Suggestions for freeware word processor
Carl
Folks here were kind enough to suggest several freeware anti-virus and
anti-spyware applications and I have downloaded and installed one of each
on their recommendations.
Can anyone recommend a decent freeware text editor? Again, coming from
the Macintosh "world" I don't know which ones are worthwhile and which
not.
Macs come with a quite decent freeware text editor called TextEdit. It
can open Word documents, etc.
There has to be something like that for PCs.
Thanks,
Carl
Poprivet`
Open Office; google
ctowers
Unknown
http://www.openoffice.org/product/
"WRITER can of course read all your old Microsoft Word documents, or save
your work in Microsoft Word format for sending to people who are still
locked into Microsoft products."
JS
"Carl" <carlh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:96E6j.3814$581.1003@trnddc04...
Engineer@pnb.retired_1987 Don Schmidt
http://www.mypeecee.org/rogsoft/
If looking for a word processor, I've heard that Open Office is good.
--
Don
Vancouver, USA
"Carl" <carlh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:96E6j.3814$581.1003@trnddc04...
>
>
>
Shenan Stanley
OpenOffice
http://www.openoffice.org/
--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
Mike Cawood, HND BIT
http://www.openoffice.org/
It's open source software & available free to use (not shareware).
Regards Mike.
Sam Hobbs
and word processors. Text editors often have features more useful for
programmers and other technical stuff.
I am not familiar with Open Office except to know it is popular and highly
useful, but it is not lightweight!
I once researched SourceForge for word processors, preferably lightweight
(small) ones. The following are relatively small but seem useful. The UI of
Jarte is quite different and probably relatively unique, so it is likely
people will either really like it or really not like it.
AbiWord
http://www.abisource.com
Jarte
http://www.jarte.com
"Carl" <carlh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:96E6j.3814$581.1003@trnddc04...
>
>
>
Stan Brown
> Can anyone recommend a decent freeware text editor? Again, coming from
> the Macintosh "world" I don't know which ones are worthwhile and which
> not.
Do you want a word processor or a text editor?
For a word processor, openoffice.org -- for a text editor,
http://www.vim.org . Not only is Vim excellent in its own right, but
it's available for virtually every platform. Even the source code is
freely available, so you'll never again be forced to use different
editors in different environments.
--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"If there's one thing I know, it's men. I ought to: it's
been my life work." -- Marie Dressler, in /Dinner at Eight/
Ken Blake, MVP
> Can anyone recommend a decent freeware text editor? Again, coming from
> the Macintosh "world" I don't know which ones are worthwhile and which
> not.
> Macs come with a quite decent freeware text editor called TextEdit. It
> can open Word documents, etc.
> There has to be something like that for PCs.
Your subject line says "word processor," but the above says "text
editor." Be aware that these are two very different things. A text
editor essentially produces simple unformatted text, while a word
processor has far more capability with respect to formatting, fonts,
graphics, etc.
If all you want is a text editor, Windows comes with the plain vanilla
Notepad, and the slightly more capable and word-processor-like
Wordpad. Although there are more capable freeware text editors
available, you should start with those, and determine what additional
capability you need, if any, before investigating alternatives. One of
those might meet your needs.
On the other hand, if you want a freeware word processor, many people
are happy with the word-processing component of OpenOffice. It will
open Word documents, and retain most of their formatting.
--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup
Poprivet`
> Open Office:
> http://www.openoffice.org/product/
>
> "WRITER can of course read all your old Microsoft
> Word documents, or
> save your work in Microsoft Word format for sending
> to people who are
> still locked into Microsoft products."
True. And it's an excellent word processor. Caveat:
It doesn't support quite a few Word features, so if
you're an advanced Word user, check it out for
usability for your intent, especially if you're passing
anything important back and forth to people.
If you're not an advanced user or especially if
you're a neophyte, then it's an outstanding place to
get started. In fact, the whole suite is.
There is also Star Office, BTW. Again, free.
Xandros
.DOC files (it cannot open DOCX files).
However if you want good freeware use OpenOffice.
--
Xandros
"Carl" <carlh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:96E6j.3814$581.1003@trnddc04...
