Mac OS X | Business / Productivity | Word Processing | Bean

Bean - 2.4.0

Uncluttered word processor and rich text editor.

Download v 2.4.2

(File Size: 4.1M)

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All Time:	(4.8)
Version 2.4.0:	Not rated (0.0)
Selected Version:	2.4.0
Release Date:	2009-08-31
License:	Freeware
Downloads (version 2.4.0):	1,382
Downloads (all versions):	9,824

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Product Description:

Bean is lean, fast, and uncluttered. If you get depressed at the thought of firing up MS Word or OpenOffice, try Bean.
If you use TextEdit but have to jump through hoops just to get a word count or change the margins, try Bean.
If you desire a simple, beautiful writing environment, try Bean.

Bean is a small, easy-to-use word processor that includes:

a live word count
a Get Info panel for in-depth statistics
a zoom-slider to easily change the view scale
an Inspector panel with lots of sliders
date-stamped backups
autosaving
a page layout mode
an alternate colors option (e.g., white text on blue)
an option to show invisible characters (tabs, returns, spaces)
selection of text by text style, paragraph style, color, etc.
a floating windows option (like Stickies has)
easy to use menus
remembers cursor postion (excluding .txt, .html, .webarchive formats)
all of Cocoa's good stuff (dictionary, word completion, etc.)

What's new in this version:

the color, shape and the blink behavior of the text cursor can be altered using the controls found under Bean Preferences > General > Text Cursor (user suggestion)
added File > Print Selection which will print only the selected text in a document. Multiple selections in a single document are merged, unless 'Bean Preferences > Advanced > Document > Print Selection... separates multiple selections' is enabled.
Print Selection... is also available in the context menu (which appears when you right-click or control-click in the document area)
the context menu for the document area and the Find/Replace fields now has an Insert menu that allows easy insertion of tabs, paragraph breaks, page breaks, line breaks, and non-breaking spaces
Edit > Insert > Note (shortcut: Ctrl+Cmd+n) will insert a note in the document using the font, size, text color and highlight color set under Bean Preferences > Advanced > Notes Mode. Preferences for notes include automatically adding brackets and starting a new paragraph.
Font > Notes Mode turns on *continuous* notes mode. Wherever the text cursor is placed, text typed there will start a new note. De-select Font > Notes Mode to return to normal editing. This is meant to be used like a 'teacher's red pen.' Choose a distinctive font (example: Marker Felt) and color (red, or black with yellow highlight) that will make your notes stand out from the rest of the text. That way, you can later use Style > Select by > Font Style / Color / Highlight Color to select all notes and remove them. Notes cannot be hidden.
added File > Show in Finder menu item. Hint: Cmd-click the title of a saved document in the title bar of its window to see its location.
File > Special New > With Current Selection can now use multiple text selections
.doc and .odt files now use the default paper size found under System Preferences > Print > Default Paper Size (since Apple's file conversion filters do not read in the paper size for these formats and users expecting A4 were getting U.S. Letter) (user suggestion)
added a Header type: Title, Author page# (user suggestion)
removed the Close button from the bottom of the Preferences window (because the window already has a close button in the upper left) (user suggestion)
page breaks now display as a diamond when View > Show Invisibles is selected (user suggestion)
the display bug where the text cursor would leave little dots behind it is, I hope, now fixed (user reported)
fixed a problem where memory wasn't released when sheets were dismissed
Edit > Insert > Signature Line works better now
fixed a problem where the scrollbar would sometimes jump erratically when editing the middle of a long document with Center Cursor Vertically enabled
fixed a bug where File > Special New > With Current Selection could create an untitled document that was erroneously assigned to plain text type before saving (user reported)
fixed a bug where the type of measurement units initially used in the Bean Preferences > Style pane could be reported incorrectly as inches instead of centimeters (user reported)
Edit > Remove > All Text Tables now works
fixed a bug where unsaved and unedited documents created with File > Special New > With Current Selection would close without a save prompt
UI tweaks, improved menu validation, cleaned up some code, documentation updated
removed GPL legal language from JHFindPanel.[mh] (all files directly related to the Find Panel and its regular expression functions are covered by BSD or similarly permissive license)

Operating System Requirements:

This product is designed to run on the following operating systems:

Mac OS X 10.5 Intel
Mac OS X 10.5 PPC
Mac OS X 10.4 Intel
Mac OS X 10.4 PPC

Feedback Summary:

Version 2.4.0:
Overall Rating:	Not rated (0.0)	Features:	Not rated (0.0)	Support:	Not rated (0.0)
Ease of Use:	Not rated (0.0)	Quality / Stability:	Not rated (0.0)	Price:	Not rated (0.0)

Key to Types of Feedback:

Reviews Reviews Troubleshooting Usage Tips Developer Notes Commentary Featured Reviews

Look no further - Version: 2.4.2, 11/30/2009 01:13AM PST

rayjay

I've been hunting for something like this ever since I decided almost ten years ago that I wasn't prepared to keep paying Uncle Bill exorbitant sums for EvilEmpire Office. I used Mariner's word processor and spreadsheet for a long time, but the company seems to have lost interest in them: upgrades promised years ago have never materialised. I dabbled with most of the other Mac word processors but they all seemed too fiddly or too expensive for what they offered. I now use NeoOffice for heavy duty stuff - and I'm very pleased with it in most respects - but it is something of a sledgehammer/nut relationship for basic word processing.

Bean is exactly right: the developer, James Hoover, says it's a niche product, but it's a very big niche: I guess that 90 percent of folks would find that it satisfied 90 percent of their word processing needs. It works well, it's fast, it uses standard formats, it looks good - what more could you ask for?

Future sugest. - Version: 2.4.1, 11/18/2009 11:48AM PST

Adriano B.

I like Bean, and I try to use it every time I don't need some "heavy" future, like calculation in tables, math formulas, ecc... But I found one thing that never NeoOffice or other Word Processor does: tiling wordprocessor window. Today I did some work where this future would be a great help, and I was really surprised that none had it (or better, only TextWrangler had it, but it's not a wordprocessor).

Bean - The one I've been looking for - Version: 2.4.0, 9/29/2009 10:36PM PST

oletom

I've found the word processor I've been looking for since about 1985. Puts MS Word in the ground and I doubt I'll ever use Word again. Hard to believe it's FREE.