The latter is particularly useful; free alternatives to Microsoft Access are hard to find. If you work collaboratively, or switch between a PC and a Mac, Google Docs.
A writer is only as good as his or her tools. And when it comes to writing tools, Mac often leads the way. A Macbook is the dream system if your work involves anything to do with graphics and images. It is often the goal for anyone with a creative streak, but Apple Pages isn’t a one-size fit all tool for writers.
As a result, many Mac owners end up using third-party word processors. MS Word in particular is a popular choice. It has long dominated the field of word processors and what they’re good at, which is producing documents.
The expensive licensing fees and the almost annual new versions, bugs, and fixes means a lot of MS Word writers are trapped in a love/hate relationship. Our stories, our writing, our creative results—they’re like our babies.
Better Time for Writers
In recent years the pendulum is swinging. Writers have made an impact on the world, or maybe it’s just that technology and software developers have finally reached beyond a one size fit all approach to software. Distraction-free software and customizing your experience when writing, whether it’s a text editor or a free word processor for Mac, is trending. And since we all know the story of the struggling writer, it doesn’t hurt to cut out those fees either.
So, if you’ve been waiting for the day when you’d have a choice between more than just two or three tools for your writing, or the day that you could cut the purse strings between you and recurring licensing fees, this could be it.
Below are just some of the free word processors for Mac. Pick a couple of these that you like but do some additional in-depth research. Choose the best tool to help you focus on telling your story. You may simply find a better tool to help you release your creative side, or you may find the motivation needed to finally make the big switch from PC to Mac.
Microsoft Word for Mac
Word for Mac is now available. It’s not a free word processor for Mac users, of course, but it’s worth mentioning. So, if you do happen to be an MS Word lover, you can subscribe to Office 365 for a low monthly fee of $9.99 month. Reviewers are raving that MS Word for Mac looks and acts like MS Word for the PC. So, if MS Word is what you’ve been pining for, your wait is over.
For the rest of us, below are some free word processors for Mac that will get the job done for writers:
WPS Writer by Kingsoft
WPS Office by Kingsoft is a free suite of software available for multiple platforms including Windows, iOS, Linux, and Android. Part of the WPS Office 2016 suite is WPS Writer, the word processing component of the Office suite. WPS Writer supports multiple languages in addition to English, including French, Portuguese, Polish, German, and Russian and its mobile apps boast registered users of more than 400 million. It’s free, and you can import and export from a wide range of file formats. However, exported files will include a watermark, and printing is only available to paid subscribers.
LibreOffice Writer
LibreOffice Writer is open source software, which means it’s available for Mac OS, Windows, and Linux operating systems. There’s also LibreViewer for Android. LibreOffice Writer supports for over 100 languages. For those who have been using MSWord, you’ll find the interface for MS Word very similar. If you prefer to get a head start, LibreOffice offers a variety of great built-in templates to choose from. One of the things you’ll like about LibreOffice is that it can handle different document types, so you’ll have no trouble at all opening those MS Word files. To learn more about how this stacks up against Word, read our LibreOffice vs MS Word article.
AbiWord
Another pick of free word processors for Mac users is AbiWord. Available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux users, its easy to use interface is one that former WordPerfect users will love. Some users report that the scrolling is not ideal, so it’s probably better suited for keyboard warriors who are used to scrolling using the arrow keys.
You can edit and save in multiple formats including encoded and rich text, Open document, text files and more. Spellchecker is included, and there are easy to install plugins. Support is via email, so it’s not lightning fast. There is an option to hide menus for writers looking for distraction-free writing sessions.
Google Docs
Google Docs is free and cloud-based, so it works well on any system. It’s become a popular option for many small businesses and consultants who need to work collaboratively on documents. Google Docs saves your changes as you type and you can even look at revision history and see who made changes to your document.
As a writer, the biggest draw to Google Docs is the ability to work collaboratively in real-time with someone else, perhaps a co-author, contributor, or even an editor. You can install a Chrome app that lets you open, edit, and save MS Word files. Personally, I could never get past the panic of not knowing for sure that my changes were saved. But if you can be comfortable with never having to save a document again, or if you have a need to work collaboratively in real-time, then Google Docs may be a good fit.
Lyx
Another free word processor for Mac you may not have heard of is Lyx. It’s available for Windows and Unix/Linux users too, so no one is left out. It’s open source, and you can import and export to other document formats such as HTML, PDF, .doc, and rich text formats. Also, it’s actually a “document” processor rather than a “word” processor. This is mostly down to semantics but it means that Lyx writers can forget about formatting and focus on writing.
There are loads of longer document templates with automatic formatting to help with consistency. If you just want to write without having to figure out things like footnotes, references, or how to do a table of contents, Lyx may work well for your needs.
BEAN
For the more daring among you, Bean walks the tightrope line between a full-featured word processor for Mac and a bare-bones text editor. It’s free, but there have been some bugs to work out as far as compatibility goes. So, make sure you choose the right download for your OS X system. If you don’t need the formatting capabilities of a word processor but miss the live word counts and other features some text editors don’t have, Bean may be a good fit.
Best Free Word Processors for Mac: Conclusion
In conclusion, I want to be transparent about the fact that I’m not yet a Mac user. I still dream of the day when I’ll have the Moxie to make such a transition. The information above has been provided through researching company websites and Mac user reviews. I did my best to be thorough and provide accurate information. But when it comes to choosing one of these free word processors for Mac, please do your research.
