| Data storage/export | Supported data types | Markup capabilities | Special Characters | Data input methods | Resource production | Data analysis | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Word Only useful for production/embellishment of end-state documents | Default format proprietary; exports to various formats, including text, no partial export | "narrative" documents (e.g., prose descriptions, articles) | No built-in capabilties | Good Unicode support | Mac and PC versions; no special networking support; minimal collaborative support | Good for attractive, end-state resources | Primitive find/replace only |
| FileMaker Pro Good tool for highly structured (e.g., lexical) data, not good for less structured data (e.g., texts) | Proprietary storage format; flexible export, including text and XML, partial export possible | Good for lexical data (e.g., dictionaries, paradigms), not good for texts | Good for markup of lexical items, no text/speech alignment capabilities, bad for text/gloss alignment | No Unicode support yet, buggy special font management | Mac and PC versions; limited networking capabilities for collaborative work | Flexible "reporting" feature of database contents; production of final document typically requires another tool | Multiple views supported; sorting; simple search capabilities |
| Shoebox Still one of the best tools for texts; however, SIL no longer actively supports it | Non-proprietary, text-based markup; particular fields can be selected for export | Designed to be used for texts; generates concordances; can be used for lexical data; limited audio support | Designed for markup of texts and lexical items | No Unicode support, limited special font support | Mac and PC versions; no networking capabilities; no collaborative support | Creates corpus of glossed texts and lexicon; texts and lexicons can be exported but another tool is typically required to create an end-state product | Limited view customizatin; limited search capabilities; sorting; morphophonemic parsing |