>
>
>
Sam Hobbs
"Xandros" <arron.neus*remove*@gmailcom> wrote in message
news:uAx$r4$OIHA...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
Sam Hobbs
news:fdjtl318ahgighf17...@4ax.com...> Word processing
>
> http://www.abisource.com/
And I previously suggested that. I am not really familiar with it so it
helps to get confirmation that it is worthwhile.
Xandros
--
Xandros
"Sam Hobbs" <sam...@social.rr.com_change_social_to_socal> wrote in message
news:%23K2f$BBPIH...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
Sam Hobbs
"Xandros" <arron.neus*remove*@gmailcom> wrote in message
news:%235zsYme...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
Xandros
police groups like this is a colossal waste of time and bandwidth. Let it go
and be happy.
--
Xandros
"Sam Hobbs" <sam...@social.rr.com_change_social_to_socal> wrote in message
news:%23b61Zmf...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
Sam Hobbs
continuing to insist. That would be the least bandwidth.
"Xandros" <arron.neus*remove*@gmailcom> wrote in message
news:%23BEu0Zg...@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
Unknown
many electrons were wasted?
"Sam Hobbs" <sam...@social.rr.com_change_social_to_socal> wrote in message
Shenan Stanley
> Folks here were kind enough to suggest several freeware anti-virus
> and anti-spyware applications and I have downloaded and installed
> one of each on their recommendations.
>
> Can anyone recommend a decent freeware text editor? Again, coming
> from the Macintosh "world" I don't know which ones are worthwhile
> and which not.
>
> Macs come with a quite decent freeware text editor called TextEdit.
> It can open Word documents, etc.
> There has to be something like that for PCs.
<special note>
Other responses can be viewed here:
http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics/browse_frm/thread/42d3014b24dc53f1/a8033a650db78d64?lnk=st&q=#a8033a650db78d64
<end special note>
Xandros wrote:
> Windows comes with WordPad which is a very basic wordprocessor that
> can open .DOC files (it cannot open DOCX files).
> However if you want good freeware use OpenOffice.
Sam Hobbs wrote:
> WordPad is highly limited and Ken Blake already mentioned it.
Xandros wrote:
> So what?
Sam Hobbs wrote:
> So it helps to avoid duplicating previous answers.
Xandros wrote:
> So what are you trying to achieve by pointing that out Sam?
> Attempting to police groups like this is a colossal waste of time
> and bandwidth. Let it go and be happy.
Sam Hobbs wrote:
> Or you could just say sorry and that is the end of that, instead of
> continuing to insist. That would be the least bandwidth.
Unknown wrote:
> Do either one of you think you're affecting the band width? By how
> much? How many electrons were wasted?
This whole thing went on for no apparent reason - as far as I can tell.
This is unlikely to help - but I have a free moment and just feel like
typing out a complete thought or three.
What Sam Hobbs doesn't seem to realize or care about is the fact that these
newsgroups are distributed worldwide and what you see/don't see of a given
thread can easily be determined by what news server you connect to, how much
time has passed since the post/response was put up as well as how often the
news server's administrator chooses to maintain old conversation threads,
etc. (In other words - the different news servers' configurations.) What
Sam Hobbes sees may be 'more complete' than what Xandros sees. So Xandros
may not have repeated an answer as far as they could tell.
What Xandros doesn't seem to realize is that the text generated in this
whole thread - even without the argument between these two (Xandros and Sam)
is a 'colossal waste of time and bandwidth' to someone, somewhere - no
matter what. The argument may have a smaller audience - but given human
nature - it likely had a larger one. It is a waste in terms of the purpose
of this thread - which was to help the Original Poster with their query...
To that end - there have been several good responses. OpenOffice was echoed
a few times. Notepad+, Vim, Wordpad, Note Tab Light, Jarte and AbiWord...
Someone even posted a link to a few:
http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2007/PL2007TEXT.php. Just because - I will
throw in another: PSPad. Given how the original question was phrased and
presented - the OP wanted something that could open MS Word documents <-
which, dependent on the version of Word the file was saved with - would vary
& slim the option and would not include my second recommendation as far as I
know.
