Competitive Comparison

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The tables below contain a comparison of Mellel, MS Word, OpenOffice\Neo Office (OO) and Nisus Writer Express (NWE) (see important note below) which are possibly the more prominent word processors available for Mac OS X. The comparison covers 655 different features in 36 different categories, but does not yet cover all aspects of word processing. You should regard it, therefore, as a work-in-progress.

What is it good for?

Not much, except for getting a general impression. The competitive comparison surveys a broad range of word processing options, to help you make a more informed decision about how each of the products meets your specific word processing needs in the relevant categories. We are not objective, so the comparison is pretty heavily influenced by what we think is important. Also, the rating is meant to make the reading more enjoyable. It shouldn't be taken too seriously.

How we rated the applications

The rating system is simple: 2 points for full implementation of an option, 1 point for partial implementation, 0 points for a feature not implemented. Full implementation is also marked with a light brown background (nearly full implementation comes with a khaki background.
For each category, the points are summed-up and the leader is marked in boldface. A grand summary appears at the end of the comparison.

Important note: We've tried to make the comparison as fair as possible, using the latest versions available to us for checking. We will be phasing out Nisus Writer Express in the near future and replace it, probably, with Apple's Pages. We will try to keep things up-to-date here (but no promises) If you see inaccuracies or incorrections, please write to us.

Launching and basic behaviour	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Launch Time (seconds)	3	12	4-5	4.5-7
Default setup for new document	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Long document opening time	4.5	73	2	12
Scroll to end of document (seconds)	32	157	70-73	32-58
Moving from draft > page view (seconds)	<1	<1	<1	<1
Save under a different name (seconds)	<2	21	<2	5
Summary	11	2	9	7

Resource Hog	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
CPU time (percent) when in background	0	~5	~5	0
Sinking Time	2.5	6-7	No	3
Initial Virtual Memory required	162	320	344	273
Summary	6	0	0	4

Interface and standards	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Cocoa application	Yes	X11	Carbon	Yes
Mac Intel version	Yes	No	No	Yes
Text Display quality	Highest	Mediocre-	Mediocre	Highest
Standard GUI elements and behaviour	Highest	None	Most	Highest
Alternative GUI appearance	Yes	Partial	No	No
Editable palette/toolbar order	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Automatic resizing of palettes/toobars	Yes	No	No	No
Magnetic palettes/toolbars	Yes	No	No	Yes
Editable palettes/toolbars content	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Customisable keyboard shortcuts	Partial	Yes	Yes	Yes
Services support	Yes	No	No	Yes
Summary	19	7	7	18

Opening and saving (general)	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Open options (new file, do nothing, etc)	Yes	No(?)	Partial	Yes
Switch to options (new file, do nothing, etc)	Yes	No	No	Yes
Template support	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial
Template browser	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Save as template	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Custom template info and thumbnail	Yes	No	No	No
Automatic save	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Save with backup copy	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Setting default format for saving files	No	Yes	Yes	No
Default document folder for saving files	No	No	No	Yes
Password protection	No	Yes	Yes	No
Pass. protection for elements in doc	No	Yes	No	No
Default page size and margins (new)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Default view options (new)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Default style/font settings (new)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Summary	22	22	20	17

Open, save, print (import, export)	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Open/save Mellel format	Yes	No	No	No
Open/save OO format	No	Yes	No	No
Open/save Nisus Writer Express format	Partial	Partial	Partial	Yes
Open/Save Nisus Writer (old) format	Partial	No	No	Yes
Open/save MS Word .doc files	Partial	Yes	Yes	Partial
Open RTF files	Import	Yes	Yes	Yes
Save RTF files	Export	Yes	Yes	Yes
Open/Save RTFD files	No	No	No	Yes
Open AppleWorks files	No	No	Yes	No
Open/Save WordPerfect files	No	Yes	No	Yes
Open/Save as plain text	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Open/save non-Roman plain text	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Open standard image formats	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Open/save HTML files	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Open EPS	Yes	Some	Some	Yes
Open PDF files	Image	No	No	Image
Save/Print to PDF	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Print even/odd pages separately	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Collate	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Reverse print order	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Print properties, notes, etc. separately	No	Yes	Yes	No
Print codes, hidden fields, guides	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Print notes, codes, etc. with document	No	Yes	Yes	No
Print background colour	Yes	Yes	No	No
Print footnotes with special highlight	Yes	No	No	No
Envelope printing option	No	Yes	Yes	No
Label printing option	No	Yes	Yes	No
Merge mail option	No	Yes	Yes	No
Summary	33	41	35	35

View and display options	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Page layout view	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Draft view	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Draft and page layout identical	Yes	No	No	No
Online/web view	No	Yes	Yes	No
Full Screen mode	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes
Full screen mode usable	Yes	Yes	Partial	Partial
Outline view	Yes	No	Yes	No
Fit page/with to page options	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Show/hide toolbar and rulers	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Show/hide page/text margins	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Display changes applied immediately	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Display changes option in preferences	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Background colour	Yes	No	No	Yes
Elements display colour	No	No	No	Partial
Split view	No	No	Yes	No
Multiple zoom options	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Setting zoom manually	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Summary	28	20	26	24

