Mellel on sale

[R. Mansfield]

I get no kickback from Mellel, but I recommend it for those who want a specialized academic word processor on macOS. They have some pretty good sales going on right now. 

 

 

A Special Discount for Mellel

It's a bit difficult to be jolly in those Covid days, when dreary and drab is all around. Still, 25% off are 25% off! a discount like that cannot pass!.

Want to hear the details? Of Course you do.

• Mellel Regular License (for regular persons): $37 US
• Mellel Edu License (if you study or teach): $29 US
• Mellel Upgrade (if you just need to upgrade): $22 US

Remember, the offer is only good to May 10! At that point, it will vanish, cease to be, and disappear forever!

 

[MattChristianOT]

I just watched the videos and am kicking myself for not getting this sooner. The time I could have saved during my MA and ThM. Thank God I can get it before PhD!!!

[MattChristianOT]

You can also get Bookends and Mellel in a bundle for easy citation and bibliography. On sale for about $67.00. Usually $108.00 or so. Looks to be a good deal for anyone working on PhD/ Dissertation etc....

[R. Mansfield]

You can also get Bookends and Mellel in a bundle ...

 

I have both and recommend them.

[Alistair]

I have both and recommend them.

I tried Mellel once but gave up on it. With so many WP programs available, I would like to see you Mellevangelists explain why you love it so much. I honestly want to know. Please elaborate. I know that might push the boundaries of forum use, but as it seems to me that a lot of people who use Accordance also use Mellel, I'd like to find out why. Before the current sale ends, preferably.

[MattChristianOT]

I tried Mellel once but gave up on it. With so many WP programs available, I would like to see you Mellevangelists explain why you love it so much. I honestly want to know. Please elaborate. I know that might push the boundaries of forum use, but as it seems to me that a lot of people who use Accordance also use Mellel, I'd like to find out why. Before the current sale ends, preferably.

Made for Mac, You can essentially edit the document in any way, much more than most processors, better right to left integration, Bookends automatically makes a bibliography if used together. The videos on the Mellel website help illustrate a lot of the functionality

[Jordan S]

I use both Mellel and Bookends. Here are 3 reasons, even 4, why I like Mellel:

1. Its handling of RTL languages. For me, this has been seamless, particularly in tables. I made the switch years ago primarily for this reason.

2. The TOC browser. I absolutely love this feature. It is similar to how Paper works in Accordance. You can drag/drop and rearrange paragraphs in the TOC browser which affects the body of the work. This side pane also handles storylines and indices.

3. Mellel-Bookends integration.

4. You can export to a word doc, if required. 

 

Downside:

1. The learning curve. It could cause you to want to abandon the program. 

2. I'm not a huge fan of the floating palette, but Cmd-Shft-8 can toggle it on/off.

3. iOS is an extra $15.

 

Will I continue to upgrade Mellel? Yes. 

[Michel Gilbert]

Hi Alistair,

Discussions about word processors come up all the time, so, FWIW:

I think the main reason Mac users chose Mellel is that Word for Mac didn’t support rtl until recently, around version 15.x. When I switched to Mac a few years ago, I got Mellel for this reason.

However, I agree with Jordan. The learning curve is steep. And, once you learn it, you discover a lot of quirks.  And, if you’ve used Word for years or decades, it’s hard to get use to the palettes. I never did.

When rtl worked in Word for Mac, I switched back to Word. But, since then I’ve switched to Word for Windows and Classical Text Editor.
Mellel still has some advantages: the cost, integration with Bookends, and handling large files.

Why I got Parallels Desktop to run 32-bit Window 10 on my Mac: Word for Windows allows more customization of the quick access toolbar, and, most importantly, has the Alt-x function to toggle the Unicode value of every character. Unicode Hex Input on the Mac is very cumbersome by comparison.

Rtl languages work in Word for Windows and CTE just as well as in Mellel . I wrote the camera-ready copy for my book at DeGruyter with English, Hebrew (including transcriptions of parts of a manuscript), and Greek in Word for Windows, and pressed the button to export as pdf.

Finally, the main reason I responded to this post was to sing the praises of Classical Text Editor. It handles rtl languages perfectly. And, you can customize the keyboard for any Unicode language in it, i.e., you can have dozens of customized keyboards within the program itself. It also allows an unlimited amount of apparatuses and footnotes, and, you can run footnotes in paragraphs, not just on new lines. It allows inner and outer margins, and you can customize the font, language, and text direction in each margin. It has a steep learning curve also, learning about bounding widths, etc. It also has regex search and replace. It’s only downside is tables - you have to use columns to make one, and, there are no lines. If you needed lines, you would have to make the table in Word or something, and import it as a graphic.

