Word Processing Alternatives
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Alternative Word Processing Suites
Most people are stuck using MS Word as their word processing suite. The unfortunate thing about this is the cost of the software. I haven't used Word on my personal machine for years. I have tried a number of word processing programs over the years and settled on Open Office. Below I will talk briefly about a few of my trials with other word processing programs.
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Keyboarding & Word Processing, Complete Course, Lessons 1-120: Certified Approach (College Keyboarding)
Price: $84.00
List Price: $117.95 |
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Word Processing Using Microsoft Word 2000 or Microsoft Office 2000 (Software Guides)
Price: $2.00
List Price: $10.99 |
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MS Word 2003 for Seniors: Getting Familiar with Word Processing (Computer Books for Seniors series)
Price: $12.23
List Price: $19.95 |
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Keyboarding & Word Processing, Lessons 1-60: Certified Approach (College Keyboarding)
Price: $51.00
List Price: $72.95 |
The Run Down
- Abi Word - I used Abi word for a number of weeks and found it to be a very capable word processor. I stumbled upon it after I had already started to use Open Office and really found no compelling reason to switch to Abi Word. Abi Word can save and read to MS Word and Wordperfect though Wordperfect requires a plugin to get working. There are versions for Windows, Linux, and Mac Osx.
- Jarte - Jarte is designed to work off of the Wordpad word processing engine already included in Windows. As such this is a Windows only installation. Looks different than any other wordprocessor I have seen but was fairly functional. I just couldn't get over the different look.
- IBM Lotus Symphony - Based off an earlier version of Open Office this is a full featured office suite. It will handle presentations, spreadsheets, MS Word documents, Open Office documents, and many other common formats. It is listed as still in beta, though isn't everything these days.
- Google Docs - I never actually tried this, though I may have to now. I have heard great things and so it is included.
- Open Office - I know the question said not Open Office but since others will read this I have included it. Open Office is probably the most popular free wordprocessor out there. There are versions of it for Mac, Windows, and Linux. It handles all standard formats, MS Word, Wordperfect, as well as the open standard of .odt. Lately I have been less happy with the load time when opening the program but I do not run the helper at startup. If you choose to run OpenOffice helper at startup there is a noticeable increase in load time. This is my word processing suite of choice.
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Comments
No problem.
Very informative: Open Office looks like a winner.
Thank you
Yeah I have been very happy with Open Office over the last number of years. It opens any file, even photoshop stuff.
I had MS office 2007 trial version installed and loved it very much. But after its expiration date, I downloaded Open Office, because there's no way to make me to pay for it. But my wife has to download an encryption software for her financial record, because Open Office Spreadsheet can open Excel file but can not save the file with a password.
Star Office is also a good one. It is included in Google Pack which has nearly everything you need. I think, if you just buy your computer, and want to install some handy software, Google Pack is a One-Click-for-All package, which includes Norton Security Scan, Spyware Doctor, Star Office.
The only bad thing in Google pack is Norton. Norton is horrible for slowing your system down. I personally use AVG and a hardware firewall. I also use Firefox 2 with the noscript extension installed.
working
exinco says:
7 months ago
thanks for the response. very useful, i think i must try one of them