Microsoft Word for Mac. Word for Mac is now available. It’s not a free word processor for Mac users, of course, but it’s worth mentioning. So, if you do happen to be an MS Word lover, you can subscribe to Office 365 for a low monthly fee of $9.99 month. Reviewers are raving that MS Word for Mac looks and acts like MS Word for the PC. The Mac App Store is full of all manner of apps, from simple utilities to complex programs. New apps are published every day, making it hard to find the best of the best — which is where we come in. We've gathered the best free apps for the Mac, all in one place so you don't have to go digging. My criteria for apps on this list. Writer - Free Word Processor for Mac. Before Google Docs, the leading free competitor to Word was LibreOffice’s Writer. It’s still around, it’s still free, and, well, that’s about it. Writer is a decent open-source word processor that, for the most part, has been replaced by other options. Writer - Free Word Processor for Mac. OpenOffice is an open-sourced productivity suite. It offers many essential desktop tools such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and a drawing program. The app is free and is a great way to get access to similar features as Microsoft Office but without having to pay for it.
Be your own publisher
As one of the most widely used layout programs in the world, Microsoft Publisher is beginner-friendly and lets virtually anyone design a variety of marketing materials, whether for web or print, with ease. Its tight integration with Office 365 contributes to it being the default choice for many when it comes to design software as well.
However, if you’ve recently switched from Windows to macOS and installed your favorite Microsoft software, you might have noticed that Microsoft Publisher is absent from the app lineup. How could it be? Is there Microsoft Publisher for Mac? What do you use instead? Let’s tackle all these questions one by one.
Get a publisher for Mac
Microsoft Publisher doesn't work on Mac. But Setapp has an equivalent you'll enjoy even more.
Is Microsoft Publisher Available For Mac?
As the official Microsoft website indicates, Microsoft Publisher is available for PC only. But that shouldn’t discourage you in the slightest. After all, the key value proposition of Mac computers for the longest time has been an abundance of platform-specific designer-oriented software.
Not only there are lots of Microsoft Office Publisher for Mac alternatives — they are generally more intuitive and focused on getting the professional results you’re after much quicker. One of those options is Swift Publisher.
Create astonishing layouts with Swift Publisher
What exactly is a Microsoft Publisher equivalent for Mac? There are certain tools that professional full-time designers use to create books, brochures, and printed advertising. Generally, those apps take hundreds of hours to get a grasp of and, even after you know them quite well, demand highly manual approach.
The other category is software that was designed to be accessible to all but which is still capable of producing results comparable to its highly specialized alternatives. Microsoft Publisher is certainly in that camp, and by comparison Swift Publisher is too.
Swift Publisher provides you with more than 200 templates and 2,000 royalty-free images right from the get-go. That means whatever you’re planning to design has already been mocked up and all the media you need can be found with a quick search, no purchase required. To accompany all these images, the app also features a built-in image editor you can use for any necessary cropping or color correction.
Building out your perfect layout in Swift Publisher couldn’t be easier, as the whole interface operates on a drag-and-drop functionality to enable you to fill out the template you’ve chosen at the beginning. You can also change the template yourself with regards to master pages, grid, layers, tables, and more.
Unlike Microsoft Publisher for Mac, Swift Publisher makes full use of programmatic automation. For example, calendars and maps can be added in a snap to show timelines and directions. Contacts can be merged from Apple’s address book to output names. New QR codes can be created to guide users to where you want them to go.
Printing your project has never been so seamless. First you can simply check out the layout integrity by printing samples at home. When you get the result you seek, the app allows you to further fine-tune the image resolution, mark bleeds, and customize anything else required by your commercial printer.
As you can see, the inability to download Microsoft Publisher for Mac shouldn’t affect your need for creative expression. Swift Publisher offers all the same features and more in a convenient and approachable package. But what if someone sends you a .pub file Macs can’t read? There are workarounds for that too.
How to open a .pub file on Mac
It’s true that none of Mac’s default apps would be able to peek inside the .pub file, simply due to how closed the Microsoft ecosystem is. Luckily, it’s less of a problem than it seems. A quick search online would reveal dozens of free web-based utilities that instantly convert Publisher files into PDFs, .docx, .png, etc.
Alternatively, you can notify your team of your recent switch to Mac and ask them to export .pub files to another format before those get sent to you. To do that your colleagues need to go to File then Export then Change File Type.
Most likely, all the files you’ll receive from now on would be PDFs, which are great, as they preserve the original formatting and can be read by any program that deals with images. With time though you’ll accumulate hundreds of PDF files, so your new challenge will be finding the right one quickly. That’s where PDF Search comes to the rescue.
PDF Search is a powerful utility that first and foremost scans any folder on your Mac for PDFs and then uses its AI capabilities to work with them. This app doesn’t just search for a word or phrase, it also analyzes a variety of semantically related keyword combinations and ranks them for you based on relevancy. To put it simply, there has never been an easier way to scan your PDFs.
Publish flawless blog posts on the web
A frequently overlooked use case for Microsoft Publisher is laying out the content for the web, whether it’s a website or complex blog post. And while Swift Publisher is an outstanding tool for creating website mockups, it would seem like an overkill to use it for putting together a blog post. Working with a single-focused app like MarsEdit would make so much more sense.
MarsEdit is a lightweight but powerful all-in-one blogging tool. It lets you write, design, optimize, and publish outstanding blog posts using a single workflow, and thus saving time and reducing errors in the process.
When you launch MarsEdit for the first time, it asks you to connect the app to your existing blog, whether it’s on WordPress, Blogger, or Medium, so that it can import all your settings and configure the publishing process. That way, MarsEdit will also become the de facto content management system for your website — good news, as keeping a copy of all your posts offline certainly wouldn’t hurt.
