One of the main functions that most users use their Mac, be it a Macbook Air, Macbook Pro or iMac, is to edit text on their computer, and having a good text editor can make that much easier. work and save us, in many cases, a great deal of time.
The native option: Pages
The simplest and cheapest option if we have a Mac is the text editor that Apple provides us for free with all its devices. Pages enters the Apple suite to work, and of course, it is one of the best options for those users who do not have very specific demands and who do not want to spend a single euro to be able to do their university jobs or, simply, to write any article destined for a web page.
We can say that Pages is the counterpart to Microsoft Word, but a little shorter in terms of functions, despite this, it is more than enough for most users, in my case, for example, during my university stage always I have used this application for the realization of reports and works.
Finally, something that many users are unaware of and which is also one of the main reasons why many people shy away from using pages is that once you have made your text document with this application you can export it in numerous formats, including , of course, .word and .pdf, which are the two standards that you usually work with.
The text editor par excellence: Microsoft Word
If we are all asked about a text editor, surely 90% of the people the first application or program that comes to mind is Microsoft Word, and the Microsoft application is the king of this sector.
However, in order to use Microsoft Word we need to have an active subscription to the Microsoft 365 package, which, in addition to having access to this program, also provides us with the famous Microsoft Excel and Power Point, two well-known tools, we would say, that all users since they are the reference programs in each of their sectors.
The great virtue of Microsoft Word is the large number of tools it has and the great compatibility with thousands of devices from different manufacturers.
Undoubtedly, this application is the text editor par excellence, since it is the one that the majority of users have grown up with and the one we are most used to working with, this is a point that Microsoft has in its favor, at People do not like to change and even less when we already feel comfortable with something, in this case, a program that, as I said, we have been using for years and years.
Minimalism and simplicity: IA Writer
The application awarded 4 times as winner of “Best of App Store” is one of the best options that we find in the Apple application store for our Macs, however, it is also one of the most expensive since it costs 32.99 Euros .
IA Writer is one of the many applications that has chosen to opt for a minimalist interface, betting on simplicity and sobriety, to obtain a distraction-free experience when we want to sit down to write in front of our Mac.
With this application you do not have to worry about the format since, from the beginning, you will be writing a plain text, so that later, you can see a preview in HTML. It is also capable of detecting superfluous adjectives, weak verbs or repetitive nouns to clean the text of the usual noise.
One of the advantages that this App has is that you can customize your templates to later export them to WordPress, Medium, HTML, Microsoft Word or PDF.
As we can see, IA Writer is expensive, yes, but perhaps it is the most complete application since it can serve you for a multitude of uses, from doing any work or report for the university, to writing full articles for your website.
One of the most famous: Ulysses
Surely at some point or another you have heard the name of this application. Ulysses is undoubtedly one of the most famous text editing applications in the App Store, not only in the application store for Mac, but also for iPhone or iPad, since this is one of the advantages of this editor, which it is supported on MacOS, iOS, and of course iPadOS.
Winner of the “Apple Design Award 2016”, this application stands out for its minimalist design, as well as providing pleasant writing, efficient document management, easy synchronization and flexible export.
In a quest for minimalism, Ulysses promises us that with its interface we will only have to worry about “Write, edit and keep writing”, and, as with IA Writer, we do not have to worry about the format of our text until that we are done.
However, this option is not free, unlike other applications, the way to monetize its service that Ulysses has is by subscription, having two options, the monthly plan, for 5’99 Euros / month, and the annual plan, for 49’99 Euros / year, both after passing a trial period of 2 weeks, therefore, we can test the app and see for ourselves, if it is really worth it.
The Private Notepad: Bear
Again, an application awarded the “Apple Design Award of 2017”, as you can see, the trend of these apps is towards a very careful and minimalist design, eliminating the possible distractions that we may have when we sit down to write.
In addition, Kit Eaton, of the prestigious North American newspaper, New York Times, declared the following: “Bear is my choice of application to write”, a few words that must be taken into account above all, by the person who has spoken them.
One of the differentiating aspects of Bear is that we can quickly organize our content with tasks and tags. Obviously we have numerous options when exporting our texts, among them the most used as PDF, DOCX, HTML …
However, not everything was going to be ideal, Bear also has a payment option, in this case, quite cheap since, for only 1.49 Euros / month or 15’99 Euros / year we can enjoy the Pro options, that there are so much of the application, that yes, it has free options that we can continue to enjoy without having to go through the box.