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Best Free Word Processor
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Introduction
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If you don't write novels, reports and documentations all the time, but like to use a Word Processor just for letters, memos and how-to's, you will love some of these word processors. They are mostly lightweight, load in a jiffy, and give you many more features than those you find in Wordpad that comes with Windows. That said, following are reviews of some free options that are good and suitable for general use. If you're not in need of a standalone word cruncher software that is just to write, and are instead looking for something more akin to a full blown office suite, you might want to have a look at software mentioned in our Best Free Office Suite category. Or if you are intending to write a novel, have a look at software mentioned in our Free Software for Aspiring Novelists category. NOTE: Comments section of this category is for brief feedback and input. For more detailed discussions, please submit those comments in our Forums section. NOTE: WOT - Web of Trust (www.mywot.com) is the world's leading community-based, safe surfing tool that helps web users safe in activities such as search, surf and shop online. |
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Discussion
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Jarte gives you tabs and a wealth of options in formatting: fonts, paragraphs, page, header and footer. There's an outline function, indenting and outdenting, and a format brush to easily transfer formatting. Some solutions are as simple as clever, e.g. when you mark a word and click the Encyclopedia button, Jarte looks that word up in the Wikipedia. Correspondingly Dictionary and Thesaurus take you online if you have not installed WordWeb, a free thesaurus that is integrated seamlessly. Nevertheless, Jarte indulges in templates and tables. You can insert pictures and documents, manage files and folders without ever leaving Jarte. It remembers your clipboard and lets you take screen shots. Collaboration is also not a concern, as Jarte reads Rich Text Files (rtf), Word documents (doc) and even latest Word format (docx) with installation of Office Compatibility Pack from Microsoft. However, any editing changes made to docx files must be saved in Rich Text File or Word file format. You can print all that, but even more intriguing and laudable is that you can export your document as a PDF-file. There is a portable version for download on an USB-stick, have it on stand-by, minimize it to your system tray. It takes less than 10 MB RAM, and it is there, when you need it. A basic spell-checker is included, but extra features including background spell-checking are only available to the commercial version. Version 4.3 contains a bug fix that prevented DOC files created with Word from opening properly in some instances. |
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It comes with customizable toolbars which are useful and supports for tabbed document windows with a simple user interface. Other features include the ability to insert pictures and objects, open as many documents as the user likes, no file size limitation, unlimited undo capability, and support for WordWeb as well. Even though some extra features are restricted to the commercial version, the standard features in the Lite version are sufficient and suitable for most average users. |
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This program supports binary files encryption and compression, allows saving of files in protected text format (prt) with a user's password. Other features include multi-language interface, integrated e-mail client with an address book, clipboard viewer, drag-and-drop and other advanced editing functions. A spell-checker is also available but it requires a separate download for dictionaries from the download page. Supported dictionaries include English, Russian, German, French, Portuguese, Spanish and Italian. |
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WordTabs allows users to insert pictures and objects with rich text formating requirements. Saving of files in both txt and rtf formats are supported. Other useful features include drag-and-drop text editing, case conversions, find-and-replace, etc. This program is developed by Skip Bremer. It is no longer maintained or supported but still available for download from other alternative websites. |
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Its abilities include cut and paste, highlight, as well as the usual host of common formatting tools. Annotation is also possible. However, a grammar-checking utility is missing, if a plugin is not installed, though it can check spelling in many languages. In order to utilize checking of foreign languages, it will need to be specified at installation. Besides being able to save to Word format, its own proprietary file format is available. A plugin can be installed to open OpenDocument formats. Sharing documents is possible with the integration of AbiCollab Web service in the latest version (2.8.6). This feature is especially welcome for scenarios such as remote collaboration. |
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There is another download needed for the spellchecking in languages other than English. It also converts document into eBook format (.EPUB). But Atlantis Nova saves files in the unpopular Rich Text File format and Text, and can not save to the more popular Word format, a negative mark. Also missed are things such as multi-column capability, footnotes and endnotes. It attempts to compensate for these omissions with some good features such as the "Magnifying Glass" zoom tool for instant high/low magnification and an Excel-like calculation tool. Also, built-in backup of documents is another welcome feature. |
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Related Products and Links
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You might want to check out these articles too: Best Free Text Editor |
Supported formats: txt, rtf, doc, docx for read-only, pdf and html for export.
