One of TC’s favorite freeware programs just got better. This former Freeware Pick, deserves another look, if you’re looking for a great free word processor with lots of extras.
Oh yes. There are a plethora of free office applications out there. We know all about them. Open Office, SS, Google Docs, and many others. Microsoft Office is facing stiff competition. You’d think they’d lower the price. But no, not Microsoft – they’re going to raise the price. Why not? They think that people like Office so well that they’ll give up their first born for it. They won’t, but Microsoft lives in the 1990’s – before Google and before money got tight. “What me worry?” says Bill Gates. Microsoft keeps changing Office so that you can’t read new Office documents with your old Office program unless you download a converter. It’s sort of like traveling to Europe – you need a converter so you don’t blow up your hair dryer.
I have Office 2003. I don’t plan on buying Office 2010. The only thing I use in Office is Word. I have used Excel about twice. I have nothing to spread on a spreadsheet anymore so I don’t use it. PowerPoint’s nice if you’re trying to impress some girl or guy. Since I’m a guy I don’t want to impress guys – and I’m too old to worry about impressing girls – well sometimes.
Anyway…
But I really don’t like Word too much – it keeps correcting my grammar. Can you imagine the nerve? So when I stumbled on Jarte a couple of years ago, I was impressed. It leaved my grammar alone and I was free to express myself good. I mean all those stupid grammar rules? Who need those? I was impressed enough that I chose it for our Freeware Pick then. And I still use Jarte for a lot of things, and the new version is even better – it’s fully compatible with Windows 7 32bit and 64bit as well as all previous versions of Windows.
OK, I’m getting carried away here, you just care about what it is, what it does and where to get it. What you really care about –because you’re cheap — is that it’s free. But free is not good enough for you, is it? You want cheap and you want good. Cheap and good are hard to find. Trust me.
Jarte is a Windows word processor that can read and save your word processing gems in Word format which is .doc or .docx depending on the version of MS Office you spent $400 to buy. I would have said $400 for, but that would have been ending a sentence with a preposition and Word doesn’t like that – plus $400 for sounds kind of clumsy.
So what does Jarte do? Duh! It’s a word processor. If you don’t know what a word processor is, you don’t need one. Trust me on that. Here’s a short list of features. If you like these features, great, if not, go plunk down $400 for MS Office, I don’t care!
- Fully compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7
- Tabbed interface to provide easy access to open documents
- Opens files with file extension RTF, file extension DOC, and file extension DOCX
- Fast start up
- Small size, efficient operation, and compact display (perfect word processor for netbooks)
- Hot Connect lets you use Jarte with other programs
- Optional “Clickless Operation” feature greatly reduces clicking
- Can be run as a portable word processor directly from a USB flash drive, CD, or DropBox folder
- High quality spell checker with custom user dictionary
- Included spelling dictionaries: English (American, British, & Canadian), Spanish, French, German, Italian, and Dutch
- Link to, or import, your existing custom Word spelling dictionaries
- Support for templates
- Export to HTML or PDF
- Single click bookmarking and bookmark navigation
- Send documents via e-mail
- Full drag and drop file support
- Instant access to recently opened documents and folders
- Instant access to documents and folders designated as favorites
- Adjustable document zoom
- Detailed Help Documentation
Editing Functions
- Insert pictures, hyperlinks, tables, page breaks, equations and other embeddable objects
- Quick Clips option provides easy copy, cut and paste capability using the mouse scroll wheel button
- Standard clipboard functions plus a Paste Plain function which strips HTML and RTF formatting from clipboard text before pasting
- Multi-level undo and redo functions
- Sorting
Jarte has many more features than just the few listed above. You can see them all here.
If you’re the kind of person who spent $400 for MS Office and realize now you could have bought a whole computer for that much money, and you feel bilked; feel bilked no more. In about 4 months MS Office 2010 will make all your old documents obsolete and you’ll have a chance to tell Microsoft where to place Office 2010. Not really. I don’t know if MS Office 2010 will render your old documents obsolete. They’ll probably have converters to convert MS Office 2003 docs into MS Office 2010 docs – and another converter to convert them into MS Office 2007 or whatever it’s called. You’ll be converting the converted ad nauseum – they really want you to plunk down $400 and avoid all the conversions.
If you’re tired of reading my screed and just want the darn word processor – or if you want to learn more about Jarte – or if you’d like to download it just to get me to shut up, please visit this page. Jarte is cheap. Jarte is good. Jarte does what a word processor should. It’s our freeware pick of the week and you know what that means!
I’m tired of typing.
DETAILS:
Jarte
For Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Windows 7
32bit and 64bit
2.9 MB Windows Installer
What is it? A lightweight Windows Word Processor
I like it (Jarte). I’ve been using Microsoft Works Word Processor for years…..I’ve saved maybe 100 *.wps files. Is there some easy way I can convert those files to read/write them in Jarte? All those files, except a few business card files, are just simple text files that could have been saved as *.rtf or *.txt.
I answered my own question. My Works word processor will convert a *.wps file to *.rtf, *.txt, AND *.doc (Word format, preferred in most cases). I even converted a business card file and then edited it using Jarte! Thank you for your lead to Jarte!
Jarte is nice and it’s quick. I use it for copying/pasting articles from the internet and creating short files that I won’t keep for long.
I have the same version of MS Office you do, 2003. I use Excel and Access, the one app of the suite which I deem irreplaceable. I’m through purchasing MS Office. I despise bossy Word that doesn’t keep its settings and barges in, taking control of what I’m doing. In newer versions there’s that irritating panel that jumps up to “help” me paste. If I could hurt it, I’d slap it down.
I tried Open Office – three times. Uninstalled it – three times. I’ve been reading about Libre Office and plan on giving that a try. In the meantime I use AShampoo’s Office suite – which is pretty good, but I expect Libre Office will be better.
Having said all that, I may as well add this: My favorite word processor is Atlantis. Its one big drawback is that it has no table capabilities, and the developer continues to ignore requests and complaints about it from users.