Word processing on mac?

I'm a relatively new mac user, and I'm just wondering if anyone can tell me if the MacBook comes with any kind of word processing capabilities, because I am a poor college student and can't afford to buy Microsoft Office, unless I have to. If anyone could help me out, that would be awesome.

Neo office
http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php
open office (need x11)
http://www.openoffice.org/
bean
http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html
abiword
http://www.abisource.com/download/
and for your other needs
http://www.opensourcemac.org/

Similar Messages

Confused about word processing on macs - do i need to buy extra software?

Hi, am about to buy a new macbook (first mac- am switching over) but am very confused about the word processing facilities which come with. do i need to buy microsoft office for mac to use word etc or can i use something similar which comes with OS X (is it text edit?)? is this compatible with a word environment at work? thanks!
macbook Mac OS X (10.4.7)

I've personally always hated Microsoft Word, but have it because that's the "standard," and at the time I bought my MacBook, the Intel Mac version of NeoOffice (which is free) wasn't out yet. NeoOffice is now out for Intel-based Macs, and it seems to be every bit as powerful as Microsoft Office (and quite compatible).
However, for most things I do, I've found I actually like Pages the best. It's very easy to use, though if you do any special things in word processing it might not meet all your needs. It will open Word documents, and if you have to send something as a Word document, you can export it in Word format.
I would recommend that you try out the Pages trial that came with your Mac, and download NeoOffice for free. Try them both - go with what you like and what works best for you. I use Pages the most, NeoOffice for things Pages won't do, and Word if I'm forced to. (And I always have my old WordPerfect that I've used for years that I can run in Windows.)

Word Processing Practice Activities

I'm looking for activities to help middle school kids practice their word processing skills. Does anyone have links to sites for this? Several years ago, I had located some, but now some of the links are dead, or I've lost the bookmarks. Thank you.

Thanks. I don't see Documents, but I see iDocument...is that the app?
I googled and found a review of the best word processors for Mac, and Documents wasn't on it. http://thenextweb.com/apps/2014/01/16/10-best-word-processing-apps-mac/1/

Hi there, I have a Macbook Pro and I have been using Libre Office but I am not happy with it. I need a good word processing package to produce a manuscript and don't know if I have to get Word for Mac and how to put my documents into it.

Hi there and hello everybody.
I am writing a book and have been using Libre Office and would like a better word processing package.
I have heard that Pages 5 is better than the latest one. I need to be able to put my Libre Office documents
into Pages. Anyone know how to do this please?

magathon wrote:
Thanks. So would you say Word is the best processing package? And how do I choose which package 'opens' them.
This is a basic computer skill you might want to learn. You can always control which application opens any document, and the steps below apply to any Mac or Windows computer you use:
Method 1: Drag the document icon on top of the application (Word, Pages, LibreOffice...) icon and release. The system will open the document in the application you dragged it to.
Method 2: Go into the application (Word, Pages, LibreOffice...) and choose File/Open. Locate and select the document, and click the Open or OK button.
Method 3: Select the document icon and choose File/Open With, then choose the application you want to open the document with.
The only time these don't work is when the application cannot open that type of document. For example, you usually can't make a photo editor open a text file. But Word, Pages, and LibreOffice all know how to open text files, RTF files, and Word files.
But if it is important that the document formatting is exactly preserved when exchanging with other Word users, you really should use Word. If you can't afford to pay the retail price for a copy, Microsoft now lets you use Office for $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year.

What word processing program should I use with my Mac, what word processing program should I use with my Mac, what word processing program should I use with my Mac

what word processing program should I use with my Mac?

steve359 wrote:
For free you can download NeoOffice
Not quite. Downloading the current version of NeoOffice is definitely not free (downloading the previous version is). The developers of NeoOffice (the most Mac-like of the StarOffice descendants) make a distinction between the application itself (which is free) and downloading it, for which they require what they are pleased to call a "donation" (since it's mandatory, I would call it a fee).
shldr2thewheel wrote:
I totally forget about TextEdit all the time..
Indeed. For basic WP tasks, TextEdit can be quite satisfactory.
embauerxz
I only need it for reports
Would that include the report on the state of the US economy -- you know, the one President Obama asked you to deliver to the White House no later than 7AM on January 4? The one in two columns, with numbered paragraphs, table of contents, footnotes, mathematical formulae, 40 figures, 60 charts, quotations in Arabic, Japanese, and classical Greek, and 15 pages of references in APA style?
Grant Bennet-Alder is right -- "the real answer depends on what work you expect to do with it, and with whom you expect to do this work". There are dozens of word processors for Mac, from the venerable Word to the no less venerable Tex-Edit+. It would pointless to start listing them all, when many of them might be either too little or too much for your needs.

