New Office…New APA Style Tool
My conversion to Mac has left me without the use of PERRLA, my chosen APA style/formatting tool. Currently the tool is only available for Windows-based machines. I could have installed MS Office for Windows through the BootCamp feature on the Mac but would have had to buy Windows (try finding XP around) and a new MS Office suite in order for it to work.
It was more cost effective for me to not do those things and get MS Office 2004 for Mac and locate another APA Style tool. I got MS Office 2004 installed last night and chose to use StyleEase for my APA tool. StyleEase is a pretty robust tool by comparison. My initial thought was it had a lot of moving parts. I tend to be a simple guy looking for simple solutions, PERRLA was that for me. Alas, things change and so must I change to this new tool.
Once I got passed the many moving parts I noticed that the tool has a database of used references, more citation/reference types, and paper formatting options. The database function intrigues me. As I continue to write on the subject of Web 2.0 and work performance, I use many of the same references. PERRLA had me reentering each time (although in a simple interface) it was a hassle. So, I am looking forward to seeing how this plays out over the next few courses.
StyleEase also has a fair amount of web-based support, which helps overcome the many moving parts issue. PERRLA was pretty self-explanatory.
So, I along with learning MS Office 2004, I am needing to learn StyleEase. I like learning new things, I just wonder why PERRLA, which touts being an APA writer’s tool wouldn’t develop software for a growing marketplace…Mac users. We’ll see what happens.
At first glance. StyleEase has PERRLA beat in terms of formatting options and a database option. So, if anyone from PERRLA stops by the Doc Blog, here are some suggestions to improve your tool.
- Mac compatible
- More reference/citation formatting options
- Stick with your interface
- Think about a database or link to Zotero-stored resources
Going to be getting my first paper done in MS Office 2004 and StyleEase…I’ll keep you posted.
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Hi, Mike.
We are going to create a new product that will run as a stand-alone application on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux. Obviously it’s going to take a while for us to do this! Bear with us.
APA PERRLA has 500+ reference/citation formatting options at this time.
As you suggested, we’ll stick with our “wizard” interface.
As of about a month ago, we added a database to APA PERRLA so you can now easily retrieve previous references into a new paper.
I’m sorry we weren’t able to provide a Mac product for you. Our current software is written entirely in VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) so we’re running inside Microsoft Word. Think of the NEW product as a stand-alone application with an embedded text editor that reads/writes Microsoft Word formatted files.
Best,
Cliff Batson
PERRLA Software Grunt
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Cliff,
Glad to see that PERRLA is going to work on a MAC compatible product. StyleEase, which I am using now, has so many damn features it is tough to get used to using. I miss PERRLA and hope for a speedy release. If you think to have some field beta testers, look me up.
Mike
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[...] note: my APA PERRLA/StyleEase posts have gotten some notice from APA PERRLA. Here is hoping for a speedy release so I can return to my [...]
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I am using Word, and am thinking about purchasing APA Perrla. Is it a CD you can download or is it a link for one computer?
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Angela,
Thanks for coming by the Doc Blog. Perrla is a downloadable program from the site. It is intended to be a single user license although the company likely works with schools for site licenses. Fro the cost of the program I definitely recommend it. I have the updated version on my PC and I love it. I only wish it was available for the Mac. I’m still waiting.
Mike
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WOW! Man I have been using PERRLA for years Undergrad… first Masters second Master now PhD… and I can say it saved me so much time that I recommend it to everyone… now you tell me about this data base after years of research and the same topic over and over would have been useful to have the citation Database… so as a PERRLA customer… and fond of simplicity, has PERRLA implemented this new technology into a new version or is it upgradeable?
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Michael,
Thanks for coming by the Doc Blog. PERRLA is a great tool and I have migrated back to it using my PC laptop until PERRLA comes out for the Mac. Yes it is upgradeable and oyu’ll love the new features! Go visit them and get this tool, it will change the way you work all over again.
Mike
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Mike,
I’ve been using StyleEase and have found the software very simple to use and incredibly intuitive. The way StyleEase integrates its’ toolbar into MS Word makes using StyleEase naturally easy. The software has great help and when my Office 2007 machine died and I had to go back to an old Office 2003 machine, one call to support and I was up and running with no lost work! StyleEase Rocks!
