Is This The Best Word Processor For Real Writing?

You know, I have to disagree about the indexing tool (which I’m sure is coming, anyway). A proper index is something that few scholars have the time or skill to prepare. Anyone who is serious about an index should be paying a professional indexer to prepare their index for them. And professional indexers don’t use software tools like Mellel, Word, or anything else. They do it by hand.

The worst problem with Mellel is the lack for an index tool. It is impossible to say that it is a soft for the scholarly world without an indexing tool.

I use Mellel for a very good reason, one which was not mentioned by others in this discussion; It’s a very good multi-lingual tool!

Most of my use of a word processor is short story writing and, frankly, Mellel has too much power for that… However, for work in a different language, Hebrew in my case, Mellel is unparalleled.

I yearn for the good old days of WriteNow - That was, for me, a perfect Word Processor!

@Paolo: No offense taken

Thanks for the link, I have already watched all the movies and read all the guides, but it didn’t help me. Maybe it has been me doing something wrong all the time. I figured everything I need out now mostly by trying and playing around and now it’s great working with the program. I really enjoy it.

Julia

Julia,

Sorry for mispelling your name.

Paolo

Kulia, you can find several nice tutorial in the web site of the creators of Mellel (http://www.redlers.com).

Paolo

I have tried a number of word processors. At work I am forced to use Word, because I work at a huge company and everyone uses Word and we are not allowed anything else.
I had to writea 90 page handbook with this %&$?& software and it drove me crazy. Of course, it offers styles and everything, but what good is it if the whole documentsuddenly crashs on you (and you can’t restore it to the last changes) or all of the sudden the format goes haywire, without the chance that hitting UNDO will do any good? It’s been a nightmare I really do not wish to repeat.
I’ve worked with MS One Note, DevonThink, DevonNote, OOo, NeoOffice and Pages and Journler. All of them have their pro’s and con’s. Just for gathering information and arranging my thoughts I use Journler, which is free, but so great I donated to the developer.
But what about academic writing? I am a college student and have to writemy final thesis.
After my experiences at work (and at home over 8 years), I’ve ditched Word from my list from the very beginning.
The organizing tools (Journler, DevonNote, OneNote) are no good for academic writing, because they lack certain features, but that’s not dramatic since they haven’t been designed for that kind of work.
OpenOffice and NeoOffice are terribly slow on an IntelMac and they don’t integrate with Bookends or similar apps.
So I went to Mellel because I read a lot of good stuff about it. I looked at it for a week in trial and then bought it, because I am convinced it will help me writemy thesis without too much hassle when it comes to formatting. So far I think the software is great.
The integration with Bookends is awesome, and once you figure out how the styles work, they are applied in a second and give your documenta great look.
The documentation of Mellel needs some improvement, though, since for an absolute beginner to this software it is sometimes hard to understand the underlying concept. It differs from other word processors and some clear step-by-step tutorials would help a lot in getting faster where you want to go.

But like I said: For academic writing it offers all you need (footnotes, endnotes, Bookends integration, auto-titles [a dream!] and so on). The price is great, since it allows students to buy it without having to starve at the end of the month

Julia

I have been a Word for Mac user since 1990, using it in a variety of ways. I knew styles backward and forward. When I began putting a book together, seven years ago I switched after 50 pages to using Nisus Writer (6.5). Never had a problem. I had later upgraded to Office 2001, but did not work on the book using it.

When I upgraded to OS X, I thought long and hard about what to use, not only for the book, but also for academic writing (which required Greek and Hebrew). I started using Mellel at 1.3 and Nisus Writer 1.1 as well as Office 2004. Now I am at Mellel 2.2 and NWE 2.7. While I keep Word for some cross-platform work, I use NWE for quick projects - I like the feel of it. But when I begin writing for academic purposes, Mellel is the only one I consider. It has been flawless in giving me what I want, how I want it. While I found the transition from Word styles to Mellel styles to be a bit of a challenge, once I began working with them, Mellel styles make so much more sense. Outlining is enough for what I need and how I work.

And the book? Well, I finished writing in Mellel, then did page layout in Papyrus for sending to the printer. Why Papyrus? Because I needed placement of ~100 photos, and Word, NWE, and Mellel couldn’t handle it.

So, my order of preference for word processors: Mellel, NWE, then Word. But I use whichever one best fits my needs.