Review: Alternatives to Microsoft Word & Excel : Mariner Write & Calc

Mariner Write & Mariner Calc Review
As reviewed: Version 3.7.1

If you’ve been around personal computers for more than ten years, you can likely remember a time when someone other than Microsoft dominated what became known as the ‘Office Suite’ of products. At the time, that term was used to mean programs like a word processor, a spreadsheet, a database application, presentation software and perhaps some type of graphics application.

As ‘recently’ as 1995, there were still large installations of desktop computers in Corporate America that were not running Microsoft office but instead, programs like Word Perfect were the defacto standard. These programs were facing an ever increasing advance of the dominance from the software giant in Redmond who’s Microsoft Office suite of tools was quickly becoming the standard across the world.

Despite Microsoft’s near dominance in that field, there are people and companies who still need similar functionality but for either financial or philosophical reasons, decide to get that functionality from something other than Microsoft Office. This review is about one such product from a company who has a long and rich history in the Mac software market. The company is called Mariner Software who has several applications in their line up but they are perhaps best known for their two showcase programs: Mariner Write and Mariner Calc which are frequently though of as Mac based competitors to Microsoft Word and Excel.

I vividly remember the day that I consciously made the decision to leave the PC platform and switch to the Mac for the vast majority of my computing needs, both personally and professionally in early 2001. One of the biggest concerns for potential switchers is they wonder if there is a version of the software they use all day long on the PC, available on the Macintos. For me, I kept a list for two weeks of every single program I opened and then set out to find its equal or equivalent on the Mac. With the exception of a few games, I had no problem finding software that many times was far better than what I had been using on the PC. This was a big (but very welcome) surprise for someone who had heard for years that “there just isn’t any software available for the Mac). A big part of budgeting for that switch was for Microsoft Office for the Mac as well as Virtual PC with a Windows XP license. Two pieces of software that to this day remain some of the most unused applications on my Mac and quite honestly, money that I wish I had never spent.

Mariner Write and Calc are aimed squarely at that very market. Nearly everyone has the need to do the occasional bit of writing on their computer and as well as some spreadsheets. It’s quite common these days for many programs to offer an option to export the data in some common data format, such as comma separated format (CSV) so you can bring in data from one source and do further analysis on that data using your spreadsheet. While CSV files used to be the domain of the geeks, you realize how mainstream this has all gotten when you get the tech-support phone call from your mother asking for help on importing the CSV file that she just exported from her online bank so she can do some analysis on this month’s bank statement in her spreadsheet program.

The bottom line is that the need is only getting bigger and more and more people are realizing that they might not have to pay the fairly hefty Microsoft Tax in order to have access to that functionality and Mariner Write and Calc are there to serve meet that very need without breaking the bank. By the way, this entire review is being written in Mariner Write version 3.7.1 on a dual PowerMac G5.

Without further adu, let’s take a look at each application:

Mariner Write
The first thing you notice when you open Mariner Write is that this application is extreme clean and minimalist looking and it ‘feels’ incredibly snappy and responsive. Out of the box, there is a single toolbar visible at the top of the window for common formatting related tasks. A second floating toolbar is also visible to deal with other related tasks such as saving, printing, zooming, etc. The learning curve is made all the easier because Mariner Write already knows how to use the same standard keyboard shortcuts that you already know to accomplish common tasks such as Cmd-B to Bold, Cmd-S to Save and a million others so you can jump with in and start using the product right away which is true of any well written piece of Mac software. When exploring a new piece of software, many users head straight to the menu to see what options are available to them and Write offers a very straight forward presentation of the features of the software. None of those annoying ‘dynamic’ menus found in Microsoft office where they show you only the commonly used features by default and you have to go digging to find anything more than what Microsoft determined is right for you. Right next to ‘Clippy’, Microsoft’s annoying little on-screen helper, those dynamic menus have gone down in history as yet another of Microsoft’s innovative bad ideas that their customers were forced to turn off in order to use the product.

