word user. Pages import/export function won't always cut it, and it's not worth the risk it'll fail on a crucial document.


There's different ways to poll a subject. 

I was curious what word processor was used _*the most*_ by ehMacians.


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## JAMG (Apr 1, 2003)

TextEdit does everything I need, which is to open Word Docs and strip out any formating...
Indesign for anything else


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## Paddy (Jul 13, 2004)

I only use Word out of long habit - and pretty much all of my clients use it to send me content for their websites. Formatting isn't really an issue in most cases, so I could just open them all in Pages and carry on, but so far haven't made any attempt to switch. Word works, I'm familiar with it and I'm not doing anything terribly complex with it. (For that, I have InDesign)

And this is a carryover from the AppleWorks/Word days too - never used AW all that much either. I know...BAD Apple loyalist here.


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## Amiga2000HD (Jan 23, 2007)

I don't have a concrete answer for this poll. Basically, I use whatever software that can handle rich text documents on whatever machine I happen to be using at the time. The reason for this is to keep my documents as cross-platform and cross-software package friendly as possible. It's worked well except for one file I made on the Mac Pro at home that misformatted spectacularly when it got opened on a Windows 7 machine at work. One of these days I need to look into what happened with that document.

I guess I can't really answer the poll since I use too many different systems with different operating systems and software packages to be tied to one word processor.


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

It's surprising how much I actually use Mac OS X Mail for my word processing.


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## speckledmind (Jan 12, 2005)

Reluctantly using Word :/

And that's only because I'm having issues with Appleworks 6.2.9 since I upgraded my OS to 10.5.8 / Tiger


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

Avoid Word period.

Most often TextEdit. Unlike MF I really don't care how many words I used.

Otherwise AppleWorks or Pages.


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## imactheknife (Aug 7, 2003)

Word, which is about as cruel as chinese torture on a good day. It's the single worst piece of .... I have ever used most of the time, especially when going from one computer to another with the same version of word! I need Word for school so I guess I am limited in options as all they have is word on their ugly Dell crap computers!


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

I miss Framemaker.


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## macmac (Oct 22, 2006)

I use pages and word.... word isn't THAT bad...you people are being to harsh on the product. It is an excellent program with years of development behind it.


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

Hmmm... I would suggest that voting on "Which Word Processor for Mac do you mostly use?" is a bit awkward and vague as a descriptor and may well depend a lot on what application or software that a user actually views or even uses as a "Word Processor" software application.

It seems that some survey posters are suggesting some applications that are actually "text editors" which aren't exactly or normally considered to be a "Word Processor".


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## Funkynassau (Apr 13, 2008)

I've been using Pages for about 4 years. At first I thought it was an insane and lousy program but once I began to understand how to use it I changed my mind. I still think having to use those Text Boxes to create a space for text is nutty, but it does work. Linking pages seems odd too, because you dont do that in Word, which I was very familiar with. I like Pages now, it lets me create our car club magazine (roughly 40 pages) fairly quickly and very nicely.


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## Nick (Aug 24, 2002)

One of two:
TextEdit (plain text only) for quick or non critical stuff; Or
JustNotes (also plain text) for more serious thoughts - it uses Simplenote for cloud storage/syncing. Which is great for editing the same stuff on multiple devices and keeping it in perfect sync.

My views are this:
Microsoft Word bloated crap which doesn't do anything well. 
Word processors should be lightweight and are for quick, easy, painless editing.
InDesign (or other such programs) is for making it look pretty.


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

Funkynassau said:


> I still think having to use those Text Boxes to create a space for text is nutty, but it does work. Linking pages seems odd too, because you dont do that in Word, which I was very familiar with.


Yo, dude. Somehow it seems someone set your Pages Preferences ("General") to open using the default _Page Layout_ template, instead of the _Word Processing_ template.

Pages allows you to just open a new file and start writing, including flowing from page to page, _just like Word does..._ if you use the proper template.

