Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Minimalist "Word Processors"

WebWorker Daily has published a list of free minimalist word processors.

A few of the commenters were nostalgic about the good ole' DOS days, while others preferred the simplicity of Microsoft's standard Notepad.

As a collector of this type of software, the article was interesting to me because of the number of online choices (which frankly I think are a real pain). I also found myself agreeing with one of the commenters who said that a couple of the apps were a stretch to call a "word processor." These are properly text editors, in most cases. (There is a previous WebWorker article on favourite word processor, but even that thread includes some text editors.)

I'll probably return to this topic at some point in the future, but for now, I'll say this:
1. RoughDraft is by far my favorite of the bunch. I use it daily. Someday I'll get around to posting about how great it is.
2. Abiword is so overrated. I don't know why, but I just don't like it. So much for "everyone's favorite..."
3. If you are looking for a fullscreen text editor geared toward writing, try Q-10. It's got a timer, word and page counts, and dozens of other features that I don't have time to mention now. I've been toying with it in my "spare time," but it beats all the fullscreen choices mentioned here. Windows only.

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