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Well StyleEase looks great from the demo and all but I’m just not sure that it is worth $35.00. Plus some papers need to be MLA rather than APA and some others need to be Chicago or Seminary. That is $140.00 for all four if you only download them but $160.00 if you want the CD form.
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Steve,
Thanks for coming by the Doc Blog. I don’t doubt that for some folks StyleEase is simple and intuitive. We all use technology in different ways. One of the ways StyleEase was not intuitive was manual clicking and typing. Where TABs should work and copy and paste should be available, StyleEase fell short for me. For my needs PERRLA fits nicely. Now, if they would only make a Mac version faster.
Mike
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Vicki,
Thanks for coming by the Doc Blog. StyleEase does offer support for many versions of writing. My suggestion, for you, is to find out what method of writing is the institutional method at your school. APA is ours and it helps to have just one method.
Mike
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Vicki,
StyleEase does offer 4 versions: APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian and Semenary. If you need to write in more than one style, StyleEase offers a discount for multiple licenses and I’m sure they would do the same for multiple styles; just contact their support.
Mike, all the standard keyboard and Microsoft keys, TABS, cut, copy/paste, etc… do work in StyleEase’s latest version so I’m not sure what problems you might have had previously. Regardless, Mike is correct Vicki when he says you should find out what styles are required and select the software that best suits your needs.
Steve
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Hi Mike,
thanks for all of the useful info.
I was pretty diapointed when i realized i could not use Perrla with Mac.
Every one speaks so highly of it.
How did you get Word 2004.
I just purchased MS Office and I believe its the 2008 version
I just started my masters program and never used APA style formatting before.
While in undergrad we used MLA so i can really use the help.
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Christina,
Thanks for coming by the Doc Blog. I had to hunt pretty hard for Office 2004. The program was filled with hangups and delays (as another posted in my PC2MAC series).
Check with StyleEase to see if they now support Office 2008. That could solve your problem easily. I recommend obtaining the latest APA manual (either way) and using some of the easy guides throughout that book to learn APA.
Yes PERRLA makes it much simpler and I still use PERRLA on my PC to get my papers done. I know APA though so I am working to set up some macros in Pages ’09 to help on my Mac. I am also looking for a reference database that links to Pages ’09.
Good luck!
Mike
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Okay, I am impressed. I love the new features. The program already saved me time, now it saves me even more with the data base feature. How many times do we site the same text in a course? I am grateful. You are Geniuses!!!!!!!!!!
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Hello
I just bought my brand new Macbook laptop last November. I am a full time student at University of Phoenix and work on a degree for Bachelor of Scienice in Business Management-Accounting.
I am very frustration not to find any software for new APA with Mac Office 2008, but none of it is found this time. Will you please help me to find any good software or download of new APA for my research papers, the essay, and many more for my college. I need to know if MacBook is going to have a new software of the APA.
Let me know what is going on now this time for MacBook users.
I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Thanks
Leslie
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Leslie,
Thanks for coming by the Doc Blog. I don’t know of any software for Office 2008. You might try StyleEase to see if they came up with an Office ’08 version yet. My hope is that that would be more user-friendly than the version for Office ’04.
There are some templates out there but who knows if that would apply to how closely that will meet your need.
I would suggest you learn APA regardless of what software you choose but it is also helpful in making hotkeyed macros in MS Word. This is what I did during my Masters program and met with great success doing that. The rub is that it won’t house your references, you’ll need to create those, which is a big bummer.
Good luck and let me know what you find, we’re all watching this thread.
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Hi Mike:
Thanks for your note! Great to hear from you. I deeply appreciate to your response!
Yes, I am working on a degree for Bachelor of Science in Business Management-Accounting.
I already talked to someone else and the Apple Mac store helpers recently. They all told me that they don’t have any new software of the Mac Office with new APA formats/applications this time. Otherwise, I worked on searching on StyleEase website and clicked the APA formats for Mac Office, but it won’t accept my Mac Office/Office 2008 at all. Nothing turned in at all. Very disappointing.