Word processors are really important to nearly all computer users. Most Windows users have had to use Microsoft Word at some point in their use of the computer, and Apple and Mac users also need to use their inbuilt word processors for time to time. Not only for writers, students, and professionals, word processors are indispensable to anyone who prefers maintaining soft copies of any important document, and in this technological age, there are few who wouldn’t take the help of Word and other processors.
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Windows users love Microsoft Word best because of the large variety of layout and editing options offered, but even a die-hard Word fan has to admit that it’s a bit cluttered, and at times, the numerous options are quite confusing. But luckily, there are loads of cool alternatives to Word, free and paid, basic and detailed in options. This article is going to list for you the top 8 word processors available on the Internet today, with detailed descriptions.
1. Google Docs
As efficient and reliable as Google services usually are, Google Docs is a great word processor that can be accessed through Google Drive. Though Google Docs does not support offline editing (unless you enable offline access manually), it offers other great features that make it worth using. For instance, it’s super easy to share documents, presentations, drawings and forms using Google Docs. You can also publish the same as a web page, or e-mail them using this word processor. Editing is great in Google Docs and it is compatible with all major browsers.
2. AbiWord
This process is awesome because it is fully compatible with Windows, Linux as well as Mac OSX. AbiWord is excellent if your field of work demands to fill in a lot of forms digitally. AbiWord is also capable of handling Word documents, OpenOffice documents, HTML pages and a whole range of other category documents as well. With a whole lot of layout options ranging from professional to simple, AbiWord also offers the Mail Merge facility, which generates forms, letters, documents in automated form, replacing given fields with data- so you don’t have to individually type all those similar emails yourself. This makes AbiWord truly fantastic to use.
3. OpenOffice.org
This is actually a suite of programs including word processing- Writer, presentations-Impress, spreadsheets-Calc, and a few other programs for drawing, etc. You only have to install the suite once, and then you have access to all these programs whenever you want. The word processing program, Writer, is able to open PDF files without requiring add-ons. Writer also offers smooth options for editing such as underlining, Bold, etc. Help and support for fixing bugs are available through a community forum, with responsive and prompt members. The community, just like OpenOffice itself, supports a large number of different languages, enabling users from various countries to use and participate. Moreover, OpenOffice can run well on Windows, Mac as well as Linux.
4. LibreOffice
LibreOffice is a wonderful combination of OpenOffice and NeoOffice. While NeoOffice is basically a Mac tool that looks like OpenOffice in format, LibreOffice can run on Windows and Linux as well. Also, like OpenOffice, LibreOffice offers support in many languages and is a suite of six programs which includes the user friendly word processor. The word processor comes with spell check and other modern editing options, as well as word prediction, where LibreOffice prompts and completes words for you. However, despite sharing similarities in layout with both OpenOffice and Word to some extent, this tool doesn’t have a word count in the bottom the way the other two do.
5. Jarte
A perfect option if you’re tired of the distracting clutter of MS Word’s options, Jarte provides a very basic, clean layout for you to work on. Jarte has superb loading speed, a tabbed interface, and comes with all the layout and editing options encased in menus instead of cramming them on to the top of the document. Jarte’s layout is set to Compact by default, but you can change it to Minimal or Classic. While Minimal offers a graphic free layout, Classic comes with better labeling options and enables you to set search bars and reference options like the dictionary. The tabbed format makes it easy to open individual documents separately in one Jarte window, and makes it easy to switch between the documents fast. Spell check is available as an option but has to be manually enabled in the free version. Ordinarily, software that offers both free and paid versions are likely to function better in the paid version, but Jarte’s free version provides more than enough features and good compatibility, making it ideal for Windows users.
6. Kingsoft Office suite
This suite of programs offers a really good word processor called the Kingsoft Office Writer. Based on a colorful interactive layout, Kingsoft’s documents are compatible with Word as well. Kingsoft Office Writer provides document encryption, section tabs, and a special night read mode for you to read documents in low light surrounding. It is able to open documents that have been e-mailed to and supports various formats for the same. However, the toolbar is a little too big for the regular sized window, and you may have to go fullscreen for a better experience.
7. TextEdit
Editing features for this word processor aren’t anything remarkable, but what makes this processor really cool is that you can drag and drop audio, video and image files onto the page to make them part of your document. TextEdit will also correct your spellings as you type, support HTML and JavaScript format, and help you create tables and lists easily. Features such as unlimited text size, syntax highlighting and multiple undo/redo options are offered. A drawback could be the startup time, which is comparatively longer when you put it side by side with the loading speed of programs like Jarte and OpenOffice.
8. WordGraph
This program will seem a bit disappointing at first. WordGraph does not have a desktop icon that you can quickly access, rather you have to type it in the Search bar of the Start menu and bring it up. Users have encountered problems with the Help option, as it often says there is a difference in format and this format (the one used by the user) is not supported. However, the error message will also provide a link the user can go to and install the missing file that is causing the error. WordGraph will work smoothly after that.
If getting this program to work is so problematic, why is it on this list? That’s because WordGraph does offer a lot of cool features that are worth all the trouble. You get superscript and subscript options, you can tile two or more documents vertically and horizontally, and many other toolbar options not offered by most other word processors. The appearance of WordGraph’s layout is really unique and colorful when it comes to the toolbar, making WordGraph a program worth trying out once.
Saurav is associated with IT industry and computers for more than a decade and is writing on The Geek Page on topics revolving on windows 10 and softwares.
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