Supported formats: OpenOffice.org documents, .doc, .docx, .rtf, HTML web pages
Supported formats: txt, rtf, etf, doc.
Supported formats: txt, rtf, prt, doc.
NB: Please rebuild the homepage link by replacing [Dot] with .
The homepage is hosted on Chat[DOT]ru which is currently rated red by WOT -13 Feb 2010.
Supported formats: txt and rtf
Supported formats: .rtf, epub for export
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Editor
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This software category is maintained by volunteer editor wesman. |
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Tags
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word processors, wordpad replacement, text editors, best free, light-weight word processor, wordpad, letters |
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Comments
I guess I don't understand -- have never understood, and likely never will understand -- why anyone thinks Jarte is good...
...or even worthy of consideration, for that matter.
I realize that it's a personal style preference sort of thing, and that everyone's free to like or dislike whatever they want; however, if the long-established useful standards of the Windows interface which makes it easy to move from one program to another and expect certain things to always be in certain places matters at all, then Jarte is a nightmare. Why anyone even gives it a moment of their time once they open it, and see its godawful interface, I have never understood.
Oy. There's no accounting for taste, I guess. [sigh]
Of the others, I agree that AbiWord is quite nice (though can really give the CPU a workout at times, and could be better at memory management), but none of the others, except Atlantis Nova, are, in my opinion, worthy of consideration.
Atlantis Nova is surprisingly good... far more than just WordPad, though more cluttered. Granted, its inability to save in any of the DOC or DOCX (or any other common word processing format, other than RTF) could be seen as a downside; however, Atlantis quite deliberately does this because RTF is the one format which can be easily read by virtually any other word processor. And since Atlantis Nova's target is those fed-up with WordPad, and not necessarily those wanting a fully-fledged word processor capable of reading/writing DOC and DOCX files, how it does things is appropriate.
Among its upsides, though, is that even though it's targeted merely at disgruntled WordPad users, it is, in fact, a potent fully-fledged word processor in its own right... easily on par with much of what AbiWord can do; and using a more standardized Windows interface, unlike the godawful (at least in terms of interface) Jarte.
There's an error in this article, though, regarding Atlantis Nova, to wit: It cannot do ePub files. If you click on the "Help" pulldown menu, from within Atlantis Nova, and then select "More features in your Atlantis," you'll see, in the help file which launches, that creating ePub-format files is a feature of the commercial (not-free/fee-based) version of Atlantis.
Atlantis's features -- especially if compared with WordPad, but even if compared with the likes of AbiWord -- are no small thing. It has templates (which can be modified and also added to), excellent page setup, the ability to show/hide hidden characters and page margins, a document properties dialog, the ability to attach to an email right from within the program, multiple levels of undo/redo, sophisticated copy/paste, advanced find and replace and delete, paragraph joining and splitting and sorting, document zooming, the ability to insert special symbols and date/time and photos and graphics and files, the ability to format fonts and tabs and paragraphs and indents and bullet styles (and the overall style of the entire document, of course), the ability to specify language coding, and to manipulate font and sentence and paragraph appearance (kerning and whatnot) in some surprisingly sophisticated ways, the ability to control page numbering in an almost Word-like pseudo-header/footer sort of way, the ability to count letters and words and sentences and lines and paragraphs, and, as earlier referenced herein, it has a complete HELP file.
And even with all that, I'm quite certain that I left something out. And, no, I'm not Nova's developer or have anything, whatsoever, to do with it. I'm just an end-user...
...but one who's bothered to really and truly check-out pretty much everything else that's out there; and when it comes right down to it, Atlantis Nova is QUITE fully-featured for such a small tool of its type. I long ago figured out that it's the hands-down best replacement for WordPad (and even Notepad, as long as you make sure to save as text and not RTF); and it can easily be the machine's sole word processor if something like Word, or OpenOffice, etc., is not installed thereon.
