|
|
How to Choose a Word Processing Program - Think Free!Mar 04 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in Software
The Bottom Line Consider the needs of everyone who uses the computer, decide on a list of essential features and decide if one of the free applications available will meet your requirements.
This is not aimed at the high powered computer user who is intending to bring the world of desktop publishing to its collective knees, nor is it geared to those who wish to create the next best seller on their newly purchased computer and plan to create their 200,000 word magnum opus in the next six months. Instead this article is directed to those among you with modest word processing needs, a family perhaps, with high school students cranking out essays on Macbeth, and parents who still keep in touch with their own parents through the gentle art of letter writing. You've taken a look at WordPad in your Windows 9x accessories and realized that its finished products leave a lot to be desired. Or perhaps your system came bundled with the incredibly irritating Microsoft Works and your annoyance level is too low to tolerate it. If so, then you may have paused at the right place. Since you have just paid hundreds of dollars for a new computer system, your bank account may be in need of some time to recuperate. You don't want to spend any money on software unless someone points a gun to your head. Fear not. There is a veritable host of free word processing programs out there available for download, as a quick visit to any free software site will reveal. However, first it is necessary to make a little mental list about the way you and others in the family want their documents to look and consider only those free programs that will allow you to accomplish this. This is my own highly idiosyncratic checklist of requirements: Full justification: I have tried to live with "ragged right" as typographers call it, where the right edge of the text is uneven, while the left side is smoothly lined up to the margin. In fact one of the nicest word processors out there, "WordTabs", which does almost everything one's heart could desire has this difficulty. From a couple of programmers I've talked to, it is apparently rather difficult to include full justification so that both right and left sides of the text are even to the margins. However, "ragged right" just doesn't cut it anymore, so I've had to abandon "WordTabs" and search for a program that provides for fully justified type, except for the final line of a paragraph. Optional Line Spacing: I want this and so does your son's high school teacher. "Five pages, doubled spaced, on the Monroe Doctrine, two weeks from today." Too many word processors arrive on your desktop with only single spacing capability. For my own correspondence, I like the option of using 1.5 spacing, which seems an admirable compromise, but word processors which are to be of real use to various members of the family, do need to be able to set differing line spacings. Page Setup: Surprisingly enough there are several otherwise satisfactory free word processors which do not allow the user to define the margins but default to some arbitrary standard known only to a Higher Force and the programmer. The user of the application frequently needs to vary the margins depending on what type of document is being created. It is also not unknown for students to fudge the length of that five page essay by simply increasing the margin width ever so slightly. Print Preview: In these days of "What You See Is What You Get" screens, you still need some kind of facility to allow you to have a look at the entire document before it is printed, unless daddy owns an ink factory. That's how you discover that the very last line of a lengthy paragraph falls on the next page and a bit of judicious editing may be in order, or that you have omitted to set the margins to your own preferences, so that your document is not going to print out how you had anticipated. In some word processing programs this can be accomplished by viewing the document in "Full Page View"; others simply call it Print Preview. Whatever it's called, I need it. Spelling Checker: Unless you were a national finalist in a spelling contest, you probably are going to need something to check the words in your document for simple typos and huge clangers of misspelled words. It is my heartfelt opinion that no document should ever leave its creator's computer without being run through the spelling checker a couple of times. Besides, it's something constructive to do when you suddenly hit a brick wall in your torrid essay on "Septic Tanks". Word Count: Some may feel that the ability of a program to provide a word count is an unnecessary frill. Just try telling that to the student who has the misfortune to have a teacher or professor who doles out assignments by the "word", a not uncommon practice — "2500 words on Appearance and Reality in Troilus and Cressida, due in three weeks". You try telling your daughter that the word processor on the computer will not tell her how many words she has written; I'd rather not. It's easier in the long run to winnow through those free word processing programs until you find one which will do this. Frills: "Em" dashes and "Curly Quotes" — We have reached the the bottom of the list only to throw in a couple of luxury items. If your writing style runs to dashes it would be nice to be able to have proper ones inserted instead of having to use the shrunken hyphen which is the only recourse that some word processors provide. The