If one was to analyze the posting for consistency - it would be *this
branch* that would be an outcast - the start of a new conversation really -
with its only connection to the original thread being the starting point
(65+ hours after the initial posting of the query), the subject line and
some of the body staying in the responses and two of the 'participants' (now
three) having also responded in the original thread with valid suggestions
to the original question.
Xandros and Sam - I am glad you both could contribute to the conversation
(the original one) and I don't see a problem with an answer being repeated.
In fact - if I was the one looking for an answer and I noticed the same
answer popping up time and time again - it is a good bet I would choose that
one over one that I saw pop up only once in my quest. Especially when it
comes to asking for opinions and essentially - reviews. Sam, I don't
believe Xandros owes an apology to anyone. Xandros made a valid suggestion
to the OP. You may have seen that as a repetitive answer - and you may be
on 1200 baud dial-up for all I know and have nothing else to do but browse
the newsgroups and so your gripe might be 100% valid in your situation - but
there is no way Xandros would know your situation (unless there is something
else about this relationship between Xandros and Sam Hobbes we are not privy
to - possible...)
Enjoy your time on the Internet - and remember - *you* don't own it.
Sam Hobbs
"Shenan Stanley" <newsh...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:uuv6HKqP...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>
> What Sam Hobbs doesn't seem to realize or care about is the fact that
> these newsgroups are distributed worldwide and what you see/don't see of a
> given thread can easily be determined by what news server you connect to,
> how much time has passed since the post/response was put up as well as how
> often the news server's administrator chooses to maintain old conversation
> threads, etc. (In other words - the different news servers'
> configurations.) What Sam Hobbes sees may be 'more complete' than what
> Xandros sees. So Xandros may not have repeated an answer as far as they
> could tell.
Did you look at at the relevant times to determine if this comment is
relevant?
> What Xandros doesn't seem to realize is that the text generated in this
> whole thread - even without the argument between these two (Xandros and
> Sam) is a 'colossal waste of time and bandwidth' to someone, somewhere -
> no matter what. The argument may have a smaller audience - but given
> human nature - it likely had a larger one. It is a waste in terms of the
> purpose of this thread - which was to help the Original Poster with their
> query...
I was really hoping that the discussion would have ended instead of
increasing. I don't like continuing discussions such as this. I truly do not
and anyone that says differently just wants to be make trouble.
I will admit that I am more vulnerable to others to reacting to situations
such as this. That situation is when someone says something unnecessary in
response to a remark I make. If the previous message had not been seen then
Xandros could have said so. Insterad, Xandros said "So what?" and I answered
that question. There are infinite other possible responses.
There are a few people that get very defensive and usually respond in
strange ways that bait me into correcting them. I respond with facts, not
emotions but instead of admitting a mistake they respond with more bizarre
responses. They eventually resort to making personal attacks. If they just
did not say such bizarre things then the discussion would end.
I want this to end. Comments such as yours are more likely to inflame the
problem. Don't misunderstand me; I consider your remarks to be rational, I
am not saying you are being bizarre.
Again, I truly do not want discussions such as this to continue. Note that
my responses up to here have been brief. Xandros's initial response could
have been a simple acknowledgement that what I said is true; that is all
that would be needed to end the issue.
Perhaps I over-reacted in my comment about a duplicate answer. Most of the
forums I have been active in definitely request that we attempt to not
duplicate answers. For example:
High quality, low static: An answering "HOW-TO"
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1391750&SiteID=1
> If one was to analyze the posting for consistency - it would be *this
> branch* that would be an outcast - the start of a new conversation
> really - with its only connection to the original thread being the
> starting point (65+ hours after the initial posting of the query), the
> subject line and some of the body staying in the responses and two of the
> 'participants' (now three) having also responded in the original thread
> with valid suggestions to the original question.
I have recently seen other discussions branch of into discussions such as
alchohol and food, so if you are denying that such things happen then you
are not being realistic. Please understand that I truly intend to limit such
things from happening.