Atlantis Nova should not be underestimated, and I'm a little surprised that it's not rated higher on this page. But, then, again, the article's author thinks Jarte is good...
...so we're back to that no accounting for taste thing, again, I guess. [shakes head in disbelief]
Hope that helps!
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Gregg L. DesElms
You are right - you don't understand, have never understood, and you never will understand why Jarte is well liked by many. I use Word at work beccause I have no choice, but at home I like using Jarte. For me, it looks great, is easy to use, and it's nice just to use something different, instead of the same old boring look of Word and other programs like it.
I am much more likely to write something personal with a "personal" program like Jarte. But hey, everyone to their own.
Jarte quite well fullfills the old saying...the same is the same and different is not the same.
I like different!
I was called out to a broken 'word processor' almost 3 years ago, it turned out that it was a 486 with Win. 3.1 but always booted from a floppy disk to DOS and loaded, from another floppy, with Word Perfect Junior.
The owner had been happily making a living by writing articles and books this way for many years, probably using the PC like this since it was almost new.
As the 486 was past it's best, I supplied him with a cleaned up, recently donated 'modern' PC running XP, took along a bunch of the best freeware word processing packages I could find and demonstrated them to him.
He chose Jarte - why? Because it was the easiest to import his research data into and it could be set so that it was the least distracting and most restful on the eyes - he could concentrate on content, not on which toolbar he had to look to to complete the next task etc.
He was still very happy with it when I called by to check up and have a coffee and chat about a year ago. For some people, Jarte works.
I don't have money to buy Word. This is a great site!!
If you have no money to buy Word, then either Atlantis Nova or AbiWord will serve you well.
If you need the full Microsoft Office platform (word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, database, etc.) then I would think that you could not go wrong with one of the freeware/open-source recommendations on this web page...
Tech Support Alert
Best Free Office Suite
http://bit.ly/HsOylX
...and of them, my recommendation would be LIBRE OFFICE... but that's just me.
And, yes, I agree: It IS a great site, isn't it. [grin]
Hope that helps!
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Gregg L. DesElms
Portable Focus Writer is a great word processor when you are looking for something that just focuses on writing. eg letters, essays, books.
http://gottcode.org/focuswriter/
Great simple interface. Spell checker. Easy formattinmg using themes. Saves in ODT format.
[Moderator's note : Replaced link with homepage of software. Please post the link to homepage of software when suggesting a software]
As far as KINGSOFT OFFICE is concerned, I've uninstalled it in the end,
my primary con being its excessive network activity every time I shot it up.
Generally, I'm feeling sort of biased towards Chinese software.
which one of these has the easiest font colouring if any?
thank you
Font colouring...I am not familiar with that. Please describe what you are looking for in font colouring.
Cheerio!
I think s/he just means the ability to highlight some text and change its color. I could be wrong, but I'll bet that's what it means.
If so, then the answer is that pretty much any of them can likely do it; and as with most tools of their type, it's usually as simple as highlighting/selecting the text (the color of which one intends to change), and then clicking on a button up in one of the toolbars which, once clicked-upon, displays a color chart/table, from which one simply clicks on a color and then, voila!, said chart/table closes and the previously highlighted/selected text is now in the chosen color.
Precisely which one does it the easiest I cannot say at the moment because I no longer remember, from my testing, how each of them do it; but, seriously, it's pretty simple in them all, as I recall... as described immediately above; and similar, come to think of it, to how it's done in WordPad...
...er... well... except in Jarte...
...which brings us to my complaint in my other posting, herein, about why anyone even likes Jarte and its oddball, doesn't-conform-to-Windows-standards user interface. One of the reasons I can so confidently write, here, that each of the products -- except, of course, for Jarte -- probably does it about the same is precisely BECAUSE they all (except for Jarte) more or less conform to the standards of the Windows API and user interface. That's what standards are for; and Jarte just blows them off (see my other posting, here).
Hope that helps.
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Gregg L. DesElms
Have not had time to try these yet, but they look promising.
My vote is for Jarte!
