Windows has plenty good word processors available, but for the majority of users, the free LibreOffice should serve any word processing needs you have. More »
The Mac is not lacking in word processing apps, and many aim to serve a specific niche. Nonetheless, we feel Mac OS X’s TextEdit is your best option thanks to its focused and helpful feature set, good document format support, and free price tag. More »
There are free desktop alternatives (OpenOffice) and online alternatives (Google Docs), but Microsoft Word remains the king of the word-processing pack. Here’s five tricks for working with text in Word that you may not know about but that can help make your life simpler. More »
Windows only: SoftMaker Office is a free, lightweight office suite consisting of two fast, simple applications. The first, TextMaker, is a Microsoft Word-compatible word processor that runs lean (using around 12MB of RAM on my system) and is surprisingly feature rich. The second, called PlanMaker, is an Excel-compatible spreadsheet app that likewise offers impressive functionality, speed, and an equally light footprint. As if all that wasn’t good enough, SoftMaker Office can run off your thumb drive, so it’s a no-brainer when you need to open a Word or Excel document on someone else’s computer. If you need an occasional word processor or spreadsheet app but don’t need all the extra bloat of Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org, or even previously mentioned Go-oo, this one’s worth a try. SoftMaker Office is a free download, Windows only. Thanks johnsmith1234! SoftMaker Office 2006
Word processors might check your spelling and point out obvious grammar problems, but they can’t do much about ambiguity, inappropriate tone or incorrect vocabulary. If you want a real live human to fix up the awkward prose in that assignment or work report, Edit My Text, which offers a pay-as-you-go editing service based in Australia, might fit the bill. Pricing starts at $5.95 to edit 250 words through to $49.95 for a 3000-word piece, with a promised turnaround of 24 hours during the week. We haven’t tested it out ourselves, but Lifehacker reader Sasha says it delivers on what it promises: “Heaps of people who don’t write well would find this a God-send!” [Edit My Text]
Microsoft Word and I have a love/hate relationship that consists of mostly hate—but one feature that does help redeem the bloated word processor is Track Changes. When you’re passing a Word document back and forth between, say, author and editor, enable track changes to make Word keep detailed notes about who’s done what to the document. Then, the boss can select edits and choose “Accept Changes” to make ‘em final. As I slog through the last stage of editing the new Lifehacker book, my various editors and I have been tracking changes all the way. After the jump, get a screenshot of track changes in action.Note: this is Microsoft Word running on my Mac.
You can see there that deletes are shown with strikethroughs, and inserts are underlined. You can also select text and add a comment to it—comments are displayed in the bottom pane.
Tracking changes is one of those advanced Word features most users probably don’t touch, but when it comes to version control, it’s really useful. How and in what context do you track changes in Word? Let us know in the comments.
How to track and manage changes in a Word 2002 and a Word 2003 document [Microsoft Help and Support] Track changes while you edit in Microsoft Word 2007OpenOffice.org has identified a highly critical security vulnerability in its open source word processing package OpenOffice 2.3 and prior versions.
In the security advisory OpenOffice.org warned of a security vulnerability in HSQLDB, the default database engine shipped with OpenOffice.org 2 (all versions) which could allow attackers to execute arbitrary static Java code by manipulating database documents to be opened by a user.
OpenOffice.org has asked users to update to version 2.3.1 which is unaffected by the security vulnerability in the previous versions. You can download OpenOffice 2.3.1 here.
Apple announces the Boot Camp beta will expire this month when Leopard’s released. To keep using Boot Camp, you’ve got to pony up for the OS 10.5 upgrade when it becomes available. More »