Open *Pages-->Preferences-->General* and change *"For New Documents:"* to *"Show Template Chooser"*

Then pick a Word Processing template and discover a whole new *Pages*!

Also see this video from Apple's Pages tutorials.


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## CubaMark (Feb 16, 2001)

macmac said:


> I use pages and word.... word isn't THAT bad...you people are being to harsh on the product. It is an excellent program with years of development behind it.


To spare regular ehMac visitors another multi-page rant, I will simply refer *macmac* to my thread on the horror that is MS Office 2011.


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##  Dumpling (May 28, 2010)

Pages for me. Another great app for times when you just want to write for the sake of getting your thoughts out is Ommwriter.


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## Guest (Mar 5, 2011)

Textedit (or Textwrangler or Coda) depending on which machine I'm on and what text editor I had open at the time. If I need to collab with others on a document I usually send them an RTF file and get back a word doc :/


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## The G3 Man (Oct 7, 2008)

Word. Anything else is garbage.


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## Nick (Aug 24, 2002)

The G3 Man said:


> Word. Anything else is garbage.


That's funny, as I'm pretty much the opposite of that.
I think Word is garbage.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Nick said:


> That's funny, as I'm pretty much the opposite of that.
> I think Word is garbage.


Ahh but G3 Man is stuck in the past... he still uses a PPC....


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

Ok so I finally answered this, with the answer being Word as most of my word processing occurs at work and it is a PC only environment. When I am at home on my Macs and working for myself it is a mixed bag between Word, Pages and TextEdit.


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## The G3 Man (Oct 7, 2008)

Nick said:


> That's funny, as I'm pretty much the opposite of that.
> I think Word is garbage.


Well. What do you use? The joke known as Pages? I mean come-on its not even cross-platform. And the only way you can natively saves and opens office files you need to edit a .plist 

I've tried others, but none of them work for me.



screature said:


> Ahh but G3 Man is stuck in the past... he still uses a PPC....


No, PPC is trash.

Ive moved up to PC, and another PC running Hackintosh.

PPC is outdated and useless crap now.

Though now that Apple finally gave up on nVidia crap, a newer MBP may be an option in the future.

-MMF


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## Digikid (Jun 22, 2010)

I use OpenOffice. Just as good as Word IMHO and it is FREE.

If any of you wanna try it OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite is the site.


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## The G3 Man (Oct 7, 2008)

Digikid said:


> I use OpenOffice. Just as good as Word IMHO and it is FREE.
> 
> If any of you wanna try it OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite is the site.


Its alright, I just found it a bit gimicky. But i will admit i am overly picky.

-MMF


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## hayesk (Mar 5, 2000)

The G3 Man said:


> Word. Anything else is garbage.


I hope you don't have to write and collaborate on 500+ page documents. If you do, save often.

I had to do that at my previous job. One day, they decided to take away FrameMaker and replace it with Word because some of my coworkers said "I like Word better" because they had it at home. After that I couldn't get through a day without several crashes.


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## KC4 (Feb 2, 2009)

Word, sadly, from many years of habit. Due to my familiarity with it, I can work much faster with it. I know, I know, just get familiar with Pages, right? I will. Tomorrow....


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

Anyone using OMM Writer. I have the demo, but find it king of hipster-ish.

Thoughts? Available in Mac Store for $5.


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## kps (May 4, 2003)

I think we should all switch to e(h)macs. It's free and already built into OS X.

Until then, I have both MS Office and iWorks and use them interchangeably depending on what I need to write.


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## Paddy (Jul 13, 2004)

The G3 Man said:


> Well. What do you use? The joke known as Pages? I mean come-on its not even cross-platform. And the only way you can natively saves and opens office files you need to edit a .plist


Eh? Pages opens .doc and .docx files and saves/exports to .doc among other formats. No need to edit any .plist files to get it to do that.


