I haven't had Office installed since Leopard broke my rather ancient copy of Office -- and, even then, I hadn't used it in years. I never recommend people use Office; it's just bad software, especially on the Mac. Overpriced, too.

Pages (in iWork) has become my main word processor. I'm very picky about my word processor UI, and it took Apple a while to meet my standards. They finally hit it in iWork '08. (I now have '09.)

iWork '09 (and Leopard -- TextEdit) brought the ability to open .docx files to Apple's software.

When Pages can't quite get it done with opening a file, I use OpenOffice, which I prefer over NeoOffice (it's faster). OpenOffice does handle the opening of .docx files a bit better than Pages, I've noticed, but that's primarily when the formatting is out of the ordinary.

I've been thinking of adding Mellel to the bunch only because of the way it handles writing right to left -- for working with a Hebrew text.

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Jennifer Petrik
Member, Grace Reformation Church
Associate Member, Escondido Reformed Baptist Church
Student, Westminster Seminary California (M.A.H.T.)
Woodland/Escondido, CA
per caliginem