Being designed to be a competitor to Microsoft Word, the comparisons are inevitable. Mariner Write claims to have 75% to 80% of the most important features found in Microsoft Word and when you really think about it, for the vast majority of people, their needs (feature wise) are not really all that big. Word has evolved into the ultimate kitchen sink over the years but in the process it has suffered mightily and has become quite a bloated application. This is precisely what Mariner Write is trying to avoid while at the same time, delivering a dependable alternative to Word. The most important thing that most people will wonder about is file formats, meaning, can Write create, open and save files that Word users have created and in general, the answer to that is a resounding yes! Most of the time. You see, years ago, Microsoft did a really foolish thing (hard to belive, I know). Between major versions of their office suite, they made a change to the underlying file format of Microsoft Word files which basically resulted in a situation where if someone had the newest version of Word and they created a file and saved it in that new file format (which was completely transparent to them) — when they then sent the file to a co-worker who was not using the newest version of Word, the file simply could not be opened and if it could be opened, the file was seldomly seen as it was originally intended.

I was working assisting with the roll out of this particular version of Office back when this all happened and in the world of Corporate America, this caused a huge amount of grief so users, administrator and everyone in between and millions of files were being created that were literally unusable by a large part of the world. Fortunately, Microsoft eventually saw of the error of their ways and with rare exception, they haven’t repeated the mistake when it comes to making major changes to the Word based file formats which is a huge boon to products like Mariner Write. I’ve been using Mariner Write for the last 6 weeks and using it with work related files across many companies – both in situations where I was the creator of the file and also where I was simply the person who was sent the file and had to contribute or otherwise add to the file. Unbeknownst to everyone I was dealing with, I was using Mariner Write instead of Microsoft Word but to them, there simply was no difference. I do what to emphasize that we were dealing with fairly straight forwrad word processing type of files.

They had standard formatting and they otherwise looked fantastic but at the same time, I want to be clear that these were not some of the most complex engineering related documents that I sometimes deal with which tend to take advantage of some of the more advanced features of the word processor. Things like deeply nested tables, footnotes that go several levels deeps, embedded charts and graphs, pieces that were dynamically linked in from other office applications and such. While I understand that Write is capable of dealing with the majority of what people would tend to come across in their daily work, they do acknowledge that 100% compatibility with 100% of the features found in Word is just not a realistic expectation so do keep that in mind. However at the same time, most documents do not use such features and if you are in an environment that does use such things, you are probably in a large company that tend to be 100% Microsoft based shops anyway so discussions about Mariner Write is a mute point in those places.

Write claims to contain an 80,000+ word dictionary and thesaurus with real time, in-line spell checking that we’ve all grown so accustomed to. In truth, Write contains the types of features that everyday people require from their word processing application ranging from above average formatting controls, to the ability to save files in several different popular file types such as pure text, PDF and dual versions of RTF (which are read-able by users of MS Word). In fact, we are starting to see a trend where for common documents created in a word processor, people are realizing that the typical .doc file format is not always the best way to send the file, instead opting to use the most standards compliant format of RTF (Rich Text Format) and unless your documents involve a lot of high end features and such, I would encourage that you too should consider saving your files (even if you use MS Word) in the .rtf format which will ensure that almost everyone that you send it to will be able to open the file, regardless of the software they have on their machines. Another trend we’re starting to see is that many of these super low-cost computers that are now on the market (as well as being sent overseas to many poor countries) do not have Microsoft office installed on them yet those people still have a need to work with such files so by saving your own work in the .rtf or .txt format, you absolutely ensure the readability of your file both today and in the future.

One area where I did experience some issues with Mariner Write came when I tried to insert graphics into my document which Write didn’t seem to like too well. I’ve been spoiled by the incredible flexibility of using Apple’s Pages program and how it automatically wraps text around your images so eloquently but when I really thought about it, I would likely use a product like Write to do exactly that, write. I really wouldn’t use it as some sort of desktop publishing solution so the graphics issue really isn’t a deal breaker for me.

Over all, there really is quite a bit to like about Mariner Write especially if you’ve got someone who doesn’t carry all of the mental baggage that comes from using Microsoft Word for years. Write takes the notable goal of trying to excel at a specific task and then do it really well instead of trying to be all things to all people and in all situations. One big plus for Write is one of those small but important tangible things about the product in that it just ‘feels right’. A lot of attention when into creating an uncluttered and useful interface and the program feels extremely snappy to work with. Mariner also does an admirable job of addressing the fact that just because Apple has gotten most of the world moved over to OSX, that there are still a fair number of perfectly good machines out there in service that are running OS9 so they do provide a copy of Mariner Write (version 3.5.1) to people using OS 9. Considering the likehood that these specific machines are likely to be in use in places where money is tight, places like schools and other non-profit organizations where if they had the funds available, they would have already upgraded to newer Macs so you have to give credit where credit is due for a company thinking about the real world uses of it’s product in situations like these so hats off the Mariner for keeping a current version of Write available to OS 9 users. In addition, they also offer two additional files on their website, the Mariner Write Power User Guide and the Mariner Write Power Tips (both in PDF format). Both of these files offer real world useful tips to get up to speed on the product as fast as possible.

