A Comprehensive Review of Word Processors
I’ve just uncovered the most comprehensive review of word processors, particularly those most likely to be used for business, technical and academic writing, that I’ve ever seen. It is very informative and even valuable to those already firmly settled into their word processor of choice.
However, I am surprised that there are significant omissions, those programs aimed more at creative writers and journalists. As I too have been steadily working my way through this same arena, with several major reviews already posted on this blog, I have some observations and comments about the review, from my perspective.
Reviewer and self-professed “software nut” Zaine Ridling, who maintains The Great Software List, begins at just the right point: all writers are not the same, and word processors tend to fit some writers better than others. It’s a good idea to do some exploration to find the most productive tool for your own style of writing. In fact, one might end up using several word processors, each with strengths for particular writing tasks.
Then Zaine takes up the next most important question: what format is best for writers. At this point, his decided bias as a “software nut” shines through. He declares firmly for the emerging Open Document Format. Over the long haul, he’s probably correct. Yet even he recognizes Microsoft’s continuing role as bottleneck to interoperability, even in its latest incarnation Word 2007.
Meanwhile, the Rich Text Format [see my comments about RTF] performs well for non-technical writers and is easy to share. It happens to be the format adopted by the word processors Zaine has left off his list.
Those two issues aside, Zaine moves directly into reviews of individual word processors, beginning with the BIG THREE: Open Office/StarOffice, Word and Word Perfect. He follows with the SECOND-TIER of word processors, including TextMaker, Atlantis, Papyrus WORD, AbiWord, Ability Write, EIOffice, PolyEdit and 602 Text. Lastly, he reviews the three major online word processors: Google Docs, ThinkFree Office Write and Zoho Writer.
For each software, Zaine gives detailed descriptions of what to like and what not to like. His reviews are clear, comprehensive and illuminating. By the time you’ve read through the entire review [it’s long], you will have a much deeper appreciation of what standard word processing is all about, what features distinguish one processor from another, what features perhaps match your own needs. While he does not firmly recommend one program over another, underscoring the differing needs and likes/dislikes of writers, he does reveal his personal favorites. I concur with his choice of the online Zoho Writer, and he’s convinced me that I simply must look at Open Office/StarOffice as potentially my heavy-duty writing tool.
Missing in his coverage are the programs that I’ve personally been most attracted to: Rough Draft, Page Four, WriteItNow, WriteWay and yWriter. Nor does he touch the small “note takers” that can easily double as word processors for short works and articles. There are other specialized programs, such as Power Writer and Writer’s Blocks. I’ve already reviewed two of these programs; more reviews are forthcoming. I’ll also be reviewing Chapter by Chapter, a remarkable companion to Microsoft Word, which I’m beginning to think is unparalleled for authors writing big books requiring footnotes and/or graphics.
In the meantime, READ Zaine’s review — it is simply the best coverage of the topic anywhere. And come back to this blog for forthcoming reviews of programs of particular interest to creative writers and journalists.
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Zaine’s review may have been missing the smaller note taking applications but they aren’t missing altogether. There is a review on the same site by another author. Take a look at Part 1 of the Note Taking Software Roundup
And the huge forum discussion that lead to it is quite an interesting read, with participation from a few of the developers of the note taking applications.
It is the longest running, most active thread on their forum, begun in February of 2006, with over 500 replies and over 47,000 views….and it’s still going strong.
It was that discussion that lead to my discovery of their website. I was on a quest for a very specialized note taking application and came across that thread on a Google search.
Tom, I’m grateful for your recommendation of DonationCoder.com’s Word Processor Review, and I appreciate what it lacked. There was much I wanted to include in it, but as you know, once mega-reviews like that get started, it’s difficult to finish if you don’t limit them at some point. I wanted to include word processors for the GNU/Linux and OS X platforms, but did not have the time or resources.
RTF is not a bad format, but it’s both a limited 7-bit that requires “escape sequences” to encode characters beyond mere ASCII, and RTF is proprietary format owned by Microsoft. A key concern of any writer should be document and data integrity that is not beholden to any single vendor. For example, I’ve got articles, research titles, papers, and various monographs going back to 1981, in a wide variety of formats. Oh if only I had all of them in simple text format (which in the end, is what RTF is, and what makes RTF so attractive), then I could import past writings into any container application and just reformat at most.
Also, thank you for your list of writer’s programs. I’d like to study those more. I was unaware of Page Four! Take care, and I hope others enjoy the review, too.
In case you’ve missed it, I’ve just posted a link to PageFour’s brand-new page of reviews and testimonials. You may wish to see what others are saying about the program.
I also plan to take a look into the mega-review of NoteTakers and will eventually post my comments so that my readers will know to check out that article as well.