If CTE wasn’t so great, meeting my needs for what I’m doing now, I would probably be using Papyrus Autor in combination with Word. On the other hand, I think Dr. Holmstedt still writes all of his books and articles in Libre Office.

Michel

 

[MattChristianOT]

Been using it all of one day and I have figured out a decent amount. The PDF that comes with it as well as short videos help the learning curve and I suspect it is not much different from the learning curve of doing things in Accordance. And yes- It is way cheaper than MO stuff. Everyone has their likes/dislikes

[Michel Gilbert]

For me, the learning curve got more difficult with style sheets. There was a lot of trial and error.

Mellel is also better now than it was a few years ago. If I recall, they did a major update of tables in the last year or two. It also looks like the GUI has changed for the better in places.

One quirk is to start writing Hebrew in a rtl paragraph, and switch to a Latin keyboard. Some characters require a lot of extra clicks to place them where you want.

Another quirk is that .doc and .docx import and export don't always work, especially for decade old files.

But, I agree. Everyone has their likes and dislikes, and some programs come close to what we would have written ourselves.

Another great thing about Mellel is that it works on any Mac, even on my Snow Leopard machine.

 

[MattChristianOT]

For me, the learning curve got more difficult with style sheets. There was a lot of trial and error.

Mellel is also better now than it was a few years ago. If I recall, they did a major update of tables in the last year or two. It also looks like the GUI has changed for the better in places.

One quirk is to start writing Hebrew in a rtl paragraph, and switch to a Latin keyboard. Some characters require a lot of extra clicks to place them where you want.

Another quirk is that .doc and .docx import and export don't always work, especially for decade old files.

But, I agree. Everyone has their likes and dislikes, and some programs come close to what we would have written ourselves.

Another great thing about Mellel is that it works on any Mac, even on my Snow Leopard machine.

 

 

All good to know. I am a technology novice and hate Word. I used Open Office for a long time and tried Pages but do not like the formatting. I like the bibliography options and Bookends is great. I save alot of articles and such off JSTOR and can stop doing that. I just upload the URL in the citation and one click gets me there. Alot of front end work building a large bibliography but as someone literally about to start a PhD, I already roughly know what my term papers will be on and my dissertation. In five years, when I go to start writing, I will have my bibliography mostly done and everything in place. That will save me months of work as I slowly work on it and focus and build my resources. Then I automatically can cite and create a bibliography in my citation style of choice. Sign me up! I used ZOTERO for my MA thesis and it messed up alot. I had to re-do the majority of the citations. Bookends and Mellel are much more intuitive. I am not into the book writing world (maybe in five years if my dissertation takes off- But that is wishful thinking right now).

[Donald Cobb]

I bought Mellel about five years or so ago. I've been using it regularly for the last year or so. There's been a fair amount of work put into making it more user friendly over the last two years, maybe a little more. My main reason for moving over there from Word was 1) the difficulty of managing large documents with a lot of footnotes in Word, and 2) the superior handling of Hebrew in Mellel. 

 

It's become almost my go-to word processor over the last several months for one reason: for a reasonable price, you can get an iOS version that syncs with your laptop or Desktop. I bought it on sale back around the beginning of this year and I think I paid $13 dollars for it, something like that. I personally dislike can't stand the idea of having to pay monthly fees for the use of Word, and the iOS versions of all the other word processors I looked at at the time were pay-as-you-go, including LibreOffice.

 

They've put a lot of work into exporting documents into docx without loss of formatting. I finished a small book last July, written in Mellel and then exported it to docx for the publisher. Overall, it did a good job, although I did have to go back and change a few things (the format of footnotes in particular). That added maybe an hour to the overall process.

 

According to Mellel's most recent e-newsletter, increased exporting capabilities will also be one of the improvements in the upcoming version (you get free version updates for a one or two year period). This is what they write: "Mellel 4.3 will provide support for exporting DOCX documents, and a much more extensive support for the format overall. This, of course, will smooth things considerably for people who need to work vis-à-vis MS Word, and generally with DOCX."

