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How do you choose your word processor?

MacBH928

MacBH928

macrumors G3
Original poster
May 17, 2008
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Its amazing how many out there which all basically do the same thing, I am also surprised they are still out there with supported development:
MS Word, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Nissus Writer, Mellel, Apple Pages, Ulysses, Scrivner...I am sure you know others!

I know some of those are more purpose specialized/focused than others but you get the idea.

So which do you use and what is the reason?
 
LibreOffice.

Open-source, open format. Free. Can always switch easily to OpenOffice if Libre acts up. Or Google Docs which uses ODF under the covers. Or NeoOffice.

Like above, most of my office needs are solely for me. If need to share, Libre does a decent job with Office formats (ie. Nothing too complicated). Same with Pages/Numbers. Or generate a PDF.
 
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Well, they all have their reasons for existing.
For the most part I use Pages. I'm very familiar with it, it's got good collaboration features and support LaTeX for maths. Now for some things I will just do LaTeX, but Pages is quicker to set up how I want in most cases. Now when I say it's got good collaboration features that's because my study partner is also on a Mac, so all our databases reports were written in Pages with LaTeX for equations. But for working with Windows users I haven't really found a perfect system yet. Pages on iCloud just isn't really as nice to work with.
I realise it's very feature rich and influential, but as far as I'm concerned, Word can go and do something I shouldn't write here. Just absolutely hate it.
For Linux I like Libre office the most. Open is slower to develop, probably more stable though, and more like Word, but perhaps exactly because of that I prefer Libre. Though it's also way too much like MS Office for my taste.
I don't touch Windows btw.

For doing screenplays I've used Scrivener in the past but moved over to CeltX, which is a dedicated screenplay/script writer. And it's really good for it. I've also had good results with a custom template for Pages with Courier Prime downloaded as the font, but CeltX looks just as good with pre-configured short cuts just for scripts.

For LaTeX co-operation I can highly recommend Overleaf, formerly shareLaTeX. It's the Google Drive of LaTeX. For local work, TeXMaker is nice.
 
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MS Word is the obvious choice for anyone who wants to guarantee compatibility, and it plays well with the rest of the Office Suite, which can be very handy.

LibreOffice is a (better, IMO) fork of OpenOffice, so that's ruled out.

Some like WordPerfect are still used in some markets, such as law, due to macros IIRC.

Of course, I prefer to just use LaTeX. :cool:

Heck, even WordPad and TextEdit are good enough for a lot of things, and .rtf files are very efficient.
 
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chscag said:
Pages if I'm not exchanging documents with anyone else or doing anything academic, otherwise I use MS Word (Office 365) for compatibility. Word is the de facto standard in government, education, and most businesses.
Click to expand...

Higher education STEM subjects tend to avoid Word and stick to LaTeX.
 
Pages for day to day, sometimes LibreOffice for archived documents. Scrivener for novel writing, primarily for its organizational features.
 
I grew up with Word, and I've switched and stayed with Pages since the first (paid!) version. I find its features much more sensibly organized, making it more of a tranquil pleasure to use for long text documents or designed page layouts. And since iCloud, it's evolved some beautiful sync and collaboration features which I've used in various ways.
 
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Word as I need compatibility for work and it's what I am most familiar with. If I didn't need work compatibility then I would use Pages which I occasionally use and find it to be great.
 
I use iCloud Notes, Pages, LibreOffice, emacs, and LaTeX for word processing.

iCloud Notes when I want something with minimal formatting that syncs between my iOS and macOS devices and is really low overhead.

Pages when I want a modest level of page formatting to share among my devices.

LibreOffice for work documents and documents where I want a lot of formatting capability and the ability to export and import between a wide variety of document formats.

Emacs when I am dealing with a lot of text and want powerful macro capabilities.

LaTeX for writing research papers and books.
 
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pshufd said:
I use iCloud Notes, Pages, LibreOffice, emacs, and LaTeX for word processing.
Click to expand...

I didn't even think of Notes in this context, but that's a good one too for its part of the market, yes. You also made me remember I ought to put vim and Nano on my list. I don't want to start a vim vs. emacs war, I think both products are great, I'm just more familiar with vim. And Nano is just nice because it's so small and fast. Don't even mind if it's just Pico but that's hardly anywhere since Nano took its place
 
I like Scrivner for keeping my journal, but the interface takes some getting used to. Still, it handles massive manuscripts very well and it imports just about anything. The iOS version, however, sucks, and I'd never recommend it to anyone.

