A.6. Word Processors

A word processor, unlike a text editor, is a program that lets you lay out your documents in multiple fonts, colors, and sizes.

Program	Price	Web site	AppleScript support
AppleWorks	$80 (although included for free on iBooks and iMacs)	www.apple.com/appleworks/	Decent. AppleWorks is Apple's homegrown response to Microsoft Office. The AppleWorks scripting dictionary is nothing special, however; it lacks many of the timesaving commands from Word, like save as and web page preview.
Nisus Writer Express	$60 download, or $70 on a physical CD	www.nisus.com/Express/	Good. Writer Express has a number of power-user features, like the ability to select noncontiguous sections of text and apply a single font to all of them. Writer Express's AppleScript support, though, is virtually identical to TextEdit's.
Tex-Edit Plus	$15 shareware	www.tex-edit.com/index.html#Tex-Edit%20Plus	Very good. Tex-Edit Plus is a favorite of Mac shareware fans worldwidenot least for its thorough AppleScript support. You can search for text, add sounds, and even autocapitalize words in your documents, all with AppleScript commands from Tex-Edit's dictionary.
TextEdit	Free, included with Mac OS X	None	Good. TextEdit is a simple, elegant word processor with a decent selection of useful AppleScript commands.
OpenOffice	Free	http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/	Nonexistent. Although OpenOffice is a handy program for opening and saving Microsoft Office files, it doesn't support a single AppleScript command.
Word	$230 alone, or $400 as part of the Microsoft Office suite	www.microsoft.com/mac/products/word2004/word2004.aspx	Very good. Word supports tons of AppleScript commands, from querying the built-in thesaurus to unleashing the word-count feature.

Best choice for AppleScript: Word. Although TextEdit wins on simplicity and style, you can't beat Word on raw power. (The same applies for other Office programs, too; Microsoft PowerPoint, the computerized-slideshow program, is infinitely more scriptable than Apple's Keynote, while Microsoft Excel, the spreadsheet program, is far more scriptable than AppleWorks.)