Narrator utilizes speech synthesis to read out the contents of a text document, using different voices for different parts. You have a range of "actors" that can portray any number of "characters", so various passages of your document are spoken with differing voices, pitches, inflections, etc. You can have it read out a play or story with appropriate voices. The words are highlighted on-screen, and there are also a couple of silent read-along options for stage directions, or for you to read out your own parts.

Download Narrator 2.0.3 in Softonic

TeXShop is a TeX previewer for Mac OS X, written in Cocoa. Since pdf is a native file format on OS X, TeXShop uses "pdftex" and "pdflatex" rather than "tex" and "latex" to typeset; these programs in the standard teTeX distribution of TeX produce pdf output instead of dvi output.

TeXShop uses TeXLive and teTeX, standard distributions of Tex programs for Unix machines. The distributions include tex, latex, dvips, tex fonts, cyrillic fonts, and virtually all other programs and supporting files commonly used in the TeX world.

Download TeXShop 2.18 in Softonic

HexEdit is a hexadecimal file editor for the Macintosh. The most widely used editor of its kind on the platform, HexEdit can handle file sizes of up to four gigabytes with ease, yet has memory requirements of less than a megabyte (with colour turned off). It can also compare files for similarities or differences. At the moment there are 680x0, PowerPC PEF and PowerPC Mach-O builds, but an x86 build will be coming soon.

Download HexEdit 2.20 in Softonic

I can already hear you complaining at yet another batch converter. It's true there probably are way too many converters out there, with the majority of them pretty much identical too each other. Dragoman is all around pretty good though and stands out thanks to its versatility.

I've found Dragoman very easy to use: just drag and drop your file onto the interface, select the format you want to convert it to and let it work its magic. Dragoman's real strength is that it handles all sorts of formats, from images to audio, text and archive. You'll find only video is missing to turn it into a complete batch converter. For each category, Dragoman offers a wide choice of formats, although you will probably notice that some of these, such as MP3 or RAR, are read-only.

Batch converting with Dragoman is as simple as working with one file. You just drag are your files onto Dragoman, select the output format and let Dragoman do the hard work.

Dragoman is a good batch converter handling multiple file formats.

Download Dragoman 1.3.1 in Softonic

Textexpander is a clever tool that, if correctly used, can save you countless hours. The application allows you to create your own abbreviations for text you often write or images you tend to use more. Although creating your own snippets can seem a bit tricky at first, it's very easy to do thanks to the friendly interface. You can create as many snippets as you want, add labels and make elements case sensitive.

While all your snippets are stored in a list on the left side of the interface you can create groups to keep them organized by relevant subjects. Textexpander can be particularly useful to quickly insert in special characters or formulas, that would take much more time to type. On the whole, it's a real time saving and ingenious application that will be of great use to editors, web programmers and even everyday users.

Create abbreviations for your most commonly used phrases with Textexpander.

Download Textexpander 2.4 in Softonic

With Tables you can not only organise data but also calculate and compare them, too. Add, sum or multiply numbers or process data by using various functions. Data can not only represent numbers but a date or an amount, too. Tables offer extensive options to format the data. Format them as currency, as an amount, as percentage rates, scientifically or with different date formats.

Create optical attractive invoices, lists or reports and even add some photos and PDF documents to present your data with a great visual impact. You can create your own named styles in Tables to quickly assign the same formatting properties to other cells and also receive a uniform look for your document.

Download Tables 1.4.5 in Softonic

Adobe Reader is the standard application needed for PDF viewing on your Macintosh. It has been in existence for over a decade now and has gone through various evolutions during this time. One result of this is that it has been increasingly loaded with plugins and extensions which mean that it's consistently criticised as being bloated and slow.

This is true to a certain extent although it still has much to offer. With this release, Adobe have addressed some of the speed issues and the memory footprint has been improved consistently throughout the development of version 8. The biggest problem with this program however is and continues to be security. It has too many features that most people do not need which not only slow it down but also leave it very vulnerable to attack. However, it does a very good job of allowing you to scroll through documents, jump to certain pages, copy text and print.

Adobe Reader is a well designed application that still performs effectively despite its size and will continue to be an essential application for producing documents.

Download Adobe Reader 9 in Softonic

If you ever wanted to be like Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City, writing columns and blog posts (well, she was writing just newspaper columns, but you never know) in a cosy cafe, without caring about anybody and anything apart from your own written world, this might just be the program you’re looking for.

Although MacJournal is a very simple program and it’s basically a text editor, it has a couple of features that makes it interesting. The first one is a calendar. You can browse this calendar and write posts which will be saved at the specific date you write them. It's particularly useful for writers I think, as you might want to prepare a piece for a specific day and after you have written it you can actually concentrate on something else without worrying about remembering when you have to publish an article.

The second exciting tool is a full screen mode which will turn your screen completely black with just your text showing on it. Writing in this mode means that you’re free from all of the distractions your Mac can usually throw at you, helping you maximize your concentration and productivity. It makes you feel good and even important, I am not sure why but this is true. I guess it's because you can feel you have the space and the power to write all you want without having any interference, not even design foibles, with your writing. Then when you go back to the normal mode, it will be easy to format your text, add pictures if you need to, or double-check possible mistakes underlined of course with those unforgiving red lines. When you have finished you can lock your journal as if it were your secret diary.

If you are one of those writers who feels that even the interface of your editor is an element of disturbance with your artistic vein, try this effective editor which will leave you with nothing but your words.

Download MacJournal 5.04 in Softonic

Mellel is an advanced word editor for Mac OS X designed especially for scholars, creative and technical writers, and anyone seeking a feature-rich and reliable word processor. It fully supports Hebrew, thus clearly marking it out from the rest of the word editing software available for Mac

Download Mellel 2.5 in Softonic

There's already a plethora of word processors on Mac, and most of them fit the job perfectly. Bean is an open source text editor with a very nice interface and its personal set of features. We liked the inspector tool, which gives you quick access to elements like alignment, spacing, or indenting. Bean also carries a dictionary and makes it really simple to check the spelling and definition of a word.

Bean's font manager, which lets you add new ones or arrange your favorite ones, is very well thought out. Bean also has a statistics window, which you call up directly from the menu bar, and that will give you word count, number of paragraphs and more. Bean is a very pleasant word processor to use and you always feel like tools are immediately accessible. It's a good free and simple alternative to Microsoft Word or Open Office.

Download Bean 1.3.2 in Softonic

Celtx is a comprehensive software package designed for people who work in the Film, TV, Theatre and New Media industries. It combines full-feature scriptwriting with media rich pre-production support and enables online collaboration.

Prior to Celtx, projects were completed using slip sheeted, paper based scripts maintained in bulky three ring binders that included hundreds, sometimes thousands, of attached pictures and hand written notes. Project information, in other words, could only be shared in paper form.

Scripts written or imported in to Celtx can be broken down digitally and, for the first time, easily shared with others to foster collaboration and creativity during the pre-production and production phases of film and TV making.

Download Celtx 1.0 in Softonic

Built from the same core as Nisus Writer Express, Nisus Writer Pro adds new features while keeping the familiar look and feel that has won praise from users and the press alike. Nisus Writer Pro brings new features such as Table of Contents, Indexing, Bookmarks, Widow and Orphan control, Cross References, Line Numbering, and Text Wrap around images.

Familiar Classic features are also on board, like attribute sensitive Find and Replace, an upgraded Nisus Macro Language, and Glossaries. Original features have also been significantly improved.

Download Nisus Writer Pro 1.1 in Softonic

Cleaning up a copy can take up lots of your time. This is why you need to make sure that your text processor or editor handles it or that you have a specific program to take care of the job.

Apimac Clean Text is the sort of program that is only focused on cleaning up text. No editing features found here. You'll simply have to paste your text into the interface than use of the default fixes to clean up case, reverse characters, transform quotes and lines or fix paragraphs and spaces. If you don't have time to waste you can just choose to fix all.

Clean Text also allows you to batch replace certain words and sentences and create macros so you can have your own selection of fixes to work with. Despite the usefulness of macros, I felt that Cleant Text lacked flexibility, especially in terms of the rules or fixes you can work with. For date for example, you only have a choice of three different formats.

Clean Text is still a very handy tool if you are in a hurry and need to clean up text fast. However some users will be disappointed by its lack of flexibility.

Download Apimac Clean Text '08 in Softonic

Looking to succeed in Hollywood? Montage is a screenwriting application to put your movie ideas down and organize all aspects of your story.

My first impression of Montage is that it's easy enough for almost anyone to use. The different elements, like script, scenes, characters or research are on listed on the left. You can easily add or remove new ones, enter keywords for better identification and format your entries. Montage comes with a selection of nice script templates to start out from, among which some from the BBC. Importing are exporting is also extremely easy.

Serious film directors might feel a little disappointed with Montage as it lacks some essential features. For one, you can not track changes made to your script. Montage also lacks a proper timeline view. You can set it to split scene or full screen, but only if you are looking at your script or specific scenes.

Thanks to an attractive interface, Montage is probably a good choice for aspiring movie directors. However more seasoned writers will lament the display limitations and lack of change tracking.

Download Montage 1.5 in Softonic

Photos, e-mails, graphics, documents. Who knows what else you've got hidden away? NoteBook helps you keep track. It's a combination outliner and free-form database that lets you clip, annotate, and share unstructured information.

Organize your information using a familiar notebook interface complete with pages and tabs. Arrange notes hierarchically in logical outline pages or free-form writing pages, in ways that make sense to you. Integrate graphics and media directly into your notes where you need them and add annotations, keywords, and stickers to help you keep track.

Are you a power outliner? NoteBook's more-style outlining commands are built right in, with familiar keyboard equivalents. New to outlining? Follow our quick tutorial, included with the download, and you'll be on your way in no time.

NoteBook integrates directly with key Apple iApps to keep life in the digital hub super-organized. The NoteBook Contact Sticker provides direct, menu-based access to relevant Address Book contacts, as well as iChat and Mail functions from within NoteBook. You can set and manage iCal alarms for your NoteBook Action Items without leaving NoteBook, while receiving these alarms wherever they are through Apple's standard iCal and iPod delivery systems.

Moreover, you can download your outlines to your iPod and view them using native iPod-style browsing. Voice annotation recordings tied to your notes can be downloaded to iTunes playlists for convenient playback through iTunes or an iPod. And just to be safe, you can protect private thoughts with passwords, covers, and encryption.

Download Circus Ponies NoteBook 2.1.268 in Softonic

Tex-Edit Plus is a scriptable, styled text editor that fills the gap between Apple's bare-bones SimpleText and a full-featured word processor. It's fast, efficient, and has a clean, uncluttered interface. It's also great for cleaning up text which is transmitted over the Internet.

Download Tex-edit plus X 4.9.8 in Softonic

QuoEdit is a plain text editor that runs on Mac OS 7.1 or later. While editing text is based on traditional, Mac OS encoding (TEXT), QuoEdit is also familiar with Unicode (utxt). (QuoEdit is also wishing to be hybrid someday, to support both Mac-encoding base and Unicode base.)

QuoEdit supports AppleScript powerfully in the following levels:

Scriptable

Full features (and more) of the application can be controlled by script.

Recordable

You can record, replay and save your jobs with/without the Script Editor (like keyboard macro).

Attachable

You can attach scripts to menus with various options by QuoEdit's Menu utility or AppleScript. (To the customizable menus, you can also attach text, tags and any files.)

QuoEdit supports regular expression (regex) search as well as ordinary search. As for the ways to search, ordinary search and batch find are supported. Also, QuoEdit supports multiple levels of undo/redo, rectangular selection, sort, and so forth. The most operations (including dialogs) in QuoEdit are supported by keyboard. The text engine and the search engine are its original code.

Download QuoEdit 1.1.5 in Softonic

There's a slew of notepad programs for Mac out there so it gets harder to distinguish one from the other. iOrganize stands out thanks to its clean user interface.

The application modeled like successful Apple applications like iTunes, Mail or iPhoto makes it easy to skip through your saved notes, in a list view on the left, to look into a specific category via the top window and preview a note from the bottom section of the interface. iOrganize lets you keep not only notes but even photos, links, or PDFs, all of these which you can quickly drag and drop. You can set a different priority level for each note and create as many categories as you want to store them in. If you need to save your notes somewhere else you can export them in three different text formats.

iOrganize also serves up a very good search function, with which you can quickly find anything saved in iOrganize. The program also comes with a Spotlight plugin, which will allow you to search directly in your notepads.

Thanks to a clear interface and a number of useful features, iOrganize makes for a good notepad application for Mac.

Download iOrganize 6.2.3 in Softonic

Word Counter is a Macintosh OS X application that performs a word count and a character count, but it can do much more. It can work alone or in conjunction with Apple's own TextEdit application via a small floating window. Text can be typed, pasted, or dragged into the window. Word Counter can automatically update the count based on a user-definable time interval. It also can perform bulk counts on multiple files and folders simply by dropping them onto the window.

Word Counter can count the number of times a particular word appears in a document. It can even create a sortable summary table of all words in the document, with the number of times each word appears and the length of each word. Word Counter can handle various file types including plain text (txt, text), rich text (rtf, rtfd), Hypertext Markup Language (htm, html), Microsoft Word (doc), Microsoft Word XML (wordml), and Apple's web archive (webarchive). This program may be useful for writing a manuscript or an abstract with a strict limit on the number of words or characters allowed.

Download Word Counter 2.7 in Softonic

Changes can help you escape code madness and easily find the differences and changes between two text files.

If you work with code regularly, you probably know how difficult and annoying it can be looking for changes and checking that everything is correct. Changes has a great text comparison view which puts two versions of the same text side by side and lets you quickly pick up on differences. You can decide to merge either the change from the document on the left or the right, avoiding you the pain of rewriting or copying and pasting.

We also really liked how Changes offers integration support for the most popular text editors, like BBEDit, TextWangler, TextMate or Xcode. You can still work with your favorite text editor and use Changes only to find differences.

Changes is still only at version 1.0, so it can still be a little unstable every now and then.

Overall though, Changes is a very handy tool to detect and change differences in text files. Great for programmers.

Download Changes 1.0 in Softonic