This page contains information on Japanese text editing and word processing on the Mac. (If you have not enabled Japanese input on your computer, visit the first page of this site first to find out how.) The full site contents is as follows:
Once you install the Japanese language abilities in your Mac system, you can write (simple) Japanese documents with a wide range of word processors.
TextEdit. You can start off experimenting with this relatively simple text editor that comes with OS X. TextEdit has the ability to open and save files in a range of different encodings. See the encodings page on this site for details.
BBEdit is an industrial strength text editor with features for programming and web development. It has an even wider range of encoding options than TextEdit. BBEdit is probably most useful for those who want to write Japanese or bilingual html code. In fact, I use it to maintain this web site. Writing web pages with BBEdit is treated in more detail on the web authoring page of this site. 
Microsoft Word. For a more full-featured word processor compatible with Japanese, MS Word includes a lineup of features for working in Japanese, like vertical text, "ruby" or furigana and special search options and text formatting not used in English. To activate these features in Word or other Office programs, you need to use a program called the Microsoft Language Register. (It should be in the Microsoft Office folder under "Additional Tools"; if not, look for it on your Office install CD). Different versions of the Language Register work slightly differently; just open the application and it will give you instructions.
iText Express is a free Japanese word processor with English menus and documentation. It combines the simplicity of Apple's TextEdit with some advanced word-processing features, including vertical text and Japanese manuscript (genkô yôshi) layout. (The latter is a featuer even MS Word does not have.) iText Express can save files in rtf, unicode text, and other formats. The developers also produce more powerful shareware versions of the program, iTextPro and LightWayText (about $15 and $25, respectively).
Nisus Writer. For a long time before the advent of Mac OS X, I was a faithful user of Nisus. Earlier versions had inline Japanese input and specialized Japanese features long before MS Word. Microsoft Word has caught up, though, and now it seems to have the edge over Nisus in terms of Japanese features. Nisus was very slow to develop an OS X version of the program with full Japanese functionality, but the most recent versions can finally open and read the complex Japanese documents I created with early versions. It now comes in two flavors, Express and Pro.
Pages is Apple's recent Word Processing and page layout software. I have used it very little, but it does support Japanese.
Many other word processors and text processors that support Unicode can work in Japanese. These range from simple freeware editors to full packages competing with MS Word, but most don't have MS Word's special editing features customized for Japanese, like vertical text. To find these programs and distinguish between them, there are some fine pages on Mac Unicode support. An excellent one is Alan Wood's Unicode Page, which has a very detailed section on Multilingual Word Processing under Mac OS X, well as separate sections on Unicode in Mac OS 9, Windows, Linux, etc.
If you want a program optimized for writing in Japanese, of course you can also purchase a full-featured Japanese word processor localized for sale in Japan, like EG Word. See the Other Resources link below.
I don't do any design work, so I mostly make do with the Japanese fonts distributed with OS X. For those who want something more:
Wazu has an excellent list of free unicode fonts available on the web, including links to many Japanese fonts you can download. The site is in English.
Hakushu Shotai also has some interesting Japanese fonts you can download free. The site is in Japanese, and the free fonts generally include only a subset of the most common kanji.
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