It counts my words as I type, which is very important when writing for a newspaper (and some websites that want a certain word count.) The CPU load is minimal, and it starts up and functions very, very smoothly. It works, and it’s compatible with just about anything out there. I just type out a document and paste it into a CMS when it’s ready, or I send it to my editors as an. That’s okay, because I don’t use any of that stuff.

You get basic formatting and you can place images, but you won’t have footnotes and other fancy options. Rather, it lies somewhere between your TextEdit application and Pages. The makers of Bean do admit that this is not a full-blown word processor like Office or Pages. All I have to do is write and save to my Dropbox, and I have access to the document from both of my computers. I choose it over software like OpenOffice and even Apple’s Pages because it’s so efficient. Bean gives me everything I want in a word processor: fast, free, simple text formatting and everything else you need for a simple write-up. I don’t have to worry about anything but the words I’m typing. Sometimes I need a word processor, because it’s just much easier to work with than a website’s content management system (CMS). LibreOffice and Apache OpenOffice are two such suites.A friend introduced me to Bean, because we both write on a daily basis.

Using open-source software with both Windows and Mac versions is another approach if you are not fully tied to Microsoft Word on the PC. And if you find that the online version of Office is not robust enough for your needs, Microsoft’s various Office 365 subscriptions and software offer better compatibility for a monthly, annual or one-time price. You can edit the files online on the computer or on mobile devices - or download them.

With Office Online, the files can be stored on Microsoft’s OneDrive cloud server or in a connected Dropbox account. If you use Hotmail, Skype, or another Microsoft service, you should be able to use the same Microsoft user name and password for Office Online. Microsoft’s free Office Online apps (including Word) work right in the web browser - as long as you sign in with a Microsoft account. However, if you are creating the documents in Microsoft Word on the PC, just staying in Word might be the smoothest approach.

Free word processing software mac