Mariner Write can be purchased a few different ways, including:

Boxed copy – $59.95
Download edition – $49.95
Family Pack (5 users) – $149.95
Upgrade Edition – $24.95
Lifetime Upgrade Pack – $49.95
Free trial available online.

You can find everything you need to know about Mariner write at their website:

Mariner Software

As a side note, since I first began using Mariner Write around six months ago, it has formally made the move from ‘Software to Review’ to an applicaton that will be put in much heavier rotation. Shortly I will be purchasing a new Mac for my mother and father (their first Mac) and Mariner Write will be the official document creation software on their dock. For someone like them, Mariner Write offers far more than they will ever need and the price is quite reasonable.

Mariner Calc
When it comes to spreadsheet software, I think this type of software falls into two general camps: a) people who think like accountants and/or engineers and these people deal with spreadsheets every single day. They often incorporate some of the more advanced features of the program into their work which is then often sent to other co-workers for review and/or collaboration. This can also involve custom programming in the form of macros and/or small visual basic applications built right into the spreadsheet. These spreadsheets can end up being massive documents, containing 30,000 – 60,000 thousand lines per worksheet spanning multiple tabs. In my previous job, we dealt with such files on a daily basis while assembling complex files which served as backup material for consulting engineering reports. I don’t think Mariner Calc is the right tool for people in this area. While it may be technically possible, the fact that you often have to share with people who only know how to do things ‘The Microsoft Way’ might make the job more time consuming than necessary.

The other group of people, which I think makes up a much larger part of the user base as a whole, are normal people who need to deal with numbers are part of their daily lives (and who doesn’t?). Running the gamut from everything to managing a house hold budget, to tracking investments, to dealing with loan amortizations, spreadsheets are infinitely useful and flexible tools. I think Mariner Calc is a perfect fit for this audience. If you’ve already become accustomed to the way that Excel handles calculations in its fairly straight forward syntax, for example, =SUM(A1:A10), then you are going to be right at home in Mariner Calc. Calc supports 150 built in functions and it allows 32,000 rows by 32,000 columns worth of data in a single tabbed document (and like Excel, each file can contain multiple tabbed worksheets).

The interface looks very familiar to anyone who has spent any amount of time inside of Excel or even Lotus 1-2-3. Calc supports basic charting and graphing functionality as well which makes it easy to express your numbers in a more visual way. Many of the typical features are present inside Calc, such as the ability to format your cells as a specific data type like currency or decimal formatted columns. Like Mariner Write, Calc plays nicely with competing file formats in addition to other file standards such as .csv. There will be some things that Excel can do that Calc simply cannot but that call was usually made when deciding what the vast majority of its users would be using the program for, most of the time. Mariner Calc is able to do this for a fraction of the cost of Microsoft’s offerings which are identical in price to what Mariner Write costs (see able).

Mariner also offers a discount if you buy both products together via their MarinerPak offering:

Boxed copy – $89.95
Download edition – $79.95
Family Pack (5 users) – $249.95
Upgrade Edition – $24.95
Lifetime Upgrade Pack – $99.90

When you contrast this with the typical cost of Microsoft Word and Excel, combined with the cost of upgrading your software, the MarinerPak plus lifetime upgrade pack is a tempting offer. Bottom line, both programs are fairly mature and well tested applications. They strive to be an attractive alternative to the Microsoft juggernaut and for the most part, they achieve that goal quite well. Are there problems in the applications? Of course, but the same can be said of Microsoft Office as well. But if you want to save some money support a long time small Mac developer instead of giving your money to the largest software company in the world by all means, give Mariner Software a look at www.marinersoftware.com. Remember, you can download a trial copy of either Write or Calc and put them through their paces before you buy.