Show/Hide options	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Show/hide invisibles (non printing characters)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Show/hide toolbar and ruler	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Show/hide page margins	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Show/Hide table Gridlines	Yes	Partial	Partial	No
Show/hide header/footer	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Selective show/hide options	Yes	No	No	No
Invisibles colour control	No	No	No	Yes
Show/hide preferences	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Summary	14	11	11	10

Basic Editing	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Smart drag and drop	Yes	No	Partial	Yes
Smart copy and paste	Yes	No	Partial	Partial
Copy/Paste text only	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Copy/Paste paragraph style	Yes	No	Partial	Partial
Copy/Paste character style	Yes	No	Yes	Partial
Copy/Paste list attributes	Yes	No	No	No
Copy/Paste swap, find, replace	No	No	Partial	Yes
Summary	12	2	7	9

Find and Replace	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Basic find and replace	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Regular expression search	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes
Find/replace special characters	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Find/replace by style/format	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Find/replace by format only	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Replace Styles (all together)	Yes	Yes	No	No
Find all	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Find/Replace in notes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Find/Replace in headings (auto-title)	Yes	No	No	No
Find/Replace in headers/footers	Yes	No	No	No
Special options search (e.g., widows and orphans)	No	Yes	No	No
Search in selection	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ignore case	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ignore diacritics	Yes	No	No	No
Find whole words	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Citation search	Yes	No	No	No
Variable Search	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Sounds like (similarity) search	No	Yes	Yes	Partial
Save Searches (find actions)	Yes	No	No	Yes
Save expressions	Yes	No	No	No
Recent searches	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Batch searches	Yes	No	No	No
Summary	36	30	25	21

Spelling, thesaurus and grammar	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Spelling panel	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Checking spelling (one by one)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Check spelling as you type	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Check spelling in selection/paragraph	Yes	No	No	No
Check spelling in document	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Check spelling by language	No	Yes	No	Yes
Special 'exclude' from spelling options	No	Yes	Yes	No
Spell check special regions	No	Yes	No	No
Languages supported	36	5	10	35
Grammar check	3rd party	No	Built-in	3rd party
Thesaurus	3rd party	Yes	Yes	Built in
Languages for thesaurus	3rd party	3	1 built in	1 built in
Summary	15	18	15	15

Document Info/Properties	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Standard file info (size, created, etc.)	No	Yes	Yes	No
General information fields (e.g., Author)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Additional special fields	No	Yes	Yes	No
Searching in Keywords	No	Yes	Yes	No
Custom variables per document	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Different types of variables	No	Yes	Yes	No
Setting document variables names	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Setting default variables values	Yes	No	No	No
Setting default variables names	Yes	No	No	No
Inserting variables into document	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Variables automatically update	Yes	Partial	No	No
Summary	14	17	16	0

Language Support	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Unicode support	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes
Support for Unicode glyph insertion	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Special characters insertion options	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Support for main Roman languages	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Support for East European languages	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
CJK support	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes
CJK vertical text support	Partial	Yes	Yes	No
Support for Cyrillic languages	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Support for Greek	Yes	Yes	Partial	Yes
Support for writing from right to left	Yes	Partial	No	Partial
Support for Hebrew	Yes	Partial	No	Partial
Support for Arabic, Persian, Syriac	Yes	Partial	No	Partial
Support for Kashida	Yes	Partial	No	No
South Asian (Indian) language support	No	Partial	No	Yes
CJK full justification	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
OS 9 and earlier fonts for languages	Most	Yes	No	No
Language encodings with export	Yes	No	No	Yes
Language encodings with import	Yes	No	No	Yes
Support for multiple-script styles	Yes	No	No	Partial
Support for different secondary font	Yes	No	No	Partial
Multilingual numbering schemes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Multilingual support for "smart quotes"	Yes	No	No	Yes
Bidirectional styles, notes, tabs, etc.	Yes	No	No	Yes
OpenType support	Yes	No	No	No
AAT support	No	No	No	Yes
Summary	44	27	13	36

Styles (General)	Mellel	OO	MS Word	NWE
Page styles	Yes	Yes	No	No
Frame style	No	Yes	No	No
Section (column) styles	Yes	Yes	No	No
Paragraph styles	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Character styles	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
List style	Yes	Yes	Limited	Yes
Note styles	Yes	No	No	No
Global styles	Yes	No	No	No
Style sheets (with template, document)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Style sets	Yes	No	No	No
Switching between sheets/sets	Yes	No	No	No
"Dialogue box rating"	Low	High	High	Low
Replace styles through find and replace	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Separate paragraph and character styles	Yes	No	No	No
Edit styles in dialogue box	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Edit styles in document	Yes	Yes	Clumsy	Clumsy
Control style updating with old/new files	Yes