Something put an ad for Atlantis: The Lost Tales into my Windows Games folder and there was no way to get it off because of how Windows stores its game files, so I used a system image. I am guessing it was Atlantis Nova that did it, but someone might want to test that out.
That's Funny I got the same thing (Atlantis The Lost Tales™) in games folder. It came from Atlantis Word Processor. Stupid Windows thinks it's a game, no big deal just delete the shortcut
I tried Jarte and it was awful! I couldn't find anything I needed, and some things I clicked told me they were only available in the Commercial version and wanted me to buy it.
AbiWord is BY FAR the best free standalone word processor. No competition.
Amen, regarding Jarte.
And a partial Amen regarding AbiWord; with the other part of it colored by my belief that Atlantis Nova is easily as good as AbiWord, all things considered, for at least most of what a person would ever want to do with either tool (though AbiWord definitely out-classes Atlantis Nova in some areas).
And so I agree, don't get me wrong, that AbiWord is terrific; and is really the only one on the entire list, other than Atlantis Nova, worthy of consideration...
...just... you know... in my opinion (colored by over 35 years in IT... not that that would matter).
____________________________________
Gregg L. DesElms
Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012
offer a Full Office Suite for FREE!!!
www.kingsoftstore.com/kingsoft-office-freeware.html
Please direct your comment to http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-office-suite.htm
The focus of this category is not on full blown office suites.
Cheerio!
Kingsoft Writer Free 2012 is an impressive word processor downloadable separately apart from the Kingsoft Office Suite 2012. For additional information please see http://www.kingsoftstore.com/writer.html. Good luck.
That seems to be a little hard to do at the moment!
Kingsoft Writer is well worth a look, as it also saves in .doc format and uses tabs in the same manner as a web browser does.
However as wesman pointed out you have to download the suite to get it, still only 68 MB.
I am very old and a technophobe. I used office xp for years and was really happy with it but unfortunately, it stopped working, (something to do with vista, I understand). I bought office 2007 but could not work with it, lost my rag and jumped on the disc. Now I have no word processor at all. I only use word,do not really need spell check (due to old-fashioned grammar school education)but a facility for creating tables would be useful. Can any of you clever young people advise me as to a SIMPLE but effective free word processor. I would be eternally grateful but please describe in non-technical terms. Thank you so much.
Locko29
"a SIMPLE but effective free word processor" would be WordPad which comes free with Vista.
Just click on the orbital "bottom left of your desktop" and type wordpad.
If you want more just try the ones recommended in this review, starting from the top.
Please direct your comment to http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-office-suite.htm
The focus of this category is not on full blown office suites.
Cheerio!
I guess you could try this free suite http://www.softmakeroffice.com/ - its word processor seems to handle Word docs quite well.
Also, upon getting to know about the new free Kingsoft 2012 suite (mentioned in the post above), I downloaded it. After giving it some initial try out, I felt really impressed - apparently much improved over its previous edition. So you might as well try it - hopefully, it may suit your needs. Good luck.
Regards.
I downloaded OpenOffice on my Windows 7 laptop & hate it! Every time I want to view an attachment from my e-mail it makes me download it to see it. Also if I share files, other people cannot read them frequently & also I cannot read picture file attachments (comes up gibberish in my e-mail when sent from a MMS mobile phone text). Sometimes also when I download something (not pdf), it comes up gibberish & even I can't read it.
I have previously used Word but was trying to save some money, but am so dissatisfied that I am considering giving up the $150 for Microsoft Word.
What do you suggest? I also need something I can move my OpenOffice files to.
uuggghh these word processor suck cuz dey are old fashined and dont open to any of the rtf files
Polyedit Lite opens .rtf files;
Several of the others listed do as well;
Go here http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/word-processor-replacement.htm#Quick_Selection_Guide
and look at the supported formats.
Regards....Mike Connor
Open office word processor will open rtf files if that's any use to you:)
http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/writer/topic/open-rich-text-format-docu...
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-office-suite.htm
Atlantis Nova is no longer free!
As has been said mate, Atlantis Nova is still freeware. Methinks it might be the full blown version of the software you referring to. The basic version of the software is freeware.
Cheerio!
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