Word processing - printing - or transfer to Mac

I would like to get a good word processing app. and be able to transfer the page to my Mac or print it through Airport Extreme to one of my printers.
I have iWork on my Mac but don't use it. I use Appleworks WP and data base.
I know Pages is available for the iPad but don't know how good it is as compared to other apps. that are mentioned.
Any suggestions....
Harold

Documents to Go (or Office2 HD) will produce your document.
Dropbox is a free Cloud service that syncs with your iPad, iPhone and all your Macs/PCs.
Print n Share is wonderful app that can print directly from your iPad.
So, Docs2Go, save to Dropbox and print from Print n Share.

What is best word processing program for mac mini osx 10.4.11

what is best word processing program for mac mini osx 10.4.11?

Well, Text Edit is built in & free.
Lots of people like Bean or Text Wrangler...
http://www.bean-osx.com/Bean.html
http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/

What is the best word processing program for mac?

What is the best word processing program for Mac?

That's an impossible question to answer - what type of writing will you be doing?
Before we can point you in a direction you need to tell us what kind of writing you will be doing. As phrased, the question is a bit like "what's the best car?" Well few would doubt that a Ferrari is superior to a Honda minivan, but the Ferrari will not much use if you're dragging 4 kids, two dogs and the grandparents along.
Academic?
Word is the nearest thing to a standard format in the Humanties, but in the sciences and math you'll find Tex more useful for laying out formulas. The older Pages is quite good as a substitute for Word in many cases in the Humanties, but you'll have big problems with citations in the newer version. Apps like Nisus Writer Pro and Mellel are more powerful than Pages, but each have shortcomings. Scrivener and Ulysses are excellent drafting tools but you'll need a Word Processor for final layout. There are lots and lots of lightweight editors out there - Byword, iaWriter (and Writer Pro), OmmWriter - that have little functional use in Academic settings - poor or no support for citations for instance, or poor or no interoperability with Word - but which might be excellent for other uses.
So, back to the key question: what kind of writing will you be doing?

Which Mac Mini for word processing?

Hello, my partner is looking to buy a computer to use exclusively for word processing. Since she literally only wants to use a word processor – probably either MS Word or Nisus Writer – and nothing else (not even the internet), I suggested she might get a secondhand Mac Mini.
I was wondering if anyone had any particular advice on what to look out for – otherwise it would just be a case of seeing what the cheapest device on offer is at a local second-hand computer shop.
These would be the requirements:
1. It must be able to run at least Snow Leopard, in order to run a modern word processor.
2. It must be secure, i.e. not liable to break/malfunction easily. (My partner is writing a novel, so she doesn't want to lose it half way through!)
3. It must be able to start up quickly.
I'm assuming these are modest requirements, so I assume I'm really asking if there's any particularly dodgy models I should look out for etc.
Any thoughts welcome!
Jon

Adding an aftermarket SSD drive won't help keep the cost down though. To some extent, often startup doesn't matter much as many people never shut their Macs down. My MBP has not been turned off for more than a few days in 4 years - I'll sleep it when away from it, and the hard drive and screen are timed out to sleep, but I don't bother shutting it down and rebooting it often. And the difference in boot time for an SSD versus a HDD is likely going to be under one minute on any machine made in the last 3-5 years, so is it worth the cost for that, especially if you are only rarely restarting the machine? To my mind that answer is no, but everybody is different.
If I/O is an actually bottleneck or high activity issue on a machine, that is when an SSD becomes worth the extra cost, to my mind. For word processing, I/O will not be a limitation at all, even with an older 5400rpm conventional HDD, so using an SSD is largely paying for something without any real benefit. Even in terms of reliability, SSDs are hardly error free or not prone to failure, and in real world use or MTBF type ratings, a good quality conventional HDD is just as reliable as any decent SSD (and sometimes is more so for certain types of failures under heavy use read/write conditions).
Buying used is fine, if you know the place you are buying from and can trust them to only offer decent items. As long as you backup regularly so you can recover, a used item may suit your budget and needs just fine.
In the tight budget scenario though, it is hard to beat some of the available Windows PC consumer machines, and many of those are pretty good quality. MS Word is MS Word by and large, whether on OS X or Windows. Keep in mind for the PC route, the cost of decent AV (although many of the free tools are very good and more than enough if you are educated and savvy about what to do and not do with email or web sites&links).

