Word processors.

[Justme]

I've been using MS Word since I got this laptop, but I was wondering if there was a better one out there, that does spell and grammar check as well as have a fairly good dictionary and thesaurus. I've got about a year old laptop with Windows7 installed. Thank you.

 

[Steerpike]

Depends on what you mean by better.' LibreOffice is full-featured and free. Abiword has fewer features, but has what most people need and is light on system resources. I like fullscreen writers like FocusWriter. There are also good programs made just for writers like Scrivener and Liquid Story Binder. Yarny is a nice free online program for writers.

 

[Jabrosky]

I'm using Scrivener right now. It's handy for planned stories such as the one I'm writing.

 

[Penpilot]

I'm a scrivener man too. The windows version isn't as refined as the Mac version, so I find that I have to used the net for my thesaurus needs, but it's a small annoyance, and the feature will get implemented sooner or later. Other programs I've used are yWriter (it's free), Write it now, liquid story binder.

I like scrivener because using it can be as simple or as complicated as you want, if that makes any sense. The key features I like are the note carding/ cork board feature, the ability to version your scenes individually with the ability to revert back and forth, the ability to keep all your notes and research bundles with the actual manuscript, and finally the ability to compile a manuscript based on specific choices you set into various formats. For example you can write your manuscript single spaced, with in-line annotations to yourself, in what ever font you want, and when you use the compile function, it will export the manuscript into say a word doc, double spaced, in courier font, without the annotations if you choose, with a cover page, and if you want chapter headings.

 

[Steerpike]

I've only used the linux version of Scrivener. I think LSB for Windows is good for that kind of program as well. They both seem to get the job done. Lately, I'm just using a text editor.

 

[Christopher Wright]

The windows version of Scrivener works pretty well under Wine.

 

[Steerpike]

Christopher: Do you know if it differs in functionality from the Linux version?

 

[Christopher Wright]

Well if you're running a 64 bit system you can't use the spellchecker in the Linux version, because the spellchecker uses 32 bit libraries. If you install the 32 bit libraries (tricky, but possible) you get rudimentary spellchecking functionality but it won't remember words. So for example if you have an exotic name of a location that you've added to a dictionary, it won't actually stick and will be flagged as a misspelled word every time.

The windows version gives you spellcheck. The off-side is font rendering isn't as good. But... you get spellcheck.

 

[Steerpike]

Well if you're running a 64 bit system you can't use the spellchecker in the Linux version, because the spellchecker uses 32 bit libraries. If you install the 32 bit libraries (tricky, but possible) you get rudimentary spellchecking functionality but it won't remember words. So for example if you have an exotic name of a location that you've added to a dictionary, it won't actually stick and will be flagged as a misspelled word every time.

The windows version gives you spellcheck. The off-side is font rendering isn't as good. But... you get spellcheck.

Ah...yeah I forgot about the spell check function. I didn't install the 32 bit libraries because I didn't care enough about that functionality to have those libraries on my system. I haven't used it for a while but I may get back into it a bit. It is very handy for organizing a work.

 

[Shockley]

While I'm a recent convert to the legal pad and pen, when I do write on the computer I tend to prefer OpenOffice. Simple and free - I don't get distracted with extra features.

 

[Steerpike]

OpenOffice is a good program. I jumped to LibreOffice when many of the OpenOffice developers moved to it. It appears to me to be more actively developed than OO at this point.

 

[Justme]

Thank you. I'm testing them all and will see what works out for me. Thank you.