Word Processing is quite frustrating for me lately.  I tend to work on several different types of documents, and as most of you know, I believe that certain tools are better for different jobs/tasks.

I do love finding a program that I say, “Oh, I can do all of my needs in this one application.”  It’s awesome because I feel less bloated in a way.  Take for instance, VMWare Fusion and Parallels Desktop 5.  They both do the same thing, but VMWare Fusion has (in my opinion) a better Unity mode than Parallels’ Coherence.  But Parallels has better support for OpenGL and 3D Graphics on their virtual machines, but VMWare feels more stable with the features it provides.  So, what do I do?  I have both (and use the both evenly just to let you know).

Anyways, back on topic.

Word processing has always been an issue for me on a Mac.  Windows keeps it simpler, somewhat.

Word Processing on Windows

In terms of user interface and design, I think that there are 3 main holders of power in Word Processing on Windows.  There’s Microsoft Word, Corel WordPerfect, and IBM Lotus Symphony.  Sure that are some more out there, like OpenOffice.org and AbiWord, but they follow the trend, and don’t try to set trends.  You may argue that IBM Lotus Symphony itself is based upon OpenOffice.org, but the user interface of Symphony sets it apart.  Symphony has it’s own look and feel, not something like “Hey, use us, we look just like the expensive stuff.”  I think OpenOffice.org and AbiWord are great projects and very useful, but they don’t really try to stand out among the crowd.

All of them pretty much have the features I need, it’s just the interface or pricing.

I love the interface of IBM Lotus Symphony.  The only problem right now is how bulky it is.  I can’t use it because of how slow and clunky it feels.  If it were snappier, it’d be my word processor of choice, but right now, I just keep my eye on it hoping for speed improvements.

Corel WordPerfect is a great tool.  I know people who refuse to use anything else.  I could never really get into it.  I’m looking at it now, and I like what I see, but now I’m on Mac, so I don’t see a point in buying it.

Microsoft Word is pretty much the standard.  I personally don’t like the “ribbon.”

On Windows, I currently use AbiWord or OpenOffice.org (the build from Go-Oo).  Sure I bash them for following, but they’re reliable and useful.  I also don’t use Windows very much, so I just need something cheap to open up documents when I am on Windows.

Word Processing on a Mac

On a Mac, you get the same basic choices that Windows has, MS Word, OpenOffice.org (or NeoOffice), and IBM Lotus Symphony.  You also get a load of other choices like Nisus Writer, Mellel, Bean, Mariner Write, iWork’s Pages, Pagehand, and much more (not to mention things like Scrivener or WriteRoom).

MS Word is still the standard for most people.

OpenOffice, NeoOffice, and all the other derivatives still aim to provide the same feature set of MS Word.  I really hate the user interface on the Mac because it doesn’t flow.  Even though it no longer requires X11, it still looks like a Windows MS Word 97 clone.

IBM Lotus Symphony looks the same as it does on Windows.  I still love the user interface, but it’s still bulky and slow to run.

PageHand is a relatively new player in the Mac OS X Word Processing game.  I really like what it has so far, but it still has a long way to go.  I really need footnotes, headers, footers, and some other things that PageHand currently doesn’t provide.  I want to buy it, but I’m reluctant (although buying it would probably aid in development and get me the features I need).  Another one of my concerns, yet also my likes is it saves to the PDF format.  The actual markup is a comment in the PDF (I believe), which makes me concerned about necessary file size when sharing the document (but I can always Print->PDF I guess).

Mariner Write feels really old.  It’s still updated, but there’s times when I believe, that a meeting should be called, and an update to the modern age should happen.  Sure it’s friendly, but it feels like it’s designed for old people.  Not sure how to describe it, but I feel like I lose control in the wrong direction with it.

iWork’s Pages, on the other hand, makes me feel like I lose control in the right direction.  I really like Pages, but I don’t see me using it in my day to day writing.  I enjoy the interface, I enjoy the features, but when it comes down to some of the parts of the document I need to edit for classes, Pages needs a few more steps than what I want to take.  Mainly for custom footers and headers on every page, easy foot notes, and some other things (although I’m probably doing things wrong because I’ve been told it’s actually easy to do in Pages).

Mellel is a word processor that I keep looking at, trying, and finding myself hating for tampering with.  It’s a great tool, but the learning curve is too steep for me to make the jump.  I’d like to learn to use it, but I can’t find the time nor patience to do so.

Bean is a free minimal word processor.  It has the basic features most people need.  I think it’s okay for basic word processing, and it’s fast as can be, but it lacks the power I need.

Nisus Writer Pro is what I currently use.  I love the interface and the features, but it’s still a bit rough around the edges in comparison to some of the other things out there.  I rarely use images in my documents, but when I do, I always question why I’m trying to do it in Nisus.  Other than that, foot notes, headers, footers, and a lot of other things are easily.

I really like Nisus Writer, PageHand, and Symphony because the most common things I need to do are easily and readily accessible.  MS Word, OpenOffice, and some others have floating windows and a bunch of other things to customize regularly accessed or regularly changed  parts of a document creating too much clutter (in my opinion).  The person working on PageHand probably read my mind or something because they way it handles typography is simply beautiful to me.  I love the way it works.  I wouldn’t have bought Nisus Writer Pro if Symphony worked well enough for daily use on my computer (sorry Nisus).  Symphony is great project, but I think they need to work on making it more usable (or tolerable?).

My main issue with word processing on the Mac is that there are so many choices, and each choice handles things in its own way, which is both a blessing and a curse.  On Windows, it’s more of choose the one that opens the right file formats, or which one works nicely with your wallet.  On Mac, the concern is how do you, as the user, want your word processor to work with you (or how do you want to work with the word processor).

I think there are many great things coming out in the future.  OpenOffice is working on a new user interface (at least for Impress?), MS Office 2010 is supposed to come out soon, and PageHand is still relatively young and growing.  I haven’t heard that many rumors about an iWork ’10 (other than there probably won’t be one).

Anyways, what do you use for word processing and why?