Ken Blake, MVP
<newsh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> What Sam Hobbs doesn't seem to realize or care about is the fact that these
> newsgroups are distributed worldwide and what you see/don't see of a given
> thread can easily be determined by what news server you connect to, how much
> time has passed since the post/response was put up as well as how often the
> news server's administrator chooses to maintain old conversation threads,
> etc. (In other words - the different news servers' configurations.) What
> Sam Hobbes sees may be 'more complete' than what Xandros sees. So Xandros
> may not have repeated an answer as far as they could tell.
It's a partial duplication of your comments, but since there is some
additional info, I'll throw in my standard response on why duplicate
answers often exist:
Individuals will often give a response similar or identical to what
others have already said, for a variety of good reasons:
1. Not everyone uses the same news server, and messages are propagated
to different servers at different times. A message that's available on
your server may not be available on everyone's server, so some people
may not yet have seen the other messages with the same answer.
2. Messages are usually downloaded in batches. Even if the message is
available on someone's server, it may not have yet been downloaded to
his computer. Again, some people may not yet have seen the other
messages with the same answer.
3. Someone may answer a question with what seems to you like the same
answer, but was meant to make an additional point, give a somewhat
different stress to a particular point, or to explain a particular
point in a better way.
4. Someone may answer a question with the same answer to lend weight
to a particular opinion.
5. Someone may, either through carelessness or haste, not realize that
a question has already been answered.
It hardly ever hurts to get the answer more than once, and often
helps. If I want to know something, and four people tell it to me, I'm
a lot more likely to believe it than if only one does.
Sam Hobbs
news:bq46m3lvmgst068ir...@4ax.com...
Again, if the response to my comment had been slightly different, then this
whole mess would not have existed.
Shenan Stanley
Xandros wrote:
> So what?
Shenan Stanley wrote:
<snipped>
> What Sam Hobbs doesn't seem to realize or care about is the fact
> that these newsgroups are distributed worldwide and what you
> see/don't see of a given thread can easily be determined by what
> news server you connect to, how much time has passed since the
> post/response was put up as well as how often the news server's
> administrator chooses to maintain old conversation threads, etc. (In other
> words - the different news servers' configurations.) What Sam Hobbes sees
> may be 'more complete' than what Xandros sees.
> So Xandros may not have repeated an answer as far as they could
> tell.
> What Xandros doesn't seem to realize is that the text generated in
> this whole thread - even without the argument between these two
> (Xandros and Sam) is a 'colossal waste of time and bandwidth' to
> someone, somewhere - no matter what. The argument may have a
> smaller audience - but given human nature - it likely had a larger
> one. It is a waste in terms of the purpose of this thread - which
> was to help the Original Poster with their query...
> To that end - there have been several good responses. OpenOffice
> was echoed a few times. Notepad+, Vim, Wordpad, Note Tab Light,
> Jarte and AbiWord... Someone even posted a link to a few:
> http://www.pricelesswarehome.org/2007/PL2007TEXT.php. Just because
> - I will throw in another: PSPad. Given how the original question
> was phrased and presented - the OP wanted something that could open
> MS Word documents <- which, dependent on the version of Word the
> file was saved with - would vary & slim the option and would not
> include my second recommendation as far as I know.
<snipped>
(see the link after the quoted initial posting above to read everything in
its entirety.)
Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
<snipped>
> Individuals will often give a response similar or identical to what
> others have already said, for a variety of good reasons:
>
> 1. Not everyone uses the same news server, and messages are
> propagated to different servers at different times. A message
> that's available on your server may not be available on everyone's
> server, so some people may not yet have seen the other messages
> with the same answer.
> 2. Messages are usually downloaded in batches. Even if the message
> is available on someone's server, it may not have yet been
> downloaded to his computer. Again, some people may not yet have
> seen the other messages with the same answer.
>
> 3. Someone may answer a question with what seems to you like the
> same answer, but was meant to make an additional point, give a
> somewhat different stress to a particular point, or to explain a
> particular point in a better way.
>
> 4. Someone may answer a question with the same answer to lend weight
> to a particular opinion.
>
> 5. Someone may, either through carelessness or haste, not realize
> that a question has already been answered.
>
> It hardly ever hurts to get the answer more than once, and often
> helps. If I want to know something, and four people tell it to me,
> I'm a lot more likely to believe it than if only one does.
