# Word Processors Other Than Word? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 21, 2016, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968 "2016-06-21T16:57:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2016, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/41 "2016-06-24T08:17:32Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I meant, how does it fit into the forked lineage? The same except in exchange for vaguely described extra features you get Mac smugness and payment options :/. Do you mean what date did they split? I’m having trouble finding that. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2016, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/42 "2016-06-24T23:06:32Z")
I use a range of text manipulation software. LibreOffice - it’s free and it mostly gets out of your way. I use it a lot. It’s not perfect though: I can’t get its macro recorder to work with the Format-\>Page dialog box for example. Then again, I can’t do the same task in MS Word 2007 either. When I change fonts, I have to scroll through a long list every time: it doesn’t summarize the latest fonts used on top, unlike MS Word. It’s gotten faster, but doesn’t boot up instantaneously in Windows. Recommended for the OP. Textpad - This is a text editor: I use this more than I use LibreOffice. Good for putting together message board posts and coding. It doesn’t format: that’s its great strength and weakness. Right tool for the job and all that. If you paste text in from the web then copy it, a lot of the formatting can be usefully stripped out. You can also do complicated replacements using regular expressions. Notepad++ is also popular and has more features. PolyEdit, Cryptedit: Faster and more lightweight than Word or LibreOffice. Saves in .rtf. Great for simply formatted documents. Not a lot of overhead. I use this for creating notes to myself, when I want the option of using bold, italics or underlines which text editors like Textpad can’t provide. I see their website is down now. Uh oh: I really like this program. [PolyEdit - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PolyEdit) [http://polyedit.com/](http://polyedit.com/) Word 2007: I still use this, though less than the products above. Great if someone else want the document in .docx style. I understand their equation editing has improved. Excel is a great spreadsheet program, and Word comes free with it. LyX: Good equation editing. WYSIWYM: What you see is what you mean. To be honest though, I’m planning on biting the bullet and learning LaTeX. > **[LyX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyx)** > > LyX (styled as LYX; pronounced \[ˈlɪks\]) is an open source, graphical user interface document processor based on the LaTeX typesetting system. Unlike most word processors, which follow the WYSIWYG ("what you see is what you get") paradigm, LyX has a WYSIWYM ("what you see is what you mean") approach, where what shows up on the screen roughly depicts the semantic structure of the page and is only an approximation of the document produced by TeX. > Since LyX relies on the typesetting system of LaTe... ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/43 "2016-06-24T23:14:40Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Small correction: Real men use TECO as the text editor and RUNOFF as the markup language. 😉 I still say that TECO is the best non-WYSIWYG text editor that ever existed. Its macros could do absolutely anything with amazing brevity and simplicity. I did my dissertation on Multics which did not have TECO - but I agree with you based on my experience with a PDP-11 which did. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2016, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/44 "2016-06-24T23:17:21Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > LibreOffice is the better developed branch of the old OpenOffice. Oracle took over Open Office when it bought Sun, and given Oracle’s well know support of open source ( :dubious: ) you can see why LibreOffice got spun off. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2016, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/45 "2016-06-24T23:20:30Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Textpad - This is a text editor: I use this more than I use LibreOffice. Good for putting together message board posts and coding. It doesn’t format: that’s its great strength and weakness. Right tool for the job and all that. If you paste text in from the web then copy it, a lot of the formatting can be usefully stripped out. You can also do complicated replacements using regular expressions. Notepad++ is also popular and has more features. I use xemacs for this purpose. Special bonus - it has support for formatting of lots of programming languages. I find many Perl syntax and other errors during editing when the formatting gets screwed up. And Windows and Linus versions are nicely compatible. ---
**Author:** ![albino\_manatee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/albino_manatee/32/2_2.png) [@albino\_manatee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/albino_manatee)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/46 "2016-06-25T00:53:55Z")
**jarte** … basic features … can save-as \*.doc or \*.rtf file … can also export to \*.pdf or \*.html format. ftr … the \*.pdf format contains not an image … but actual formatted text. in retrospect, if i recall accurately … there is a _“microsoft office converter-pack”_ that works, hand in hand, with jarte. the software is only 10mb in size … optional converter is 6½mb. ---
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/47 "2016-06-25T01:12:53Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I’ve used the free OpenOffice for years, with good results. I have OpenOffice specifically because it’s free and can open Word documents, but I do all of my writing in Word Perfect. It seems like older lawyers tend to use Word Perfect, and younger, possibly more tech savvy, lawyers tend to use Word. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/48 "2016-06-25T02:56:24Z")
Historically, my go-to word processors have been… MacWrite 4.6 / MacWrite 5.0 on Systems 3 thru 6 MacWrite II / MacWrite Pro on Systems 6 thru 9 AppleWorks 6 on MacOS 9 / MacOS X up through 10.4 by then I was no longer a college student and seldom had need for a word processor. Things I used to use a word processor for, I now did in a text editor most of the time. I did nevertheless obtain Nisus Writer Pro when it became available under Mac OS X. I have never voluntarily used Microsoft Word except when I had to send the final product to folks who expected MS Word format (and where the document contained enough complexity to make it problematic to just write it in another word processor and then convert it afterwards). I hate Word. It’s bloody awful. Details upon request. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2016, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/49 "2016-06-25T05:39:24Z")
I use Word at work (MS Office is the standard software for most Government of Canada departments), and also have it at home, largely for Outlook, Excel and Access. I still mostly use WordPerfect at home, largely because I gave up on trying to get labels and greeting cards to format correctly in Word. Reveal codes is an indispensable tool, especially for cleaning up formatting codes. I use Word at home only for things I need to share with other users. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/50 "2016-06-27T00:01:13Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Word 2007: I still use this, though less than the products above. Great if someone else want the document in .docx style. I understand their equation editing has improved. Excel is a great spreadsheet program, and Word comes free with it. Also, word has a serviceable spell-check and grammar-check. They are helpful though they should be used as a tool and not relied upon. Libre Office also has a spell check, but my impression is that their grammar functionality isn’t as good. Not that MS Word’s is that great. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/51 "2016-06-27T10:51:08Z")
The only time I’ve ever used grammar check is for comic relief after I’ve finished a long, grueling essay assignment. Once, I even saw a grammar checker fall into an infinite loop, where if you took its suggestion, it immediately suggested that you change it back to what you had before. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968/52 "2016-06-27T21:37:12Z")
## Yeah, Word’s grammar check has a very high false negative and false positive rate. Misses stuff and signals false flags. It occasionally picks up actual errors of mine though, so it isn’t totally worthless IMO. But it’s nowhere near good enough to persuade me to use it more than I do: I put it in 4th-5th place. Reinforcing albino\_manatee’s point, a lightweight word processor is nice to have. I use Polyedit: judging from the [wiki entry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jarte), jarte has a similar philosophy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/word-processors-other-than-word/757968.md?page=2)