Oct122012

Is there a lightweight and small word processing program that I can download for free?

Vicki Maye asks:

I would like to download a word processing program for free. I just want the word portion. I have tried to download Open Office and get about halfway and I get an error message. My computer is pretty slow, so I really just need the word portion. Is there a way to do it?
Thanks!


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System: Windows
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21 Answers -

0 votes

Dimal Chandrasiri

October 12, 2012

I can recommend you two products. both free and open source. try them.. I prefer lebre office.

AbiWord
http://www.abisource.com/

LibreOffice
http://www.libreoffice.org/

0 votes

ha14

October 12, 2012

Jarte freeware and there is also Jarte Plus shareware
http://www.jarte.com/

LyX

http://www.lyx.org/

0 votes

Harish Jonnalagadda

October 12, 2012

I have used LibreOffice at work and it works wonders. It has most of the functionality and is very lightweight. Since then, I have moved on to online editing and now use a combination of Google Docs and Zoho Show.

Zoho Show is by far my favorite these days as I just seem to like the minimalistic interface.

0 votes

Adrian Rea

October 12, 2012

Have you considered using an online application from say zoho, googledocs, thinkfree and many more. I think most are free and are better if you decent internet connection. .Worth a look

0 votes

Rajaa Chowdhury

October 13, 2012

Download the Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012 (8.1.0.3375) from http://www.kingsoftstore.com/software/kingsoft-office-freeware . The download size is only 39.1MB.

Alternatively, do not download anything and just use the MS Office Web Apps over the internet, it is again totally free. More details at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/web-apps/ .

0 votes

Aditya Roy

October 13, 2012

Instead of downloading a software, try using google docs/drive.
There are plenty of online substitutes, such as Zoho Writer, Crocodoc,Primary Pad, Edupad, Greendoc.

0 votes

Sam Kar

October 13, 2012

Following are my recommendation:

1. SoftMaker FreeOffice for Windows – no separate word
http://freeoffice.com/en/download/freeofficewindows

2. Kingsoft Writer Free 2012 – separate word
http://www.kingsoftstore.com/download-office

3. AbiWord-separate word
http://www.abisource.com/download/

PS: not all of the above provides ability to open/edit .docx documents

0 votes

Chris Reich

October 13, 2012

Wordgrinder is the smallest word processor I’ve found. It does not even require graphical user interface, meaning it runs in terminal mode or on computers not running a desktop environment.

I highly recommend AbiWord if you need to run in a graphical user interface environment with a mouse. If you’re running Mac OS X, then “Bean” is the preferred choice.

While both OpenOffice and LibreOffice are big downloads, when running any of the individual applications in the suite, only the part of the suite you’re using will be running. For example, while using the LibreWord, your computer will not use any of the code for LibreCalc or any of the other applications.

I hope this helps – Chris Reich; Rochester, New York

0 votes

Sushil Kathpalia

October 13, 2012

If you have good internet speed then try Microsoft online word processor..

0 votes

Paul Pruitt

October 14, 2012

Don’t forget WordPad that is already installed in Windows.

1 votes

Deekshith Allamaneni

October 14, 2012

If OpenOfice and LibreOffice are bulky for you, then “Abiword” is for you.

0 votes

Adrian Rea

October 15, 2012

If you get a chance Vicki, I am sure we would love to hear what you chose to do in the end.

0 votes

Pwince Khan

October 16, 2012

if you are regular internet user then you can choose google docs without downloading and working online

0 votes

Declan Lopez

October 17, 2012

libre office or abiword. you can also use google docs in offline mode if you have a gmail account

0 votes

Nathan Labbe

October 17, 2012

try note++ or notepad++

0 votes

Irshaad Abdool

October 17, 2012

windows live >> Documents >> New word document
:)

0 votes

howard wolowitz

October 18, 2012

why dont you use portable apps?

0 votes

howard wolowitz

October 18, 2012

they are usually small and fast

0 votes

Dave Rimmer

October 29, 2012

I have Kingsoft Writer and it#s quite good and a small download there are a couple of links to it already form a few people, I recommend it.

0 votes

Vicki Maye

November 5, 2012

I really appreciate all the responses I received on the word processing programs.
I decided to download AbiWord. I didn’t have any problems downloading the program.
If I ever have any questions I will definitely come here to get the information.
Thanks again for all the help,
Vicki

0 votes

Timothy Clark0

December 25, 2012

OpenOffice isn’t all that small, but it’s just as good as word!