Word Processors
A wordprocessor is a
digital typewriter. A supercharged typewriter on steroids with automatic
transmission and air conditioning. If you haven't used a word processor,
it would be hard to appreciate how much it facilitates the process of writing.
The main advantages over your trusty old Remington:
- you can edit your text after it's been written,
- you can correct mistakes or rewrite text.
- you can cut and paste from one place to another.
- you can change the format of the text, drop in pictures, tables, columns, numbered or bulleted paragraphs, symbols.
- It just goes on an on, untold facilities to make your deathless prose easier to get on paper..
It checks your spelling – but doesn't pick up on homonyms – in American, British, Aussie or Kiwi English or many other English brands and in many other languages. If you don't throttle it, it'll check your grammar as well. I've no desire for an American programmer (no offence) to tell me the difference between which and that, so the grammar checker dies. Along with the Microsoft's Office Assistant.
Windows comes with a very basic word processor, WordPad, as part of the Windows program. Five minutes with a real word processor and you won't be satisfied with that.
Special Functions
You can:
- create sophisticated text and numeric tables with built in calculations
- from one document automatically send a form letter to many recipients by merging details from your address book, including envelopes.
- create sophisticated publications, greeting cards, labels, business cards......
- include headers, footers, automatic page and section numbering
- create numbered or bulleted lists, nested if required, in any number of formats.
- use special characters, symbols, graphics and a near infinite variety of text formats.
- use columns and use different arrangements in different sections.
It goes on and on.
The Choices
If you're buying a Word Processor, it's usually most cost effective to obtain it as part of an Office Suite. They're covered here.
The most powerful and also the most expensive is Microsoft Word. WordPerfect isn't far behind. The totally free OpenOffice.org 3.0 is easily good enough for home use and is used by many businesses and government departments, large and small.
I only have one complaint about the latest version or two of Word, Office and Windows generally. As installed they're too intrusive. Little boxes keep popping up and trying to take over your life. "It looks as though you're trying to....." You can disable all this garbage, but it takes some research and effort.
That, however, is a small price to pay for a very powerful and useful program.
If you're on a tight budget, try OpenOffice.org, http://www.openoffice.org/ and if you find it's not adequate to your needs, upgrade later. More about OpenOffice.org below.
Learning Word or WordPerfect:
or any other powerful word processor. If you're a novice, you need a textbook. It's all there in the Help Menu and on-line tutorials, but for most of us there's no substitute for a book. If you can't cope with textbooks, and I know some people can't, do a course. There are often free courses available at Community Colleges, Polytechs and organisations like SeniorNet.
Academic Prices
If you're a student or teacher, or if you're learning and are not intending to use the software for commercial pursuits, you can purchase Academic Versions and Home versions of Microsoft Office and many other programs. These are the same software, but much cheaper than the full versions.
Lots of info about Word Processors here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_processor
Microsoft Word (*.doc) Compatibility
Do you need to send Word documents (files of the format *.doc) to people who don't have Word on their computers?
Here are some ways around to do it:
Rich Text Format
While the document is open in Word save it as a Rich Text File (*.rtf file) — Click File/Save As..., then in the pop up Dialogue Box, from the Save as Type drop down arrow, select Rich Text File (*.rtf). Then click Save.
Send the *.rtf file instead of the *.doc one.
The recipient can read it in WordPad.
The Microsoft Word Viewer
The recipient can download the free viewer from here: Microsoft Word Viewer. This is a 12MB file (about an hour to download on a dial-up connection) but is very useful if it's going to be needed often.
The program allows the user to read Word documents but not to create them.
But wait, there's more!
Microsoft Word 2007 has a new and improved file format: docx. This format is more efficient resulting in *.docx files half the size of the old *.doc format. Unfortunately docx files aren't readable in older versions of Microsoft Word without the Microsoft Office 2007 compatibility pack. Never fear, you can download it right here.
OpenOffice.org
The recipient can install OpenOffice.org (OOo). This is an Open Source (i.e. free) suite of office programs which is almost as good as Microsoft Office and will read or create Word and Excel files easily. One exception. OOo 3.0 can read the new MS Word docx format, but at this time it can't save documents in that format.
Unlike the Open Source Operating System, Linux, you don't have to be a geek to install and use OpenOffice.org. It's an excellent program. There is a such a thing as a free lunch. Get it here: http://www.openoffice.org/. If it's too big for a dial-up download (64MB takes about 6 hours!) you can often find it on computer magazine free disks. If you're on a really tight budget, try recent magazine back copies at your library. At my library the librarians rip off the disks. They must be on tight budgets too.
You can also find an OOo CD distributor here: http://distribution.openoffice.org/cdrom/#cdrom . There will be a $5 — $10 charge to cover costs. The charge depends upon your country and how swish the packaging is.
Find out more about Openoffice.org on my blog — click right here. Please feel free to leave a comment while you're there!
