News, info, and opinion by Mac users, for Mac users.

March 18, 2006

software

The Write Track

Posted Mar. 18, ’06, 7:21 AM PT by Dan Moren
Category | Software

TextEditFirst off, I want to apologize for lying to you. In my short bio, I claimed that the one app I couldn’t live without is Terminal. While I find it to be the OS X app that I appreciated the most when switching from OS 9, I have to admit it’s probably not indispensable. As a writer, the most necessary app on my computer has always been—and will probably always be—my word processor. There’s just one problem.

I don’t love my word processor.

Our relationship is probably more like substance dependance. I need my word processor, but it hurts me just a little bit more every time. You see, I’ve been using AppleWorks for, oh, longer than I care to remember. Even before that, I was strictly a MacWrite II guy, and I find myself drawn deeper and deeper into this destructive relationship with every year that passes. I mean, the last time Apple released an AppleWorks update? 2004. And yet, they still ship it out with consumer-level Macs, alongside the latest Office test drive, no doubt enticing thousands of users to shell out for Office, as if Micosoft really needed the help.

In a field so dominated by Redmond’s offerings, I suppose I’m quite the minority. The thing is, I don’t really like Word. Sure, I’ve used it in the past, but only on work PCs—I’ve never bought any flavor of Microsoft Office for any of the half-dozen Macs I’ve owned. And honestly, it’s just a little bit too big, too cluttered, too jack-of-all-tradesy (to coin an adjective). I only need maybe 10% of what it has to offer. As far as Cupertino goes, yes, Apple introduced Pages when it debuted its iWork suite, but again, it’s more of a layout program than a true word processor.

So what I’m wondering is this: is there a great word processor for the Mac? Ideally, I’d love to see something open source, utilizing an XML file format, but I imagine that to most developers, entering a field dominated by the corporate Scylla Microsoft on one side and the open source Charybdis of OpenOffice.org looming on the other seems—well, The Charge of the Light Brigade comes to mind.

You know, surprisingly, Apple’s TextEdit comes pretty close to what I’m looking for: a lightweight, fast, uncluttered word processing experience. I’m not necessarily interested in tables, or images, or, the kitchen-sink philsophy of emacs, but I do want something that is designed to work with my medium: words. TextEdit doesn’t cut it because it lacks several key features: word count, section breaks, onscreen displays of page numbers, etc. Likewise, while I use TextWrangler for HTML and PHP (and my MacUser posts), it’s still a text editor, not a word processor. It’s not really designed to do what I want.

And design is what I crave. See, in a perfect world I’d like to see a word processing program targeted towards fiction writers in the same way that FinalDraft is targeted towards screenwriters. I’d love a program keeps track of my characters, lets me generate statistics about my chapters (pages, word counts), maybe even integrates some sort of non-linear navigation like FinalDraft’s Scene Navigator. If it could keep track of my continuity problems, well, then I could die happy.

Every once in a while, I get the crazy idea that I ought to just roll my own: how hard could it be? Then I remember that I know roughly as much about Cocoa as I do about the economic systems of 12th century Cairo, and I shelve that daydream for another lifetime.

So, how about it? I admit that I haven’t tried Mariner Write or Nisus Writer, which seem to be the popular independent contenders in the Mac field: are they worthwhile? As I said, I’d prefer an open source solution, but, you know, something about beggars and choosers. Does such a product exist? Is this a niche for some intrepid software developer? Or is this just another one of my crazy notions, like bananas dipped in sour cream? Fire away with comments, but be gentle: when it comes to word processors, I’m damaged goods.


4 Comments

Ingiber said:

You should try Copywrite, I love it....

[url]http://www.bartastechnologies.com/products/copywrite/[/url]

March 18, 2006 9:29 AM
Jason said:

I wonder that the folks at Apple use? Do you think Steve drafts his corporate memo's using Pages like he does presentations with Keynote?

March 18, 2006 5:28 PM
Bobby Winston said:

I'm a big Mariner fan and have been using Write for years. If you are a screenwriter, you should also know that Mariner is getting set to release Montage, which they claim is the only Cocoa developed screenwriting app on the market.

http://www.marinersoftware.com/sitepage.php?page=104

good luck.

March 19, 2006 7:11 AM
Andrew Robulack Author Profile Page said:

I use Copywrite for writing. It's not only a superlative writing tool (the full screen mode is perfect) it's also a great project and file management tool, with built-in versioning and subject (i.e. character) management. There really is no resonable alternative for focussed, organized writing.

It uses RTF as its file format basis.

June 16, 2006 4:12 PM

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