Word Processing Software?

Yeah, most PC's these days come bundled with Word, so most people will inherently write in word, and for those few who prefer long hand, god bless you, and putting it all into a word processor after you're done. But while we know that Word isn't the only thing out there, most of us don't even bother to look for substitutes or programmes that are better, more user friendly, and suit our own needs.

For me. I use a combination of two word processors, one is Apple's iWork Suite Pages. I find it just as good as MS Word, if not superior to it in almost every way. I like it's intuitiveness and ease, however the one thing that it really does do for me is the right click speech function. When I write something I like to hear it read back to me, for some reason it makes it more real. In fact I would say that the only thing which MS Word does better is the thesaurus function, which in MS Word is built into the Word Processor. In Pages, you right click the work and then chose "Writing Tools" and then "Look up in Dictionary and Thesaurus" which is a bit mundane; but if you're verbose enough not to require the need of a Thesaurus, or use it sporadically I can't really see any reason to use MS Word over Pages (Lack of Mac ownership and Compatibility issues aside)

And speaking of compatibility Pages, does save in .doc format, so no biggy, but expect the borders to be shifted a bit here and there, but MS does the same with conversion from .docx to .doc anyway.

Now as for the post - enough of my plugging the Malus domestica products, let's get to the nit and grit here. If you have an Apple, stick with pages, and use MS Word on occasion for formatting to .doc if you need to. If you have a PC and are writing on Word, step out of the cave that is a MSFT product and look around at some of the alternatives.

A comprehensive Word Processor Reviews and a lot of them - Full Word Processor Review

Personally I found this to be the best review that I found on the net. There were a few others comparing MS Office, Open Office, and Word Perfect, but they just weren't so in depth and didn't cover the additional products. Another thing that I found interesting was a program for journalists and newspaper editors which can be found here - Newspaper Word Processor. I'd recommend trying it out if you're in that field as it really looks to be geared towards that market, and hey, there's a free trial.

In any case, hope it helps and more stuff should be coming soon. Been busy with the rest of it all.

Cheerios,