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Word Processing on Mac preferred alternative to Microsoft Word

L

lightfire

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 10, 2017
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I am thinking of getting an M1 Macbook Pro. I have never gotten along with Word but have been using it. Back in the day Wordperfect was THE word processing package for me.

Which software has anyone found to be powerful yet intuitive (more so than Word) word processing as an alternative to Word?
I am writing a new book for kindle publishing as well as everyday office word processing. For PC desktop I just began evaluating TextMaker and it is possible that may be my answer for Mac as well, but want to see what others have arrived in choice.
 
lightfire said:
I have used Pages on Ipad but don't know about it as a full WP package on laptop. Does it work well for you for larger tasks?
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Absolutely. I am 29 and I used it all through school 15 years back (even though my school used Word), then all through university also - all dissertations, long-form essays, the works.

And I've used it for any and all word processing I need to do ever since. FWIW it's much easier to use and feature functional on Mac. It opens Word files and can save back to Word if required; however I usually just save documents as PDF if I'm sending them to people who don't need to edit them.

And since it's free there's no harm in checking it out.
 
lightfire said:
I am thinking of getting an M1 Macbook Pro. I have never gotten along with Word but have been using it. Back in the day Wordperfect was THE word processing package for me.

Which software has anyone found to be powerful yet intuitive (more so than Word) word processing as an alternative to Word?
I am writing a new book for kindle publishing as well as everyday office word processing. For PC desktop I just began evaluating TextMaker and it is possible that may be my answer for Mac as well, but want to see what others have arrived in choice.
Click to expand...
While Word Perfect, it has been a long time since I have heard anybody mention it. I remember when it was the preferred WP until Word showed up for free on every PC my company bought back then.
 
You could try Pages. It will be free on your new MacBook. I like it and have used it for years. The downside is if you need to perfectly export your format to Word. But then, even exporting from one version of Word to another can be a problem.

Pages can export the ebook format which may be good for you.

For long form work many people like Scrivener. It has features to help you organize a book.

You could also just go to the App Store and browse the word processors.
 
lightfire said:
I am thinking of getting an M1 Macbook Pro. I have never gotten along with Word but have been using it. Back in the day Wordperfect was THE word processing package for me.

Which software has anyone found to be powerful yet intuitive (more so than Word) word processing as an alternative to Word?
I am writing a new book for kindle publishing as well as everyday office word processing. For PC desktop I just began evaluating TextMaker and it is possible that may be my answer for Mac as well, but want to see what others have arrived in choice.
Click to expand...
If you are writing a book, you need to give Scrivener by L&L a spin. Or if you want to create in a "distraction free" environment maybe try iA writer or WriteRoom.

For office use, there is a lot to like about Pages. If I didn't have to collaborate with other people, that's all I would use for office word processing.


EDIT: forget about WriteRoom, they haven't updated it in 7 years.
 
Last edited:
Joseph H said:
Absolutely. I am 29 and I used it all through school 15 years back (even though my school used Word), then all through university also - all dissertations, long-form essays, the works.

And I've used it for any and all word processing I need to do ever since. FWIW it's much easier to use and feature functional on Mac. It opens Word files and can save back to Word if required; however I usually just save documents as PDF if I'm sending them to people who don't need to edit them.

And since it's free there's no harm in checking it out.
Click to expand...
I also have been using apple's word processor for a long time. Back then (2002 I think) it was iWork, I remember having one of the only 2 Macs in the hospital (the other one belonged to the marketing director).
 
Surprised Libre Office hasn’t been mentioned as another alternative. I think it’s paid for via the App Store, but free via web site.

I have both Pages and Libre Office. I’ve never really taken to Pages, I find Libre Office more Word like And tend to go to that first. The amount of word processing I have to do nowadays is negligible so I don’t spend much time in either anyway.
 
+1 for Pages.

For many reasons but for me, Pages handles larger documents (e.g., 500+ page manuscripts, reports, etc.) really well.
 
Word Perfect's best days were with DOS. The counterpart to Word Perfect on a Windows PC was Ami Pro. I am not a fan of Word back the nor now. Any of the items such as LibreOffice and similar are good candidates but most likely will not have a port for M1 based systems but may work under Rosetta 2. If the latter holds true, its not a bad choice as an alternative to Word.
 
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I tried Libre Office several times in the past and didnt like it then. It may be better now. But I just purchased TextMaker with the complete office suite and so far it looks good. The Mac version should run well under Rosetta, and I have PC version. Still not sure if I want to settle on this, though. I may go ahead and try Scrivener for my book projects.
 
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phrehdd said:
Word Perfect's best days were with DOS. The counterpart to Word Perfect on a Windows PC was Ami Pro. I am not a fan of Word back the nor now. Any of the items such as LibreOffice and similar are good candidates but most likely will not have a port for M1 based systems but may work under Rosetta 2. If the latter holds true, its not a bad choice as an alternative to Word.
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Man, I remember Ami Pro. Used that for ages back in the day.
 
lightfire said:
I tried Libre Office several times in the past and didnt like it then. It may be better now. But I just purchased TextMaker with the complete office suite and so far it looks good. The Mac version should run well under Rosetta, and I have PC version. Still not sure if I want to settle on this, though. I may go ahead and try Scrivener for my book projects.
Click to expand...
Scrivener has a great and prolonged trial period (30 non-continuous days of use, for as long as it takes for you to use them all)
 
posguy99 said:
Man, I remember Ami Pro. Used that for ages back in the day.
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In the earliest days of Widows and Word, Ami Pro was actually far faster and had more things that could be done with it. If you were a fast typist, one would have to wait for Word to catch up while Ami Pro felt like a text editor at that time - never missed a step(press of the key). Poor Word Perfect, its first entrance into GUI was somewhat miserable. I think I had the most fun back in DOS days and then some. Today, darn curious how the M1 chip is going to work for me if* I return to the fold here and renew an affair with the Mac Mini. (So put out with Apple that my last Apple computer was a 2015 MacBook Pro which I am using at this moment).
 
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