For shorter stuff I'm very used to Evernote and, actually, I don't see why I couldn't use it for journal keeping. It organizes notes and "notebooks" very well and the search function is excellent.

For day to day use (short fiction and nonfiction, and verse) I use Word. Sometimes I wonder why I rely on such a massive program for short stuff, but I've used it for years and find it familiar.
 
I use the free version of TextMaker. It's probably not as robust as Word, but I'll never find out. I don't need the fancier features. I can exchange .docx files with Word users (on Windows) without a problem, so it does the trick. But I use PlanMaker (spreadsheets) more. Both are from SoftMaker.
 
pshufd said:
I use iCloud Notes, Pages, LibreOffice, emacs, and LaTeX for word processing.

iCloud Notes when I want something with minimal formatting that syncs between my iOS and macOS devices and is really low overhead.

Pages when I want a modest level of page formatting to share among my devices.

LibreOffice for work documents and documents where I want a lot of formatting capability and the ability to export and import between a wide variety of document formats.

Emacs when I am dealing with a lot of text and want powerful macro capabilities.

LaTeX for writing research papers and books.
Click to expand...

Whats the difference between Libre and Open office? both seem very similar.

Whats the advantage of LaTeX? I thought it was mainly used because its easier to write math formulas using it.
 
Word and Acrobat.
Need the compatability with work and clients and the ability to lock documents for regulatory / legal purposes.

If I am just doing note taking I have a couple: OneNote and SimpleNote.
 
Gregg2 said:
I use the free version of TextMaker. It's probably not as robust as Word, but I'll never find out. I don't need the fancier features. I can exchange .docx files with Word users (on Windows) without a problem, so it does the trick. But I use PlanMaker (spreadsheets) more. Both are from SoftMaker.
Click to expand...

interesting choice, I never heard of this before. Why do you choose this especially that its a paid app, why not opt for Office or use the free LibreOffice
 
I still use Word and Pages. Sometimes just plain ol’ TextEdit.
But I’m really looking forward to Sefif’s Affinity Publisher (even though I would say that’s more page layout).
 
MacBH928 said:
Why do you choose this especially that its a paid app, why not opt for Office or use the free LibreOffice
Click to expand...

Softmaker has both a free version and a paid version. There's not that much difference between them except that the paid version can edit and save the older Microsoft formats such as *.doc. There are some other minor things that are included with the paid version.
 
Word is a must for me for working with clients and associates who may not use Apple products.

Was using Pages before it got nerfed in '09 - started using Keynote instead of Pages for any graphic heavy documents and then print to PDF to send to others - works pretty good (for my use) once it's set up (template as a portrait view instead of the landscape view for presentations) - kind of like the old Pagemaker days LOL
 
MacBH928 said:
Whats the difference between Libre and Open office? both seem very similar.

Whats the advantage of LaTeX? I thought it was mainly used because its easier to write math formulas using it.
Click to expand...

LibreOffice is a fork. I went with LibreOffice when OpenOffice had a lot of bugs and have just stuck with it.

LaTeX is nice for ToC, Bibliography and Math. I've used SGMLs since the 1970s and just like LaTeX for the fine-grained control that it offers.
 
MacBH928 said:
Whats the difference between Libre and Open office? both seem very similar.
Click to expand...

They are similar. But I'd say LibreOffice focuses more on being fast with new fefatures, and Open focusses more on being slow and stable.

MacBH928 said:
Whats the advantage of LaTeX? I thought it was mainly used because its easier to write math formulas using it.
Click to expand...

That is one of the strengths of LaTeX. You can actually use LaTeX for maths inside of Pages. I do that all the time.
But LaTeX can do a lot more for you too, with custom defined commands, and just generally a lot of flexibility. I mean, you could do charts with a level of customisation you could do in no other way. Someone's made a plug-in/extension for Word to make it soom more like LaTeX. The tagline was "The world's first WYSIPCTWYCGWOE Word Processor". Very catchy. The acronym is for "What you see is pretty close to what you can get with other editors", the "other editors" in question being actual LaTeX.
 
Pages. I'm a novelist, so I've heard lots of other options with more "features" (like Scrivener), but when it comes right down to it, I realized I just want a word processor that's just a page I can type on and that's it. And I like that Pages syncs flawlessly via iCloud, so I can use my iPad when traveling and then go back to my Mac when home and it's just the same constantly updating document.

Writing as a day job, I use Word because that's what the company uses, and it's good for editing/tracking changes.

Word also easily imports into Vellum, which is the best ebook formatting software on the planet, and what I use to publish on Amazon.
 
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