Writing in MarsEdit is straightforward and distraction-free. You can also copy-paste the text from another app and even retain the Markdown syntax. Adding media is the best part, as MarsEdit supports a variety of image engines and even features a native image editor to make all the necessary adjustments. What’s more, the app can scan Apple Photos, Lightroom, and Aperture for images.
You also get to preview your resulting blog posts in real time to avoid after-the-fact tweaking. And if you have more than one blog, you can simply switch accounts right within the app. To sum up, MarsEdit is exactly the software web publisher have been waiting for.
Despite the fact that there is no official Microsoft Office Publisher for Mac, you’re not left without tools that are crucial for your success. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Lots of apps could be called a Microsoft Publisher equivalent for Mac. Your task now is to pick the right one. Swift Publisher does the trick for nearly every use case, and MarsEdit effortlessly takes care of your web presence. Finally, in case someone sends you .pub file Macs can’t read, search online to resolve the issue and try any top-ranking utility.
Best of all, both Swift Publisher and MarsEdit are available for a free trial through Setapp, a platform of more than 150 highly acclaimed apps and utilities for any situation. Become a Setapp Member today and download Microsoft Publisher for Mac alternatives you want to try.
I use a lot of software, and as a programmer myself, I totally understand the need for programmers to make a living from their work. But, I don't like the new trend toward subscription-based software. I prefer to purchase software and use it until it no longer works (due to operating system upgrades usually) or there is some new feature that I need or want. At that time, I will willingly pay for an upgrade. Some people obviously disagree with me. I like it when software companies offer both options - outright purchase and subscriptions.
When my copy of Microsoft Word 2007 continually crashed in Windows 10, I began looking for alternatives. I've listed eight programs below that I looked at, in my order of preference. LibreOffice Writer and SmartEdit Writer are programs I personally use on nearly a daily basis.
LibreOffice Writer
- Totally Free
- Full-featured word processor
- Fully compatible with Word formats - can read and write both .doc and .docx files
- Provides for collaboration using the Track Changes and Comments features
- You must download the entire suite of products, Writer is not available separately
- Works on: Windows, Mac, Linux
SmartEdit Writer
This isn't your typical word processing software. It's kind of a cross between a word processor and notes application. Aimed primarily at authors and creative writers, I use it for a variety of purposes myself and believe it has a wider range of users, including: bloggers, students taking class notes or researching and writing reports or other written assignments, teachers organizing material for courses, etc.
Free Program Like Word For Mac
SoftMaker FreeOffice/TextMaker
Best Free Mac Word Processor
- I had to register on their website in order to download the program. A software key was sent to the registration email address. An internet connection was required to unlock the software using that key.
- TextMaker is the word processing component of this suite. There are limitations on the free version as listed on their website, but it's suitable for basic needs. And the purchased version makes a nice replacement for Word.
- Has subscription-based or outright purchase options.
- Free version can open and save .docx files, but can only open .doc files
- TextMaker does not use document tabs in the free version, the documents open in separate windows. A tabbed interface is available in the paid versions - a handy feature if you work with multiple documents..
- Developed in Germany
- Works on: Windows, Linux, Mac (however no free version for the Mac)
Zoho Docs
Latest Version Of Word For Mac
- Zoho offers many applications, including Zoho Docs, an online word processor similar to Google Docs.
- The free version is very generous with its features.
- Some free features: up to 25 invited collaborators, desktop synchronization, 5GB storage space with 1GB file upload limit, and more...
- Zoho Docs is primarily an online service, however it is possible to work offline as well. Changes made while offline, sync automatically the next time you connect to the internet
- Works on: All OS - through web interface
OpenOffice
- Another free, open source application suite
- LibreOffice branched off from OpenOffice
- The interface of LO and OO are so similar, that if you know one, you shouldn't have any trouble using the other
- Currently, LibreOffice is more actively developed. As of this writing, the last OpenOffice update was 8 months ago, while LibreOffice had an update 2 weeks ago.
- Works on: Windows, Mac, Linux
OnlyOffice
- OnlyOffice primarily offers online software, however they do have a free desktop version. It has a nice, modern interface. I tried using it for a while. Once, for no apparent reason, the entire white editing window turned black, and the program froze on me. The file I was editing wasn't damaged, although unsaved changes were lost. I don't know if that was just a fluke or what.
- OnlyOffice also includes spreadsheet and presentations
- U.S. and Latvia offices
- Works on: Windows, Linux, Mac
WPS Office 2016 Free
- Like LibreOffice, this is also a suite. The Word Processor, also called Writer, is one component. Others include Presentations and Spreadsheet.
- The free version displays small ads
- Two additional levels (which remove the ads and offer more features) are paid upgrades
- WPS has a nice, sleek interface and allows multiple documents to be opened in tabs rather than separate windows
- * WPS Office Software is based in California, however the product was initially developed in China. WPS is still a subsidiary of Kingsoft Corp with headquarters in China. In an age of concern about internet privacy, spying, etc. I wanted to include that info. Some users have complained of suspicious activity after installing the software. It's enough to make me not want to use it. It's a shame, because it does appear to be nice software.
- Works on: Windows, Linux, IOS, Android
Google Docs
- Google Docs is certainly a capable, widely-used option. I'm just not personally a Google fan, so I prefer to use the similar product, Zoho Docs.
- You must be online and have a Google account to use
- It works with Google Drive cloud storage
- You may invite others to view, comment, or collaborate on a document
- Integrates with Google Slides and Sheets
- Full integration with other Google products is only available through G Suite, a monthly subscription
- Works on: All OS - through web interface