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## The G3 Man (Oct 7, 2008)

hayesk said:


> I hope you don't have to write and collaborate on 500+ page documents. If you do, save often.
> 
> I had to do that at my previous job. One day, they decided to take away FrameMaker and replace it with Word because some of my coworkers said "I like Word better" because they had it at home. After that I couldn't get through a day without several crashes.


Why? Word 2003 on my PC never crashes.

-MMF


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Lichen Software said:


> Appleworks 6. It pretty much does everything I want and it is backward compatible with my vintage machines.


Used AW6 for many years and still have tons of files stored in this format, but sadly AW is very slow now. I love Pages, though it has a bit of a learning curve, but things like the alignment guides make up for the adjustment. I wish there was an easy way to transport documents created in the Draw layer of AW into Pages. You can copy each element, of course, but it's a little tedious. Word is a plague upon mankind.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

The G3 Man said:


> Well. What do you use? The joke known as Pages? I mean come-on its not even cross-platform. And the only way you can natively saves and opens office files you need to edit a .plist
> 
> I've tried others, but none of them work for me.
> 
> ...


Looks like your cryogenically preserved avatar is the perfect symbol. Perhaps you need to update your moniker to "PC Running Hackintosh Man."


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## The G3 Man (Oct 7, 2008)

More like:

Dude who stopped drinking the Kool-AID.

And actually, I do miss AppleWorks.

-MMF


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## krs (Mar 18, 2005)

ehMax said:


> It's surprising how much I actually use Mac OS X Mail for my word processing.


Same here........

The application is instantly available since mail is open all the time.
Never crashes or locks up which Word does every so often
And I have all the documents I work on or need at my fingertips in the draft folder with the appropriate subject heading.

But I don't write or edit any 300 page documents either.


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## Guest (Mar 6, 2011)

The G3 Man said:


> Well. What do you use? The joke known as Pages? I mean come-on its not even cross-platform.


One could say the same about Open Office. You can't even open Pages files? Or Appleworks files? What a joke 

Word is a huge piece of crap. If you look up Bloatware in the dictionary is shows Word as an example! As another poster has pointed out if you're working on huge projects it's a total nightmare. It leaves behind so much crap in the files it's amazing that they are even parse-able. I have spent much time doing "support" for rescuing damaged word files ... it involved either copying and pasting small sections, converting them to standard text and then pasting them into a new document OR using a third party utility to try and recover any clear text found in the file in hopes that you might get back some of your work.

Pages, as far as a true "word processor" is probably one of the most elegant and clean ones ever made to date.

That said I still mostly use a text editor ... but had to inject my $0.02 here.


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## Guest (Mar 6, 2011)

The G3 Man said:


> Why? Word 2003 on my PC never crashes.
> 
> -MMF


Oh, on your *PC* ... ahh, that explains a few things. I think ehmax should maybe update the poll to ask what _*OSX*_ word processor do you use. Word in windows and word on OSX are completely different beasts.

You said you stopped drinking the kool-aid but it seems you've just switched brands from Apple to Microsloth.


That said Word is still the biggest piece of bloatware money can buy -- on any platform.


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

The most annoying thing about MS Word's bloat, at least with MS Office '08, is you can't use any slimming applications on it to remove all the surplus: code, languages, non-english language help files etc., otherwise the updaters won't work.

I'll also include most of the Adobe applications here as well, that act the same way if "slimmed" in any way.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

The G3 Man said:


> More like:
> 
> Dude who stopped drinking the Kool-AID.
> 
> ...


Point taken. But for the record, it was Flavor Aid, not Kool Aid.

Flavor Aid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


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## Adrian. (Nov 28, 2007)

Agreed. Word = bloatware. 

Office = Obesityware (why does Microsoft insist on giving you Messenger/Communicator with everything they sell?)


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## The G3 Man (Oct 7, 2008)

mguertin said:


> Oh, on your *PC* ... ahh, that explains a few things. I think ehmax should maybe update the poll to ask what _*OSX*_ word processor do you use. Word in windows and word on OSX are completely different beasts.
> 
> You said you stopped drinking the kool-aid but it seems you've just switched brands from Apple to Microsloth.
> 
> ...


