Just like with any other profession, I also rely on the tools of my trade. In my case, it’s the word processors. It surely beats having to write everything on paper, which I used to do when I was still in school.
There are many free word processors, but these top three are what I am currently using. You might ask, why do I need three programs when one would suffice? Well, not in my case. It depends on a lot of things on whether which one I would use, and I have stated my reasons below.
And by the way, although AbiWord and OpenOffice.org Writer each has its own file format, all three word processors are capable of saving in and opening MS Word document files.
1. Jarte
This is what I use when I have a lot of programs opened simultaneously on my computer. Jarte is very light in resources and loads very fast, perhaps because it is based on WordPad.
Another thing that I like about this word processor is that its features are just the basics, the stuff you would often use and none of those that just clutter MS Word.
It also has a nice, and very convenient to use, tabbed feature. You can open a number of documents and each one is on a tab. It will remind you of Google Chrome.
The only important feature that is lacking with its free version is the spell checker. Other than that, this is a great free word processor.
Jarte
2. AbiWord
When I need to write for clients, and therefore I need a more powerful and feature-rich word processor (especially one that has a spell checker), I use AbiWord.
It looks almost exactly like MS Word, that is why there is an easy learning curve. It also loads fast, although a bit slower than Jarte.
If it there’s anything that annoys me, is that whenever I save a document, the first option is always AbiWord’s own doc file format which has a file extension of .abw. I have to do a few mouse movements just to change it to Microsoft Word’s .doc.
AbiWord
If what you need is a truly powerful word processor, and one that can match Microsoft Word feature-by-feature, then you are better off using OpenOffice.org Writer.
However, it suffers from one thing that is common with all programs in the OpenOffice.org suite: it takes longer to load. I have read somewhere that it’s because of the big requirement of the suite for the resources of your PC, which actually makes sense because of all the features that you can find in all of the programs.
I use it more whenever I need to create an ebook as I have grown used to its capability to export a document into a PDF. But among the word processors in this list, this is what I use less frequently.
It’s still a great program to have when you have to write more complicated documents.
OpenOffice.org Writer
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Not everyone has access to or can afford MS Word but clearly that’s still the best out there.
I haven’t tried the ones you listed before but if I had to use a free word processor, I would probably just go with Google Docs.
I use Openoffice….It’s more easier… =)
[PinoyCopywriter]´s last blog ..Free Arcade Script
You should also check out SSuite Office for a free word processor. It has almost all the features of Word, and looks and works the same. {except for the ribbons}. Their word processor is called WordGraph.
It is only 12 MB in size. Nice and small
. Their software also don’t need to run on Java or .NET, like so many open source software, so it makes their software very small and efficient.
http://www.ssuitesoft.com
Hi Andy,
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll go look it up.