

Here then is a list of the Mac word processors most liked by TidBITS readers, sorted by rating. Nevertheless, even though Microsoft Word, the 800-pound gorilla of the word processing world, is often reviled, it didn’t fare too badly in user ratings, outpacing alternatives such as Nisus Writer Express, LibreOffice Writer, and Apache OpenOffice Writer.
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So lamentations that Pages 6.2 pales in comparison to Pages 4.3, while not unfounded, aren’t as widespread as might have been believed.Īlthough they received far fewer votes than Microsoft Word and Pages, Nisus Writer Pro and Scrivener earned the top ratings from TidBITS readers, likely due to their focus on niche audiences with serious word processing needs. However, less anticipated was the fact that the current Pages 6.2 garnered far more votes than the much-missed Pages 4.3, and hit the same weighted ranking. Unsurprisingly, Microsoft Word received the most votes by far, and equally as unsurprising was that Apple’s Pages tallied the second most votes. Apps that received only a handful of votes may have skewed weighted averages, of course, so we also counted the raw number of votes each app received. To evaluate the results, we calculated the weighted average for each app, assigning a weight of 1 (Avoid it) through 5 (Can’t live without it) for each of the five choices - the best weighted average possible is thus 5. Such apps are not full-fledged word processors, but they’ve acquired a loyal following among those who don’t need to style text using arbitrary fonts, sizes, and styles, or insert graphics into text.) (And yes, we’re planning to do another survey to collect opinions about Markdown-based text editors like Ulysses and Bear. We found that Microsoft Word still dominates the landscape for word processors, but our readers wholeheartedly recommend several alternatives. Over 800 TidBITS readers responded to our survey of 21 apps, submitting close to 4000 votes. In “ Vote for Your Favorite Mac Word Processor” (10 July 2017), we asked you to rate the Mac word processors that you’ve used.

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