You mean: CrApple to Micro$loth.

Their both just as bad as eachother.

-MMF


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

The G3 Man said:


> You mean: CrApple to Micro$loth.
> 
> Their both just as bad as eachother.
> 
> -MMF


Just thought I'd mention that your spell checker isn't working. ;-)

Joking aside and being a bit curious, I did a quick Google search on 'Samsung R522' and couldn't find much info or anywhere to purchase one in North America and virtually no support even from Samsung, so it really must be some unique machine.


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## Nick (Aug 24, 2002)

The G3 Man said:


> Well. What do you use? The joke known as Pages? I mean come-on its not even cross-platform. And the only way you can natively saves and opens office files you need to edit a .plist
> 
> I've tried others, but none of them work for me.


Hey G3 Man,

I answered over on page 3. Here it is again:

One of two:
TextEdit (plain text only) for quick or non critical stuff; Or
JustNotes (also plain text) for more serious thoughts - it uses Simplenote for cloud storage/syncing. Which is great for editing the same stuff on multiple devices and keeping it in perfect sync.

My views are this:
Microsoft Word bloated crap which doesn't do anything well. 
Word processors should be lightweight and are for quick, easy, painless editing.
InDesign (or other such programs) is for making it look pretty.


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## The G3 Man (Oct 7, 2008)

pm-r said:


> Just thought I'd mention that your spell checker isn't working. ;-)
> 
> Joking aside and being a bit curious, I did a quick Google search on 'Samsung R522' and couldn't find much info or anywhere to purchase one in North America and virtually no support even from Samsung, so it really must be some unique machine.


It is a unique machine. It is also a 2009 model. These machines are very hard to get especially in North America. Mine is a custom R522E.

Its the best PC notebook I have ever had, and after it finishes its run I will probably be looking into another MacBook(Pro).

Normally I dislike PC Laptops, this one I find simply amazing.

I bought it second hand from a friend who got it through his work.

-MMF


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## The G3 Man (Oct 7, 2008)

Nick said:


> Hey G3 Man,
> 
> I answered over on page 3. Here it is again:
> 
> ...


Textedits pretty decent.

I've never heard of JustNotes, let alone used it, so therefore I can not judge it.

-MMF


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

The G3 Man said:


> It is a unique machine. It is also a 2009 model. These machines are very hard to get especially in North America. Mine is a custom R522E.
> 
> Its the best PC notebook I have ever had, and after it finishes its run I will probably be looking into another MacBook(Pro).
> 
> ...


Thanks for the feedback and congrats on getting it so hacintosh OS X configured.

And going by your username, we have a G3 DT downstairs that was needed about three times just last year to recover data from some old floppy disks, some of which were the old 700 MB versions.

But I'm getting a bit off topic here... so back to the topic and the regular subject program. ;-)


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

mguertin said:


> Oh, on your *PC* ... ahh, that explains a few things. I think ehmax should maybe update the poll to ask what _*OSX*_ word processor do you use. Word in windows and word on OSX are completely different beasts.
> 
> You said you stopped drinking the kool-aid but it seems you've just switched brands from Apple to Microsloth.
> 
> ...


+1 on all accounts.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

The G3 Man said:


> You mean: CrApple to Micro$loth.
> 
> Their both just as bad as eachother.
> 
> -MMF


Meh... guess you have taken on the position of troll in this thread.

Don't Feed the Troll.


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## Bjornbro (Feb 19, 2000)

The G3 Man said:


> No, PPC is trash.
> 
> ~snip~
> 
> PPC is outdated and useless crap now.


Then shouldn't you change your signature? The G3 Man "ehMac's PowerPC Fanboy"  :lmao:


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## PosterBoy (Jan 22, 2002)

Word at work, BBEdit at home.