I tried harder to find any clues, but nothing turn in at this point. I don’t know what I am telling ya! Will you please talk to people if they hear about new clues where to find that software of the APA formats/applications for MacBook? I need to work on my degree and get it done for good grades!! Get me some advises what to do or whatever you find the clues for me. I appreciate it. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon.
Thanks a lots!
Leslie
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Hi Leslie,
Here is Reference Point’s new software. And yes, it works on Word 2008!
http://www.referencepointsoftware.com/index.htm
I hope this helps.
Ray
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Heads up everyone. APA just released a new style guide version six. Find it here http://apastyle.org/.
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Has anyone tried Reference Point? I would like a APA formatting tool but since Perrla and Styleease don’t work with Word Mac 2008 I need something else. Any suggestions? I want something reliable and comparable to the other 2 programs.
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I was advised greatly to buy and use Perrla for my graduate work, but alas, I am Mac user. I did bite it though and partition my hard drive and install windows (painful though it was). Though it was a huge pain, and I still hate the thought of windows being on my computer at all, I am just thrilled with the Perrla program! Wow! But please hurry, hurry, hurry and get to market with Mac based Perrla!!! I wanna kill my partition!
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Lisa,
I completely agree, please hurry with PERRLA-MAC!
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Please hurry with Perrla for MAC users. There are many of us out here.
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Where is the version for Mac OS X? It has been over a year!
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I third the motion…please hurry!
I have fallen in love with PERRLA but face the same issues as all of you so continue to write my papers on my PC or have to revert back to the PC to write my reference list. I even have my 8th grader using PERRLA for her papers…just so much easier to format and although I will soon be finishing my masters…I am very resistant to writing my own citations since I have PERRLA to do this for me.
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I can’t wait either. Any news on APA for us MAC users?????
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As someone who also relies on PERRLA I couldn’t believe it when I got my new MAC it wouldn’t run…never needed to read the small print before. Please please come out with a MAC version – we will pay!
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Hey, everybody. I just stumbled across this thread again. Okay, here’s what happened to my “best laid plans” to get out a Mac version of PERRLA…
I started rewriting our internal Customer Support software so that our support team could work more efficiently. Then, our web hosting company had a major failure and our site was down for 8 hours one day. During those 8 hours, I was trying to get in touch with the consulting company that developed our website for us… THEY DIDN’T RETURN MY CALL UNTIL THE NEXT DAY. So, my new priority was to completely rewrite our website from scratch so that we’d have total control of our own destiny. I wrote 24,000+ lines of code in 5 months for our website (including things behind-the-scenes that you can’t see). That project was completed just before Christmas.
Our third full-time programmer joined the company a week ago (January 1st, 2010) and we’re now scrambling to get him up-to-speed and get back to the Mac project.
So, the bottom line is that I haven’t gotten the Mac job done and, therefore, I acknowledge my general suckiness.
I’m hopeful that there will be no other major interruptions.
By the way, I’ve got 3 Macs at my house and one here at my office. I use VMWare Fusion and run Windows and OS X at the same time. It works great but I’m looking forward to the day when I no longer need some of things that are Windows-only in my life (including our PERRLA software!).
Thanks,
Cliff
PERRLA, LLC
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Great blog – So much information. Have been searching all day with no recommendations on any Apa styple formating software, UNIT i found your site. Thank you. Appreiciate the information on the differences between the too softwares . Im a more is less kind of guy, thinking Perrla will be perfect. Have you heard of EasyPaper.com. It seems kind of cool but really robust like styleease and harder to use. Does that thought sound about right?
Thanks -
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Hi, Brent.
I’m not sure if you’re asking me or someone else. It probably wouldn’t be appropriate for me to be pimping our software on Mike’s blog so I’ll stay out of it other than to say, if you get a chance, go to our website and watch the demo video. That will give you an idea of how simple we make it to create an APA research paper…
Best,
Cliff
PERRLA, LLC
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While I wouldn’t normally let people pimp software or product on my blog. PERRLA is the bomb for writing in APA. All the others just don’t compare, trust me on this. Working from my Mac for the last little while and not using PERRLA has been frustrating.
Cliff, I’m impressed that you are so responsive. We’d all love to see more from PERRLA, especially Mac versions – which you know
.
Mike
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Thank you gentlemen, really appreciate the insight. – THANK YOU! Im going to download Perrla today. Cool site Mike, your website too. Again, Thank you.