Best word processing app for i-mac?

As a 'newie' to the wonderful world of i-mac's can anyone recommend a good word processing app. Currently going round and round in circles trying to find one thats compatible with i-mac. Don't want to go down the Microsoft word option due to compatability issues.

Word is not that incompatible. But I do recommend looking at this listing of alternative products:
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-6941
and this list:
http://www.roaringapps.com/
The real problem people face with Word are font conflicts with some applications, macros that can cause files to misbehave, and using a version that hasn't been updated for their operating system. Version 2008 and 2011 are able to run on the latest operating systems, though some people have mentioned the installers have trouble on version 2008 on Mac OS X 10.7 and later.

Trying to get text to wrap ALL the way around either text, images, shapes in Mac Pages. I tried in Pages Word Processing

I have tried everything to get text to "wrap completely around" other text, images, shapes. Mac Pages - tried Word Processing and tried Page Layout. Inspector, wrap, Floating and Object causes wrap. The text will ONLY wrap at the TOP and BOTTOM of the object, etc. No matter which choice I make in Object causes wrapping. It just doesn't work. I have worked for hours on this - I can't find a solution. HELP!

What version of Pages?
I suspect you are using Pages 5 in OSX 10.9 not OSX 10.8.4.
Peter

What word processing app can I use for an old mac (2007)

I have just bought a MacBook Pro with no word processing app. When I visited the Apple store I was informed that the OS was out of date for Pages 5. Being new to Apple I am at a loss as to what to do. I would rather listen to some seasoned heads!!

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
New Macs come with the iWork applications for free, including Pages, which is a word processing application.
To install it, you have to open the Mac App Store. You can find it in the Dock (at the bottom of the display) with this icon:
Then, at the top of the App Store window, choose Purchases, and you should see three apps waiting to be accepted: Keynote, Pages and Numbers. Accept all of them and they will be downloaded and installed.
If you do not see them listed there, see > http://www.apple.com/creativity-apps/mac/up-to-date/

How can I load word processing software onto my Apple Mac?

Hi
Is it possible to install word processing software on a new Apple Mac? I've found something called 'Pages' but I can't work out how to buy it or install it.

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
There are different word processing apps you can use in your Mac:
Microsoft Word for Mac. Included in Office for Mac, it provides full compatibility with Microsoft Office for Windows and it's probably the app with more features > http://www.microsoft.com/mac
Apple Pages. You can buy it on the Mac App Store, but you can download it for free if you have got a new Mac (open the App Store and go to Purchases). It has got a new interface, but some users have complained about its lack of features. As it's free, you can give it a try.
LibreOffice. Free and open-source, one of the most recommended applications > http://www.libreoffice.org

I want to make address labels and print them out. Does anybody know of a word processing program for Mac that would do this?

I want to make address labels and print them out. Does anybody know of a word processing program for Mac to accomplish this?

Have you looked at the previous discussions listed on the right side of this page under the heading "More Like This"?

I am considering buying a MBA but i need to do word processing, making power point presentations, and also to use publisher for work, does the MBA have the ability to do these things, if so will I be able to continue with work done on a MBA with a PC?

I am considering buying a mac book air and I was wondering if I can still do word processing, make powerpoint presentations and use publisher like i would on a PC? Also if I can then would I be able to continue with work done on the mac book on a PC and all the computers at school are not macs ?

I am using the 11" MBA with Office 2011 (with latest updates). The form factor is great for travel.
Powerpoint presentations work well, but there are some issues with creating a presentation under OSX then continuing editing under Windows (Powerpoint 2010). I've experienced problems with custom backgrounds not rendering correctly while editing slides under Windows when the original presentation was created under OSX. If you stick with the "standard" themes I imagine you'll be OK.
Also, there is a major drawback in that there is no IR port on the new MBA(s). Therefore, you cannot use an Apple Remote to control a slide show. Yes, there is an app for the iPhone that can control a Keynote slide presentation using Bluetooth, but since I haven't tried it, I cannot say if that app will work for Mac Powerpoint 2011.
What is really needed is an "Apple Bluetooth Remote". (please, if anyone from Apple is listening...)
Your only option to run Publisher is to run Windows in a virtual machine (e.g. Fusion or Parallels) with Publisher installed as there is no Mac version.
I run Fusion with Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 configured as a workstation and Office 2010 as my main travel machine and it is very responsive. Even using Windows Aero Theme which is knowned to be graphics intensive.

Word processing on mac?

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