Edited April 29, 2020 by Donald Cobb

[Fabian]

Hello

 

I have questions: 

 

Are there two different Mellel downloads? App Store and from the publisher? 

Does Bookends work with the App Store version?

 

 

Thanks

 

Fabian

[Boris Repschinski]

I use both Mellel and Bookends. Here are 3 reasons, even 4, why I like Mellel:

1. Its handling of RTL languages. For me, this has been seamless, particularly in tables. I made the switch years ago primarily for this reason.

2. The TOC browser. I absolutely love this feature. It is similar to how Paper works in Accordance. You can drag/drop and rearrange paragraphs in the TOC browser which affects the body of the work. This side pane also handles storylines and indices.

3. Mellel-Bookends integration.

4. You can export to a word doc, if required. 

 

Of course, all this is possible in Word, too.

 

One major downside of Mellel becomes apparent when you need to share documents, or are required to submit a Word file. The export to .doc is far from smooth, though they tease export to .docx in the next release. The trouble so far is that formatting is not transported well, so all the detail you put into formatting in Mellel needs to be checked, and much of it redone in Word. 

Edited April 29, 2020 by Boris Repschinski

[MattChristianOT]

Hello

 

I have questions: 

 

Are there two different Mellel downloads? App Store and from the publisher? 

Does Bookends work with the App Store version?

 

 

Thanks

 

Fabian

Bookends does work with the App Store version BUT it is better to get both programs from the Mellel website as they have a HUGE discount- $67.00 for both. On Bookends' site, both are "on sale" for $89.00 so Mellel honors the better deal right now. Bought separately they are still more expensive and the current bundle price is the best deal.

Edited April 29, 2020 by MattChristian

[Fabian]

Bookends does work with the App Store version BUT it is better to get both programs from the Mellel website as they have a HUGE discount- $67.00 for both. On Bookends' site, both are "on sale" for $89.00 so Mellel honors the better deal right now. Bought separately they are still more expensive and the current bundle price is the best deal.

Thanks.

 

Greetings

 

Fabian

[Alistair]

I have toyed again with Mellel and also Nisus Writer Pro, and while they both have their followings, I remain unconvinced and it just boils down to the fact that I don't need it.

For writing and structuring I use Scrivener.

I also have high-end publishing software including QuarkXpress and Affinity Publisher. (I was/still am a graphic designer and book typesetter.)

For somewhere in between I use Apple Pages, because previously I used ClarisWorks–then AppleWorks–then iLife (back when you had to pay for it!)

The transition from one Apple program to another was problem-free, and I have documents going back to the previous millennium that have been updated to work in the latest version of Pages.

I have a copy of LibreOffice to open and convert anything Word-ish I might be sent, or any old documents I forgot to update (LO is said to be very good at this).

 

As I will not be writing any complex research papers that require extensive footnoting or bibliographies, or include RTL languages, I have no reason to purchase Mellel (or anything else).

Thanks everyone who commented, and keep up the good work!

 

Alistair

[MattChristianOT]

I have toyed again with Mellel and also Nisus Writer Pro, and while they both have their followings, I remain unconvinced and it just boils down to the fact that I don't need it.

For writing and structuring I use Scrivener.

I also have high-end publishing software including QuarkXpress and Affinity Publisher. (I was/still am a graphic designer and book typesetter.)

For somewhere in between I use Apple Pages, because previously I used ClarisWorks–then AppleWorks–then iLife (back when you had to pay for it!)

The transition from one Apple program to another was problem-free, and I have documents going back to the previous millennium that have been updated to work in the latest version of Pages.

I have a copy of LibreOffice to open and convert anything Word-ish I might be sent, or any old documents I forgot to update (LO is said to be very good at this).

 

As I will not be writing any complex research papers that require extensive footnoting or bibliographies, or include RTL languages, I have no reason to purchase Mellel (or anything else).

Thanks everyone who commented, and keep up the good work!

 

Alistair

I think that is totally fair. I am writing alot of technical papers coming up so I mainly am interested in the live bibliography feature and ease of indexing as well as the bibliography tracking in Bookends. You can create a citation and save the URL to the article. No need to download and save the article on your own hard drive- I can save it this way and make notes for citations in bookends for eventual quoting and saving in writing. For me, this is well worth the $67.00 bucks. I will still use Word and Pages for smaller write ups and such but for bigger projects, well worth the investment for me personally.