Addendum: This article was originally written in 2002, so the features and licensing of these programs may have changed. If anything, they're probably more stable and better-featured. All are fine programs, so you may just want to try them to see which one suits you best.

You’re a writer, student, or business professional that needs a powerful word processor for personal or business use. You want something that is compatible with Microsoft Word documents, yet you can’t shell out $99 or more for a copy of Word. Fortunately, there are several free word processors and office suites available that give you the essential features you’ll need, plus they’re compatible with Microsoft Office documents. We will examine the features, advantages and disadvantages of several free word processors and office suites, including AbiWord, OpenOffice.org, 602Pro PC Suite and EasyOffice.

All of these word processors perform standard tasks such as paragraph formatting, headers and footers, columns, real-time spellcheck, thesaurus, auto text, auto save, bullets and numbering, fields, word count, bookmarks, picture insertion, HTML formatting, styles and other advanced text formatting features.

Abiword

When you first open Abiword, you’ll notice the design is clean, simple and elegant. The icons are snazzy and the interface is professionally done. Abiword eschews the advanced options of most word processors, and presents only the most essential functions on the toolbar. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with other word processors can be productive with Abiword immediately.

Abiword is an open source, multi-platform word processor, and after several years in beta, version 1.0 has been completed. One major feature of Abiword is it’s language support. Abiword supports bi-directional text, and is easily configured for languages that use right-to-left script. Abiword also supports custom plugins and scripts. Thesaurus, encyclopedia, dictionary, translator and image manipulation plugins are currently available.

One major drawback to Abiword that may limit some users is its lack of advanced features. Only the most essential word processing functions are available (It’s still better than Wordpad though!). Since Abiword is under constant development, many minor features are not fully implemented and advanced features such as tables are planned for future versions (Limited table support is possible with version 1.0). A few minor bugs may also be present; for example, my copy crashed when I tried to reduce the zoom under 100%.

One feature that I found lacking was the ability to drag-and-drop selected pieces of text (having to rely instead on cut and paste). Abiword can open most Microsoft Word documents, but cannot save in that format. As befitting most open source projects, the help file is spotty and incomplete, though this shouldn’t be much of a problem since the program is so easy to use.

Despite it’s shortcomings, Abiword is a functional, elegant and easy to use word processor. As development progresses, more features will become available and stability should improve. If you want a simple, elegant word processor that just works, Abiword may be for you.

Download Abiword Here

OpenOffice.org

Several years ago, Sun Microsystems decided it needed an alternative to Microsoft Office. When German software manufacturer StarDivision was acquired in 1999, Sun took over development of its Star Office suite. Star Office 5.2 was released in 2000 and made available as a free download. Sun now charges for Star Office 6, but – following in Netscape's footsteps – Sun has released the source code for Star Office and uses open-source efforts in it's own commercial releases.

OpenOffice.org is the free, open-source version of Star Office, available for personal and business use. While Star Office 6 retains some exclusive features, OpenOffice has all you'll need as an alternative to Microsoft Office. Writer and Calc replace Word and Excel respectively. Impress is a Powerpoint clone; Draw is a vector graphics program, and Math assists with formulas.

OpenOffice Writer is by far the most impressive of the free word processors available. It handles Microsoft file formats quite well, and has a host of sophisticated features that are comparable to Microsoft Office. The most obvious and helpful feature is the intelligent AutoCorrect feature. AutoCorrect will complete frequently used words, replace commonly misspelled words, fix capitalization, add smart quotes, and much more. OpenOffice's integrated database allows you to incorporate a wide variety of data into your documents.

Writer supports objects, tables, footnotes, label printing, chapters, and includes drawing tools, a hyphenation search, changes and revisions tracking, table of contents/index generation, and a mail merge feature. Other unique features include macros, cross references, notes and a bibliography database. Some of these features are a tad difficult to use though, and will require some setup.

Along with the rest of the OpenOffice suite, Writer has all you need to be productive and compatible with Microsoft Office. The only considerable drawback to the OpenOffice suite is it's large download size (50MB) for those on dial-up connections.

Download page at OpenOffice.org

602Text

602Pro PC Suite is a free productivity suite for Windows that includes the 602Text word processor, 602Tab spreadsheet, 602Photo image editor, and the 602Album image browser/organizer. A free version for personal use contains many practical features, but advanced features such as mail merge, bar code support, text speech and fax are only available in the commercial version.

602Text is a full-featured word processor that includes sophisticated table support, objects, auto text, label printing, chapters, footnotes, changes tracking, drawing tools, a split-window view and more. 602Text is the only program on our list to feature an outline view to aid in creating an index and table of contents.

My copy of 602Text would repeatedly mis-size the standard Letter dimensions in Page Setup, leading to many pages of misprinted documents. The spell check isn't very intelligent either, frequently stumbling over apostrophed words and common suffixes. Nevertheless, if you're looking for a simple word processor/spreadsheet combo with included image tools, 602Text may be worth checking out.

Download page for 602Pro PC Suite

Easyword

Easyword is part of the EasyOffice suite, which contains a veritable toolbox of programs such as a calculator, zip utility, accounting program and contact manager, along with the requisite word processor, spreadsheet and presentation tools. Easyword is also available as a 9MB stand-alone program for those who choose not to download the 45MB office suite.

Easyword is strictly for personal use, as the click-through nag screen at startup informs you. The interface is a Frankenstein monster of sorts: the scrollbars sport a sleek, modern Mozilla-style interface, while the toolbars are cluttered with blocky, low-res icons. Easyword features an easy and advanced interface mode. The easy mode shows large toolbar buttons with text, and a Show All Buttons option crowds the screen with every conceivable button for the menu-phobic.

The menus are decorative and chock full of options. Contrary to accepted interface design, the menus are littered with help items and program preferences, and many of the menu entries are represented by entire sentences instead of short descriptions. The interface is clearly designed for higher-resolution screens, as many of the toolbars and menus won't fit on an 800x600 or smaller screen.

Despite the clunky interface, Easyword is loaded with many innovative features. A multi-generation backup system insures that you'll have several copies of your document available in case of a mistake. A heuristic file search makes it easier to find the document you're looking for. Easyword's chapter support allows you to easily break your document into chapters and rearrange at will. Powerpaste saves selected pieces of text to a multi-item clipboard, much like an auto-text. Easyword reads and writes PDF documents, and features a free dictation utility to read your document back to you.

Other features include an integrated document bar, dictionary, auto capitalization, auto correct, split-window view, mail merge, footnotes, tables, label printing, object support, table of contents/index generation and more. Drag-and-drop text editing is not supported.

The cluttered interface may turn-off some users, especially those with lower resolutions. But Easyword is a functional, stable word processor with a wealth of innovative and useful features, and it's unique charm may appeal to certain users.

Easy Office Full Suite (28MB)

Feature Comparison Chart

This chart compares the extra features of each word processor. Standard features included in all programs and features included only in commercial versions are not listed here.