keyboard shortcut Alt + 0151 on the numeric keypad will produce a proper "em" dash, that is a dash that is the width of the letter "M", on some word processors. Some commercial word processors like "WordPerfect" and "Word" will do it automatically if the regular hyphen key is hit twice in succession. It's a nice feature but really, it's a luxury item in a free word processor application. "Curly quotes" are another upmarket item. Although "WordPerfect" has had this feature implemented since the mid nineties, not many of the free word processing programs have bothered to incorporate it. It does make a document look more professional but the use of the 'typewriter' style of straight quotation marks is not enough for me to dismiss an other wise satisfactory program. The Candidates: Full Featured Office Suites — There are two leading free entrants in this category. The capabilities of the word processing components of these full-featured 'suites' will generally perform any task that you can throw at them and go way beyond simple word processing. Embed pictures, create tables, implement special type effects, as well as opening almost any type of text document, these biggies can do it all. In addition, they come with spread sheets, fax capabilities and picture editing. They will probably do your laundry as well. The best known is "Star Office" by SunMicrosystems. This is a huge office suite but with an interface which can take some getting used to and the download is a whopping 60+ MB. Intended to compete directly with Microsoft's Office but being given away for reasons that need not concern the gentle user, this suite of programs could run in a corporate setting as well as on your desktop. A lesser known product is Suite 602 Pro 2000. The download size is a far more modest 17 MB but it too has vast capabilities and can open any Word or Excel document as well as saving files in those formats. Its interface is colorful and intuitive and has more bells and whistles than my modest needs would ever require. There are a few add-ons that actually require cash but most users will find the features of the free edition eminently satisfactory. It is worth the download just to have it on your hard drive, for occasions when you need something a bit more robust than the simpler word processing applications. Simple Word Processing Programs: There are a number of these — Atlantis, Kiwi, Rough Draft, TextShield 2000, WordTabs — but none of them entirely meet my highly selective criteria. There is one other which has made vast strides in the past year and will probably continue to improve, given its unique origins. AbiWord (0.7.13) is an Open Source product that is constantly being worked on by its various contributors. Available for a number of operating system platforms, including Linux and the Be OS, the Win9x version is a fast loading, easy to use word processing program which may suit many users. It has full justification, optional line (and paragraph) spacing, an auto spell checker, word count, a print preview (view in full page mode), column capability, insertion of pictures, as well as page setup. One small caveat — the page setup or document dialogue box has a bug which makes the program crash like a dog if you use it to alter the default one inch margins. However, the left and right side margins can be changed without difficulty by dragging the little squares on the ruler in the main window. Given the tireless efforts of the Open Source community, I'm sure that this little hiccup will be remedied in the next release. It even incorporates a few frills like curly quotation marks and an asterisk insertion in the Title Bar when additions to a document have been made but not yet saved. This program hasn't even hit version 1 yet but it gets my vote as the best simple word processor out there. And One Extra: There is one more program that can make your writing efforts less frustrating and more creative — WordWeb is another free program that is a combination dictionary and thesaurus. If you have Win98 or Internet Explorer 4 on your hard drive, then you probably have the Quick Launch utility on your Taskbar. Place a shortcut to WordWeb there and enjoy fast access to its terrific features, including a truly comprehensive dictionary which gives detailed definitions of words in an upper pane while simultaneously providing a list of synonyms in a lower one. It can be incredibly helpful for students agonizing over an essay on "Athenian Democracy" as well as to those simply trying to write a cheerful letter to parents when the cat is at the vet's, the washer has just broken down and the car insurance bill has arrived. It can help you find other words besides 'nice' when your muddled brain is having difficulty coming up with soothing phrases for your aging parents to explain why their grandson has pink hair in the Christmas photos. This is hardly a definitive guide to word processing programs. It is merely intended to provide a starting point on your quest to find one that's right for your needs while pointing out some of the features that you might keep in mind while you search. However, if you have found yourself nodding in agreement over most of the items that are on my check list then you might find that Suite 602, AbiWord and WordWeb will take care of most of your word processing requirements. Your bank account will thank you. Where to find them: AbiWord: http://www.abisource.com Suite 602 Pro: http://www.software602.com WordWeb: http://www.wordweb.co.uk  |
| Read all comments (1)|Write your own comment |
by texas-swede
