Besides the brief post I wrote below, see the Mellel review that I wrote for the January 2008 edition of About this Particular Macintosh.

Word Processors: Mellel

[I first posted the information on this page to my computer blog, On My Mac, on 10/6/2007.]

I wrote my dissertation on Mellel. This application might annoy a user who expects it to work like Word, or at least like all other Mac applications, because Mellel does neither. It is endearing for these same reasons—and because it is stable, fast, and equipped with a robust set of features for academic writing. I also am happy about its integration with Bookends, a powerful bibliography database application.

Below is a screenshot of the application with my dissertation. I usually keep the toolbar and ruler closed, in order to make more space for text on my small computer, but I think the typewriter-like interface might interest some readers. You can also open a set a palettes to control the appearance of individual elements of the document. I usually keep those closed and work with Mellel's powerful tools for presetting the styles of characters and paragraphs instead.

My dissertation has 322 pages, yet it opens instantly on my G4 iBook. Note too the outline on the left. I can click on any item and get there immediately. Microsoft Word and Nisus Writer Express are significantly slower with documents one tenth this size. Moreover, Mellel has never crashed on me.

For more information, visit Redlers. You might also want to check out their user forum, which shows a high level of interaction among users and between users and Redlers. Redlers also answers user emails.

Download the thirty-day trial and tell me what you think. Or are you already a Mellel user?

Price for license: $49 regular or $35 educational. Redlers also has some special offers for more than one license and for Bookends users. Updates are free for two years from the date of purchase. An upgrade after that is $19 for two more years.