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I am Mac freak and working on my BSN online. I could really use an APA tool for my Mac. Please please let me know when you have it ready for purchase. I am also anxiously awaiting the very late update to the wonderful world of Mac for PERRLA software. I cannot bear the thought of working on windows to get my school work done at night when all day at work I am on a Windows PC.
Because of this blog, I will impatiently wait. Thank you, Cliff.
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wow, I just got the very nice macbook for my online college– and I am so dissapointed that perrla does not work on my mac. i tried and tried downloading it and nothing.
i just got this macbook today and thinking about returning it! i have quite a few papers to write, and without perrla, it just won’t do.
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I wouldn’t return it at all. There are lots of benefits to a Mac over a PC. Instead look at some other software or learn APA. The 6th is quite simple and EndNote will keep your references available and easily integrated. Keep the Mac.
Just for kicks, I’d like to see a PERRLA app for the iPhone and iPad. I might be pushing it though.
Mike
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I am also a Perrla user who just bought a new Mac, and I am so sad that there is nothing out there as wonderful and easy to use as Perrla. I am an online student pursuing a BS in Psychology, and I have resorted to leaving my PC plugged in – formatting my papers with Perrla and then emailing myself the APA formatted document and then working accordingly. What a pain!!! I hope Perrla for Mac will arrive soon. I want to chuck my PC desperately!
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Why would a successful software company make a product that is incompatible with the best and most popular brand of computer out? How long does it take to get this together? It’s been forever- Im losing confidence and respect for this software company, think i might stop telling people about a company that can’t keep up with the times and demands of their target group…pretty pathetic :-/ Very frustrated
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So, I have to jump in on the conversation. I too am an avid Perrla user and should have stock in the company as I have referred TONS of folks to their website. I am currently working on my doctorate and Perrla is a true gem. My husband is working on his masters and can not live without it. Well, a few weeks ago I decided to join the MAC revolution. I knew I would not be able to use Perrla so continued to use my PC desktop to write my papers. Well, the desktop has finally met its life expectancy and I am at a total loss without being able to use Perrla. I know APA 6th edition pretty well, but love the ease of using Perrla. So, here is my plea… PLEASE PLEASE do all that you can Cliff to get the Mac Word 2008 version of Perrla available. I too will join the ranks of prospective Beta tester.
Thanks for listening.
Angela S.
Clinical Psy. D Student
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Hello everyone, it has been a few months since someone responded to this thread. I am currently working on my masters in nursing and need APA for everything. Just wondering if Cliff will read this and give us another update on PERRLA for MAC as it has been almost 6 months since his last post. I would gladly trial a beta version of the software. Thank you Mike for having this blog here as others have said it is a huge help. I guess I will now go check out styleease and the referencepoint software as i have a paper due today
~John G.
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Hi, Mike.
Just stopped by to respond to a recent post, if you’ll allow…
I’m still out here, guys. At the risk of having the stuffings kicked out of me, I’ll tell you what’s going on…
In January when we started on the Mac project, the decision came down to rewrite the behind-the-scenes application that we use to track support requests, purchases, activations, etc. So, two of us spent five months developing an incredible web-based application complete with system monitoring, SMS alerts, and you-name-it. Multiple people can now do PERRLA support with a web browser from anywhere in the world at the same time without interfering with each other, etc.
Having released that internally in Mid-June, we’re now back into the Mac project full-time.
I know… this is not good news for anyone who wants a Mac version of PERRLA. It sucks for me, too. I’m typing THIS POST on a Mac at my office, and I’ve got THREE more Macs at home! My iPhone 4 arrives via Fed Ex on Friday, so Apple says. Me, an Apple fan? Absolutely.
From a business standpoint, it hurts to know that we’re leaving money on the table every day we don’t have a Mac product.
We know how we’re going to do it and we’ve written proof-of-concept code but we’re still a long way from having anything native running on a Mac. (You can run our software on a Mac if you are willing to run Windows in a partition with Boot Camp, VMWare Fusion, etc.)
I wish I had something more to report but what I’m telling you is the no-spin truth.
Thanks,
Cliff
Cliff Batson
PERRLA, LLC
cliff@perrla.com
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