Alternatives To Photoshop & Word?

[2112st]

While I can afford to buy a new Mac, I absolutely refuse to do so. I am currently using Photoshop CS6, which is the last copy of this software that you can own. Afterwards, you have to rent the cloud-based version. The same goes for Microsoft Word. What I use, while older, is good enough for me-and I don't see the point of buying a shiny new Mac and then be forced to rent new versions of old software.

Unfortunately, there will come a point that, kicking and screaming, I will be forced to get a newer Mac-and then rent the cloud-based versions of Photoshop and Word. Why the heck must the software be from Adobe? Or Microsoft?

For instance, I'm looking at Affinity, which looks like a Photoshop alternative you can install on your Mac. Has anyone here used it? What about alternative for Word?

As I've said elsewhere, I'm a writer and illustrator (see artwork below).

 

[Yoda]

Affinity Photo is pretty good, but there are many alternatives, even if not all are in the App Store. GraphicsConverter is till around (and excellent), and I've used PixelStyle Photo Editor for some time too.

As for Word, there are still local install copies, but I gave up on Office after 2011 (Mac) and have used LibreOffice instead. It's free, well supported and only mildly quirky by comparison. There's also Pages of course, which is way better if you want simple and efficient, but isn't quite so 'office compatible'. Even better, since LibreOffice has been around for years, you can almost certainly download it and try it out on your existing system to see how you like it. It'll feel odd to start with, but is actually pretty good when you get more familiar.

 

[2112st]

Affinity Photo is pretty good, but there are many alternatives, even if not all are in the App Store. GraphicsConverter is till around (and excellent), and I've used PixelStyle Photo Editor for some time too.

As for Word, there are still local install copies, but I gave up on Office after 2011 (Mac) and have used LibreOffice instead. It's free, well supported and only mildly quirky by comparison. There's also Pages of course, which is way better if you want simple and efficient, but isn't quite so 'office compatible'. Even better, since LibreOffice has been around for years, you can almost certainly download it and try it out on your existing system to see how you like it. It'll feel odd to start with, but is actually pretty good when you get more familiar.

One of the things that HIGHLY irritates me about Word is when you try converting a manuscript to HTML and it messes up the formatting. I sometimes post sample stories on the internet for a limited audience to get feedback from. It's important that the formatting stays the same-line breaks, scene breaks, italics. What I ended up having to do with a recent story is something I've done in the past-recode the web page myself in very basic HTML; about as bare-bones as you can get. Word puts in FAAAAAAAAAAAAR too much HTML just for the simple formatting of a manuscript.

C'mon now. How long has MS Word been around?! 30+ YEARS?!?! You'd figure the idiots designing this software would have solved this issue LONG ago.

 

[Yoda]

C'mon now. How long has MS Word been around?! 30+ YEARS?!?! You'd figure the idiots designing this software would have solved this issue LONG ago.

Honestly, no I wouldn't. Aside from the fact the programming teams aren't aware of and often not interested in specific 'edge' case uses of the software, their purpose is to add features to make the application into a 'more uses for more users' wonder package everyone has to buy and use.

When they come across an issue such as your HTML formatting, if they fix it at all, they do so with a sticking plaster on it, so eventually the actual code is buried under layers of plasters, making it ever harder to tweak it - meaning it's easier to just put a new sticking plaster on it next time - again.

There are many who would tell you that Word 5.1 was the best, and it all went wrong from there.... but that version didn't have an option to save as HTML of course.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

As an open-source alternative to Photoshop, I like Krita more than the GIMP. Doesn't do everything that Photoshop does (the G5 is around for that) but it does a lot of it and is cross-platform.