Best word processor for the Mac?

By Karl, 5 March, 2012

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps
I'm wondering which is the best word processor for the mac in terms of accessibility? I often do a lot of sharing of documents between mac and Windows, and Pages keeps giving me missing font errors and similar, as well as that it cannot save in the docx format. Additionally, with Pages I sometimes run into an issue where even though I'm in the document area, I cannot type and just get the ding noise. If I'm just missing a setting in pages, or if there is a better program I can use, please let me know.

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Comments

By billip on Friday, March 9, 2012 - 16:48

I have not been impressed with Pages and Voiceover in terms of usability. It seems that when you create a new document it is easy enough to enter text and edit it. However, when you close that document and reopen it, I have no idea how to gain access to edit the text. It seems like it would be easy enough to just "interact" with the text again, but it just does not work. Please, if anyone knows an easy way to do this let me know. Thanks.

By Nicolai Svendsen on Friday, March 9, 2012 - 16:48

I personally like Nisus Writer Pro. They're very good with accessibility and always respond to feedback within a reasonable timeframe. I wrote the entry up on Applevis several weeks ago, but here's the link. http://applevis.com/mac-app-directory/productivity/nisus-writer-pro

By Travis Roth on Friday, March 9, 2012 - 16:48

My own complaint iwth Pages is that it and VoiceOver do not support tables at all. What I mean is VoiceOver cannot access to read any table. Even one you insert via Pages itself, let alone when you open a Word document. Can VoiceOver read tables in Nisus?

Unfortunately, I have to give you a resounding "no." However, this is not because of the application itself. Practically any application which makes tables like these have the same problem. It's a general VoiceOVer issue and has nothing to do with the application. VoiceOver can read the tables in Text Edit and Pages as well, but you don't know when a table begins and ends or which row you are in. In Nisus, you don't know this, either, but you can find out that you are inside a table. it still proves to be a challenge, however. This is an issue Apple hasn't addressed yet, sadly, but it's a necessary one to be fixed. I want this as much as anyone, since having to use workarounds shouldn't be a necessity.