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## The G3 Man (Oct 7, 2008)

screature said:


> Meh... guess you have taken on the position of troll in this thread.
> 
> Don't Feed the Troll.


Don't Drink the Kool-Aid.


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## The G3 Man (Oct 7, 2008)

Bjornbro said:


> Then shouldn't you change your signature? The G3 Man "ehMac's PowerPC Fanboy"  :lmao:


I should. But have been too lazy.

-MMF


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## sateach (Dec 20, 2009)

Neo Office has been my suite of choice! Takes a few seconds to load, but then you've got everything Office can do but for free. Haven't had any compatibility issues but I really only use it for word processing and a bit of spread sheeting (?).


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## Mrsam (Jan 14, 2006)

Word at work and at home.


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

mguertin said:


> Oh, on your *PC* ... ahh, that explains a few things. I think ehmax should maybe update the poll to ask what _*OSX*_ word processor do you use. Word in windows and word on OSX are completely different beasts.


It's called "Today's Daily ehMac *Mac* Poll"  

I care what members use on Windows about as much as I care about the toilet paper I used to wipe my backside with 2 weeks ago.  beejacon


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

ehMax said:


> It's called "Today's Daily ehMac *Mac* Poll"
> 
> I care what members use on Windows about as much as I care about the toilet paper I used to wipe my backside with 2 weeks ago.  beejacon


Hmmm... would this be an *assinine* [sic] statement (sorry) that you really don't care or value your backside and the quality of the toilet paper you use??? 

That could be a real Ouch but maybe not as painful!!! ;-)


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## corrym (Sep 16, 2003)

Pages when im not forced with word...


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## james_squared (May 3, 2002)

Word works for me and works at work for my work that I work on at work and at home.

It does **** me off here and there when it brings up that little box saying it can't save my document because I don't have enough disk space or whatever the hell it says. At that point I have to copy the entire file, quit Word, and paste it in a new file. Yes, that's a bit of a pisser.


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## pm-r (May 17, 2009)

james_squared said:


> Word works for me and works at work for my work that I work on at work and at home.
> 
> It does **** me off here and there when it brings up that little box saying it can't save my document because I don't have enough disk space or whatever the hell it says. At that point I have to copy the entire file, quit Word, and paste it in a new file. Yes, that's a bit of a pisser.


It sounds like you have something goofy going on with your Mac and the word files if that's what you're experiencing.

Maybe start another subject thread for a solution for your problem.


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## rodkin (Jan 7, 2003)

TextEdit does most of what I want to do. Occasionally, I have to use something no one else has mentioned so far... QuarkXpress. 

The amazing thing is that I went 15 years as a copywriter and never once had to use Word (for which I am eternally grateful).


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## Guest (Mar 14, 2011)

james_squared said:


> Word works for me and works at work for my work that I work on at work and at home.
> 
> It does **** me off here and there when it brings up that little box saying it can't save my document because I don't have enough disk space or whatever the hell it says. At that point I have to copy the entire file, quit Word, and paste it in a new file. Yes, that's a bit of a pisser.


That's a "known issue" with Word if you're trying to save to a network share. The fix is to go into the preferences and disable the "show ___ previous files" (or whatever it's called).

Strange but true .. if you disable that option to show the last opened files it should then save correctly from you. If you phone Microsoft support they will tell you that they don't support saving files to a network share (sad but true). Adobe does the same thing as well if you have any problems, they tell you not to use network shares. How's that for stand-up support of their overpriced products!?!?

I stand by my feeling that Word is a very large and bloated piece of crap. This is further proof.


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## Bjornbro (Feb 19, 2000)

rodkin said:


> TextEdit does most of what I want to do. Occasionally, I have to use something no one else has mentioned so far... QuarkXpress.
> 
> The amazing thing is that I went 15 years as a copywriter and never once had to use Word (for which I am eternally grateful).


My brotha from another motha! Same as me (minus the copywriter profession). :clap:


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