My personal preference is for Mellel , which also has an iOS version now.
Very good for structured documents, a powerful style and paragraph type model, and better than MS Word for non English content.
( especially strong handling of RTL scripts, and mixing LTR with RTL )
Yes. I very much agree. Manuscripts looks promising. But looks are no help against a lack of robustness for routine operations.
Again, the difference here is between word processor versus document typesetting engine. I would not deem Manuscripts a word processor, nor would I deem Word a document typesetting engine. Technically speaking, I also would not put Ulysses down as a word processor nor a document typesetting engine. Rather, it is a markup editor. So, in this regard, my previous post announcing Manuscripts hijacked the thread with a tangent (and I offer no apologies just a note to this effect), and, in full respect to your statement, Manuscripts will actually never be positioned to “take the throne” as a word processor.
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JJW
Me too, i’ve been using Microsoft Word since I’ve started writing on the computer. I recommend it to all beginners and also professionals. M W has never disappointed me.
Microsoft word? Gaack!!!
Mind you, the most recent word I’ve used is Word for Mac 2011 (13?) But Word regularly drives me crazy. Trying to keep numbering consistent – especially with nested numbering of items that may continue in multiple paragraphs.
E.g.
a. This is a lettered list item
b. And another lettered list item
c. but this item has two paragraphs.
This is the second paragraph of item 1Ac.
d. This is next list item
Everytime I try to mess with this in word, I hve to spend hours playing around with line number styles and paragraph styles.
Word is tolerable for a document up to 5 pages long.
And the equation editor is unspeakable.
So what do I prefer? Not Pages. I used to use FrameMaker, when I was a linux geek. There was a patch in the wild that allowed you to use the 5.56 beta release indefinitely. Since there was no legal release, I continued to use that. Frame maker is a Discipline and Bondage editor. You can’t NOT use styles. (Later versions relaxed this. Too bad.) And when you changed a style, it changed globally. Fabulous system for writing a 300 page manual.
Currently most of my editing is done in TextWrangler. Basically BBEdit Lite. Most of my writing now is web pages. I use a combination of TW along with Markdown, and some scripts to produce my website.
Occasionally I need something fancy. If it’s only a few pages, I suffer with Word. If longer than that, I write up the text, and my wife runs it through In Design.
What do you use to prepare the markdown for indesign?
I would say, IA Writer is the my favorite one. Fast, small and does not have many issues.
This topic hasn’t had any real traffic in years, and appears to be a spam magnet.
