14 DAY TRIAL // Text editing is something that we all have to do from time to time, but there are so many text editors in the wild... How can you choose the right one? As it happens in most cases, what is right for some people is not right for the others, so probably the best choice is to try as many programs as necessary until you find the one that best suits your needs and desires. Even when you have found what you were looking for, my advice is to keep searching, because everything can get better. Nothing is perfect, so it can only get better, remember that!
What I have found today is far from being perfect, but it's not that bad either, so let me introduce you iText Express, a light and easy to use word processor for your Mac. Do you want to know more about it? Sure, here you go!
iText Express is a completely free program; unfortunately, Intel users can't use it at this time, because only a PowerPC binary is available. The operating system it needs so it can run properly is Mac OS X 10.3, this program being fully rewritten in Cocoa and fully compatible with TextEdit as well as Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger. The DMG file that you have to download in order to run iText Express has 3.8MB in size, so that shouldn't be much of a problem either. Once we know all this, I guess the time has come to start it up, don't you agree?
The interface of the program we have here is well organized and easy to use, but there's nothing special about it, it's just what one would expect from its basic word processor. Every time you open a new document, another window pops up, and this is a little strange for me, because you can really mess up your desktop by doing this.
File types supported include RTF, HTML and Word formats, as well as plain text files. iText Express can save your work using the Rich Text Format, HTML, Word and Word XML formats.
Editing your documents is as easy as possible, and the elements that can be changed/added are the font/background colors, date/time stamps, page numbers and this is only the beginning! If you want to write vertically, no problem! Adding Bookmarks to your documents can save you a lot of time, especially when working with large texts, and the Find and Replace features, despite not being really advanced, do their job the right way.
There isn't really much to say about this program, and the main reason is not that it's not a good one or it doesn't have enough features. iText Express is one of those programs that you download, install, and find yourself using like it were your favorite for years, but I hope you'll take your time to check the conclusions and screenshots first before doing that...
The Good
iText Express is a small, fast and simple word processor that's also easy to use, has the ability to save Word and Word XML files and let's not forget about the fact that this program is completely free.
The Bad
I know that most word processors don't use tabbed interfaces, but I would like this feature implemented here, or at least "something" to stop this application from opening new windows every time I open or create a document.
The Truth
If you need to open and even edit Word files on your Mac, you don't need to get Microsoft's Word, since iTex Express can do this job just fine, and it won't stop here. Easy text editing and formatting is only a few clicks away, and you don't have to pay anything else than a little time!
Check out the screenshots here:
