ZO219  This is simply the best, most tolerable interface, I've written a book with it. Five stars!  
(Version 3.3.1)

EASER  I was using the newest version of MS Office until I realized that, given all of the incremental updates I've had to to, my "Receipts" folder in my Library now has 164 receipts just for Office alone. That's just plain obscene to me, particularly since I have no idea what other nonsense MS manages to install on my machine. I still need Excel, so I put up with it. But I've always had good luck with Nisus, so it's back to this as my word processor of choice.  
(Version 3.1)

BRUMM  My opinion on word processors for OS X:

The last days I've tested many word processors and I found Mellel to be the best so far,

Mellel is not bloated like all the "Office" suites (Neo, OO, MS, are all to slow, ... for me Neo Office is the best of these beasts.)

and Mellel is better than:

- Nisus (Nearest competitor but Nisus doesn't support soft hyphen!, I simply cannot work without soft hyphen.),

- Mariner Write (really bad font display/spacing for many years now, only english, carbon - so it needs to be rewritten for future OSX releases, will they do that? I'm unsure.)

- Pages (Again no soft hyphen!, occasionally crashes and after a while gets very slow, ... but I exspect the next versions will be much better)

- Papyrus (very ugly, carbon, no real testdrive possible - crippled trial version, but some interesting features - I keep an eye on it)

- AbiWord (Many bugs and no updates the last 2 years, I think they don't support the Mac anymore)

- Bean (really fanstatic freeware, but based on Apples buggy text-engine. No soft hyphen! So only usable for some very short texts, best freeware I've seen for many many years - of course I keep an eye on it)

For now I will use Mellel.

The only things that I don't like are related to the interface design, for example the round beveled look of the ruler and tools section is very outdated now, a boring all-grey mix of alien spaceship ("aqua"-style) or early iTunes versions ("metal"-style).

But besides that Mellel has the best combination of features for me, so my money goes to them.   
(Version 3.1)

EASER  After being rather blasted for my comments on the recent MS Word update, I felt compelled to write a review of NWE 3.0, since no one has done that. Word may have its champions, but I am not among them. I've explored literally every Word alternative I could find, and I settled on Nisus.

I have found this program to be fast, stable, and sufficiently feature-rich, particularly now that it offers text wrap with images. I'll grant that Word provides a host more features, but if you want to simply get down to the task of writing, Nisus is likely to be very satisfying. The learning curve is low, and customer support has been good. I'd like to be able to see it work with .docx files, but I'm sure that will come in time.  
(Version 3.0)

NEURON  Great writing tool. Almost prime time, although at this point still a fantastic writing tool for basic writing, drafts, and the like.

Only reason to use word for me is track changes. Also, to ensure compatibility (I opened the finished document in Word, save as Word file, then send it).

Otherwise, its great, I like the interface, has most of the features I need, and is fas, responsive, and stable. A little slow to start up, though.  
(Version 2.7)

LUMPO  I had a meltdown with M$ Word on a Macbook and I just can't get it to run (bound to be font corruption, but alas can't fix it). I have Mellel which is quite nice but it doesn't work smoothly in terms of importing the lingua frnca (M$ word files). Nisus however, opens word files as though they were native, and saves them out the same way without complicated exporting.

The only reason I ever need M$ word is when I am receiving or am required to track changes. For those occasions I open Word in windoze under parallels (runs 1000% faster than word in OSX ever did). Shuddering with relief when that's done, I return to Nisus and it does most of what i want easily.

For bibliographic databases, I use Bookends. You can set it to drop references into the Nisus doc and as the default format is rtf, Bookends can scan it quickly to make a formatted doc and bibliography; this is a 2 step process whereas Mellel is 1-step.

Still if Word compatability is needed, Nisus has it over Mellel ++; otherwise they both have something to offer.  
(Version 2.7)

MARC NOTHROP  if precision of Word compatibility is your top priority then NWX could be improved, if you're looking for a great writing tool, then Nisus is really the best option out there.

No argument that the features trail Word, and even Mellel in places, but development is very active, and new features are coming thick and fast. Definitely worth a look.  
(Version 2.7)

NINJABOY  Used this in OS Classic days as an alternative to MS Word and loved it. Even the lesser (freeware) version was good enough to write a number of report and research assignments etc.

NWE for OSX, however, is a disappointment. My document looks ugly because of formatting & spacing problems, despite my best attempts to alter prefs and/or re-format my document to give it a more polished look. Footnotes seem to be causing the biggest problems and un-justifys the text by shortening line-endings (like Appleworks), but footnotes also alter the line spacing in documents too.

It would be great if the Thesaurus was integrated within the app, instead of running alongside NWE as a separate app or as a plug-in (I like self-integrated apps - especially with word-processors).

It pains me to say that NWE is a word-processor no more advanced than some freeware/cheaper shareware versions. Even TextEdit with Apple's Dictionary app will produce similar results (other than the footnotes, of course).

I will stick with MS Word for now, but only because it produces the polished look to my documents that NWE and AppleWorks cannot produce.  
(Version 2.7)

DAVEF  I have been using M$ Word for the last four years and it has not been a pleasant experience. Today I took M$ Office 2004 off of my computer (its now an M$ free zone) and installed Nisus Writer Express. It is the best word processing program I have ever used. I can write the way I want to write not the way M$ Word thinks it should be done. What a breath of fresh air.  
(Version 2.7)

MARC NOTHROP  Keeps getting better, and at a good pace.  
(Version 2.7)