Cheap (or free) Word alternative?

My wife likes to type out recipes she's been given. Is there a cheap (or free) programme that will enable her to do this, we don't need anything as complete as Word just something simple for Mac.

Thanks,

Iain.

Textedit comes w/ the Mac.

You can also try LibreOffice (free) or Apple's 'Pages' ($20 US)

Take a look at Bean. Free, and simple.
Hugh

NeoOffice is a free open source program with document, spreadsheet capabilities and it works!

http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php

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Vernon

version of open office for mac 3.3 and there is a new Beta 3.4

http://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html

She'll have access to her recipes from any computing device the world over. Even on her smart phone.
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I second NeoOffice.

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Johan
http://www.johanfoto.com

Another vote for Apple's "Pages", although it is $20 through the Apple App store. Beautiful, and easy to use interface. Integrates with other programs on Mac. Many pre made templates should you ever choose to make something other than a simple document. Can save in "Word" format so you can email stuff to your friends and they can open it in Word.

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Only my opinion. It's worth what you paid for it. Your mileage may vary! ;-}

http://www.dougwigton.com/

Another vote for Bean.

Russ

Consider Open Office suite of applications similar to the Microsoft Office suite.

Thanks everyone,

Iain.

While OpenOffice and its sisters NeoOffice and Libreoffice are free, if Word is overkill in terms of features and complexity, OpenOffice will be so as well.

If simplicity and easy of use is key (and these recipes are text-only with no real formatting requirements) my advice would be Notational Velocity which is essentially a DAM (or if you want an iTunes) for text files in a form which could not be simpler. This is where I keep my recipes (and a lot of other things). It syncs up via SimpleNote to iOS devices and the web (and multiple computers).

It is really simple. Type anything in the search box on top, and it searches all your notes much like typing anything in the search box in Mail.app or iTunes would do. And just hit enter and have create a new note with your term in the search box as title. And it is free.

But if you want some formatting or even images, my vote clear goes to Pages. Much cheaper than Word, much nicer to use. Of course, if it floats your boat, Bean is an even simpler and cheaper alternative to Word but much more limited when it goes beyond pure text.

Iain Harper said:

My wife likes to type out recipes she's been given. Is there a cheap (or free) programme that will enable her to do this, we don't need anything as complete as Word just something simple for Mac.

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If all she is doing is typing out recipes, no additional software is necessary. She might be happy with TextEdit, which comes with the Mac, and has decent enough formatting capabilities including tables and lists. By saving the files as RTF, you actually get most of the common formatting you'd use in Word anyway.

RTF is a very widely supported format, openable and savable from Word on Mac and Windows. This is because TextEdit that comes with the Mac is a lot like WordPad that comes with Windows and also reads/writes RTF.

Pages. affordable and works very well on Mac. I dumped Office for iWork a few years ago and haven't really looked back except for a small bit of "power excel" uses.

NeoOffice is no longer free; the last time I checked it was $5, which is still a bargain.

Just to add my 2¢. It's been well covered in many discussions before, but...

Free:

TextEdit is great for basic documents, as mentioned it does have quite a lot of formatting tools, and saves as RTF. It can also open most Word documents too. Perfect for a simple letter, or indeed recipe

Open/Neo/Libre Office. These are all derivatives of OpenOffice, and supposedly a substitute for MS Office. However, IME they are no better at compatibility than Pages overall, and just as complex as MS Office.

Cheap:

Pages is brilliant IMHO, I use it for everything from simple letters to a 28 page monthly magazine for a church. You can switch between word processor or document layout modes - it sounds confusing, but actually makes working with a document easier as it emphases the style you need to work in. It opens and saves Word documents and is far easier and quicker to work with IMHO.

Costly:

MS Office is really the only option if you have to have full compatibility. However, MS Office is often not completely compatible with itself, especially if you send documents across platform or versions.

There are a few more too, might be worth looking into, such as Bean or AbiWord, but you can spend more time that its worth mucking about. For my money, I'd try out TextEdit, and get Pages if that's not got enough.

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Andy Hewitt

I think it's still free unless you need the Lion-supported (latest) version. After using it for years, I was happy to pay the shareware fee. I personally use Pages for almost everything, but it's not free. NeoOffice will open all kinds of Windows-generated word processing documents. I believe you can open Works documents with it, if I recall correctly.

There are programs you can get (e.g., on the Mac App Store, or as shareware) that are specifically for storing recipes, inventory, etc. Some of those may be suitable for your purpose, although you may have to watch out for getting your data "locked in" to a particular application's file format.

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Geoffrey Heard
http://pngtimetraveller.blogspot.com/2011/10/return-to-karai-komana_31.html

Hen3ry said:

If you want a real word processor, then Nisus

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There is the question of just how much money should be paid for typing out a bunch of recipes...