Three Free Apps for Text and Writing
If you are a writer or just like words, the chances are you find
Apple's built-in Dictionary app a little lacking. There are websites
that offer advanced functionality, but you have to be online to use
them. There are a few free tools that can help you out.
Nisus Thesaurus
From the developers of Nisus writer, this free thesaurus app, integrates with Apple's services menu to allow use in just about any application where you can enter text. Just highlight the word, "and choose Nisus Thesaurus from the Services menu. When you select a word in Nisus Thesaurus, the synonyms for that word will be shown right next to it in the Word Browser. Go from "sky" to "cumulonimbus" in just a few clicks."
Megawords
For crossword puzzle fans, poets and songwriters, Megawords from developer Frank O'Dwyer is a powerful stand alone app available in the Mac App Store. It's features include:
- rhyme search (works offline)
- wildcard search (crossword solver mode, works offline)
- dictionary lookup of word meanings (multiple dictionaries, online only)
- thesaurus lookup (online only)
- search SOWPODS or TWL or both (Scrabble dictionaries)
Esse
Esse from Ameba Labs offers 61 different text manipulations across eight different categories, similar to Word Service from Devon Technologies or the paid app, Text Workflow. You can do things like:
- All sorts of case changes (ALL CAPS, lowercase, CaMeL, snake_case, etc.)
- Word counts (including unique word counts and text statistics)
- Encoding
- Add/remove/convert line breaks
- Fix/convert quotes
- Extract dates, addresses, dates, emails, phone numbers
- JSON tools
- Line removal options
- Strip non-alpha-numeric characters
There is also an iOS version.