Chimoosoft's Mac Picks and Reviews
Picks Archive
This page is part of our archive. For weekly reviews of software and hardware for Mac OS X, please visit our main OS X Picks page.
OmniOutliner Professional
- 3.6.2
- demo
- 5/14/2007
OmniOutliner Pro is a versatile but lightweight program which is useful for much more than simply making an outline. It particularly shines as a list maker, but can also be used for taking notes, writing documentation, or replacing your spreadsheet for simple tasks. The multi column and summary features make it easy to add up all expenses in a column, or time spent working on certain projects. Features such as intelligent date parsing allow you to type things like "next tuesday" and have Outliner figure out exactly what you mean. Checkboxes come in handy for some types of lists, but fortunately, can be turned off for others.
OmniOutliner is designed to be used quickly and easily from your keyboard - a simple press of the return key gets a new bullet, and simple key commands (or mouse drags) change indentation. This efficiency makes it a great tool for tasks such as taking meeting notes or minutes. The styles overlay view is one of the more impressive features; it lets you easily set all imaginable style attributes (color, background, font, size, shadow, and more) for each level of indentation in the document. As new items are added, the appropriate style is automatically applied. Templates of your favorite styles can be saved, set as default, and restored later when creating new documents.
Exporting to other formats such as PDF, text, HTML, and dynamic-HTML is easily accomplished. The release notes for all Chimoosoft software were created with Outliner's dynamic-HTML export.
A cheaper non-professional version is also available (and commonly bundled with new Apple computers), but it lacks nice features such as folded editing, templates, and more. If you're tempted by the cheaper version, at least download the demo of the pro version first to see what you're missing.
An assortment of the best software and hardware for Mac OS X chosen from around the web and briefly reviewed. Our picks are normally updated on a weekly basis, so check back often for more! No, we don't take requests for reviews at this time; the programs are chosen solely by the reviewer and tend to be lesser known but useful titles which deserve a bit more attention.
The companies or individuals producing reviewed software or hardware are in no way affiliated with Chimoosoft. Software reviewed includes freeware, shareware, commercial, and built in to the OS. All software is tested with the most recent shipping version of Mac OS X currently available at the time of the review.
The software reviews above are for programs (a.k.a. software) for the Macintosh OS X (ten) operating system (Mac OS X, or sometimes just osx). A program may also be referred to as a utility or application depending on its intended purpose. Reviews are copyright 2006-2007 by Chimoosoft.