There are all kinds of tools for writing on a Mac. bbedit, from BareBones is the best thing going for doing coding, including html, but it's expensive and probably way more than needed by most users who just want a good text editor. BareBones also makes Text Wrangler, a free and very good text editor. TextEdit isn't a bad tool; it's part of OSX, too. A lot of people surrender to the dark side and purchase Office; I've been using the open source version, OpenOffice, and it's working great. You do have to install and set up X11, which is a nuisance for technophobes. I'm using the Aqua version, which doesn't need X11 but has some goofiness to it.

But I've found a great new tool, Scrivener. It's not free, but it's only about $40, and you get a month to test drive it. I'm still learning what it can do, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to spring for it.

It's not just a text editor; it's a way to both write and manage your writings. You develop your writing in logical pieces, and Scrivener provides a simple means for organizing and viewing those pieces. Each section of your piece — say a couple of paragraphs relating to Subject X — is not just a text document, it has an associated file card. The cards automatically group together and all can be seen, and moved around, on a "corkboard."

You also can place media items within the project: pdf's, images, videos, etc. These can be view separately or inserted into the document. Very useful if you are doing, for example, an article that has lots of supporting images or charts.

Best of all, it comes with a great tutorial. Second best of all, it comes with templates for things like scripts and comics. JJ Abrams has his entire writing team using it. It's a terrific tool, and the amazing thing: it was not written by a geek. The author is a writer who couldn't find the right tool for his novel so he learned how to code for Mac OSX and built Scrivener. And he got it right. Brilliant. Give it a try.