

Chief among them is numbered bullets or lists, for some reason this much used feature is missing. While Mariner Write is light in weight yet feature rich, there are still some things I wish it could do.

Understanding and using the Merge feature is not as simple as it could be, but this is a very powerful function, and it is worth the small effort to learn and understand. The obvious use for this is to send out form letters, which Write also lets you do. If, say, you have a list of names in Document A and youive created a form letter in Document B, Write will let you define fields in Document B so that the names appear in the final documents individually. Perhaps it will in a later update.Īnother very interesting feature is Writeis ability to intelligently merge data from one document with that of another. Unfortunately Write does not yet support Open Text, the new open standard for documents being adopted by many large organizations around the world. Write also lets you open, edit, and save documents in several different formats, including Word documents. Even the tool bar, which is customizable, can be made to disappear. Setting styles, creating footers and headers, creating tables and more are just a mouse-click away. Spell checkers help in this regard, they let me stay relatively more focused on my writing while grammar checkers, by default must interrupt my writing to bring the grammar problem into focus.)Īnother benefit of fewer features is that the features that are available are far easier to find and use, not buried in confusing menus or tool bars. Far too often, while immersed in thought and typing?away I will have misspelled some common word, or find that a word that I donit use often is a bit of a stretch.

(Another note: I think computerized spell checking is a good thing. Of course, the latest version will only set you back US$10, which should hardly break anyoneis bank.) The basic rules of grammar are no different today than they were in 1918, so you may only need the original text. The version youill find on Amazon and in bookstores is the most updated version co-authored with E. How this is so, I canit say the work is copyrighted, after all.
Mariner write. for free#
Shrunkis orignal 1918 version of Element of Style can be viewed for free on many sites around the Web. I donit always catch my grammar mistakes, but the effort should be mine, not my application. I keep a copy of William Shrunk, Jr.is Elements of Style nearby. Iim quickly becoming a believer in not relying on my tools for things I should know. Using Write is a joy, it includes a spelling checker, but no grammar checker, which is actually OK. It starts quickly and presents an interface that is clean and easy to understand. There are many, many other features as well, just not things you really donit need.īecause of its reduced feature set Mariner Write is a spry application that keeps up with you, even on a old iMac (G4 800mhz) like mine. While Mariner Write canit compare to Word, for instance, feature for feature, it is amply endowed with almost enough options to suit almost anyoneis writing needs.įooters and header? Writeis got them.

Word processors from Microsoft and Corel (WordPerfect is no longer available for Macs) are huge applications loaded, some would even say overloaded, with features that you seldom use, even in an office environment. Whatis impressive about Mariner Write is what it does as well as what it doesnit do. I explain this because many other reviewers of this application look at it coming from larger word processors, which may explain some of our minor differencesof opinion about Mariner Write. This article, however, is being written using the latest version of Mariner Write, an impressive word processor from Mariner Software. Up until recently Iive written all of my articles in Text Edit itis simple, easy, and is completely non-distracting. Believe me, writing is hard enough without all of the extraneous distractions. Just leave me the heck alone and let me get on with writing. By getting in my way I mean that I donit want to think about the tool, I just want to get my thoughts down as quickly and as efficiently as possible without a lot of pop-ups, blinkies, reminders, warnings, or other nonsense. I write a lot of articles and one of the things I hate is for the word or text processor that I use to get in my way.
