Word Processors: WriteNow 2.2

WriteNow v2.2/Mac ($199; v3.0 $249); T/Maker, [phone]. Some people want a loaded word processor suitable for creating complex documents; others just want to type correspondence, reports, and similarly straightforward items. For the latter group, WriteNow is an excellent choice. The software is extremely easy to learn. You see documents on-screen as they will print, with columns displayed, headers and footers included, and page edges represented graphically. WriteNow works fast on even basic Mac configurations (it will run from a single 800K floppy) and takes up very little memory (just 125K), which is significant if you have only 2MB of memory. Yet despite its lean profile, WriteNow includes all the key features, such as mail merge, multiple-column layouts, and a thesaurus. The next version (which should be available by the time you read this) adds style sheets and print preview and still fits in 220K--at half the list price of high-end word processors.