Sam Hobbs wrote:
> Again, if the response to my comment had been slightly different,
> then this whole mess would not have existed.
Xandros may/may not have known their suggestion/answer to the OP (not you,
not I - but the OP who asked the question and was the one in need of
answers) was repetitive. In either case (whether or not the repetition was
known) <-- it hurt nothing to have a suggestion repeated - and may have lent
credence to previous answers in some ways to some individuals.
Therefore - it can be said (just as true as your statement) that if you had
not chosen to initially comment on Xandros' response, "this whole mess would
not have existed"... Correct?
One could say that you exhibited a lack of restraint first, followed by
Xandros and so on. This is merely an observation backed up by layout of the
thread and the many factors that could have contributed to the way it has
formed. If Xandros had given their answer (which is technically sound) and
no comment had been made about their answer - the temptation to respond to
said comment would not have existed and we would not have an off-topic
off-shoot of the conversation with almost as many responses as the original
question received but with little-to-no relevance to the true reasoning
behind the original posting.
This is not a contest. Being first to respond, being last to respond,
repeating another answer (partially or fully), etc. <-- in the end it
doesn't hurt anything, may help the original poster more than a single
response and may be completely an unintentional result of factors beyond the
control of the entity posting a response.
I see that later in this thread you felt it necessary to respond to someone
else that you had 'previously suggested' a solution. You have said in
another response, "Most of the forums I have been active in definitely
request that we attempt to not duplicate answers." That's fine - this is
not one of those forums (it's really a newsgroup that gets replicated
throughout the world and sometimes to forums whose administrators have
decided to do that) *and* one may never know their response is a repetitive
one. Pointing out a mistake or repetition (especially when the mistake is
not a mistake in the answer in reference to the original question) does
nothing but possibly incite those you are commenting about to retort. I
would bet that the very forums you describe also have some thoughts on such
things as well.
If nothing else - think about it this way... Your commenting on Xandros
answer being a repetitive one gave no further input to the original poster
about their problem and only seemingly caused you and Xandros some level of
discomfort (or venting as the case may be.)
Take to heart the wisdom from very link you posted (a forum posting you used
as an example of why you responded the way you did) - the very last
paragraph in fact...
"This all being said; we all make mistakes (I know I've made my share of
those in this forum), so don't be afraid to try. Just give a thought to the
previously mentioned points before hitting that "submit"-button -- that's
all we ask."
( The link you gave earlier:
http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1391750&SiteID=1 )
Keep responding, keep helping, keep having fun...
Sam Hobbs
>
> "This all being said; we all make mistakes (I know I've made my share of
> those in this forum), so don't be afraid to try. Just give a thought to
> the previously mentioned points before hitting that "submit"-button --
> that's all we ask."
>
> ( The link you gave earlier:
> http://forums.microsoft.com/MSDN/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=1391750&SiteID=1 )
Yes, exactly; thank you. There is a difference of opinion of what was or was
not a mistake, but using the above logic, if the duplication was a mistake,
then all that was necessary was an acknowledgement of that.
Assuming that the duplication was a not mistake, there are an abundance of
other possible responses.
My comment that there was duplication was a statement of fact. That was all;
there was not judgement or emotion. The response "So what?" is an emotional
response. I respnded by saying "So it helps to avoid duplicating previous
answers.". I still see not problem with that.
Then Xandros says "Attempting to police groups like this is a colossal waste
of time and bandwidth". I consider that to be unnecessary. I really, really
think that is where things got out of hand.
Carl
"ctowers" <cto...@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks for letting me know about that site; filled with great stuff.
Carl
Carl
I ended up downloading Open Office, which is much more than I need. I
think I will try to uninstall it and then just download the Open Office
word processor. I think that's possible. Car.
Sam Hobbs
>
> I ended up downloading Open Office, which is much more than I need. I
> think I will try to uninstall it and then just download the Open Office
> word processor. I think that's possible. Car.
I looked for that but I did not find a way to do that.
Carl
"Sam Hobbs" <sam...@social.rr.com_change_social_to_socal> wrote:
Hmmm, wonder if there is a way to uninstall pieces of Open Office so you
are left only with those you want. Think I'll check out their online
site. bob