The computer applications are free to use. Some programs may have restrictions of usage. Before using any software on a corporate or business computer check the restrictions of the product and check your company policy. All of the software listed here is free for use by home users.
Office/Home: Bullzip PDF Writer The Bullzip PDF Printer works as a Microsoft Windows printer and allows you to write PDF documents from virtually any Microsoft Windows application. This program is FREEWARE with limitations, which means that it is FREE for personal and commercial use up to 10 users. Link: http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php
OpenOffice.org - OpenOffice.org. The basics of office document creation are well covered with an excellent module for each; word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, a desktop database, and some other gimmicks are all well worth exploring. All of the modules are easy to learn and if you've ever used any other office software, it's a doddle. With the exception of the very new MS document format for which free translators are available, it handles all the same document types and you'll have no problem exchanging documents with MS Office.
- Link: http://www.openoffice.org
Jarte
- If you don't write novels, reports and documentations all the time, but like to use a Word Processor for letters, memos and how-to's, you will love
 - It's lightweight so loads in a jiffy, and deserves the word "courageous" for its clean fresh looks. Task oriented is in; and menus are out. “Even Microsoft eventually felt the same need and Office 2007's "ribbon" interface was the result.” (Bob Flora, Carolina Road Software)
- In “compact layout” you're not more than one click away from everything you want to do. That is if you've activated 'clickless operations', meaning that when you hover over a button, the options pop up and await your command (if necessary in a nifty tool bar).
- There's also a 'classic layout', and a 'minimal layout', with all the nice menus I am so used to. With just a tiny little bit of very easy editing (“settings.ini”), you can chose another 'minimal layout'.
- There is a wealth of options. All the formatting you want: fonts, paragraphs, page, header and footer, there's an outline function, indenting, outdenting, the format brush to easily transfer formatting, and only one feature I miss: format styles.
- Some solutions are as simple as clever, e.g. when you mark a word and click the 'Encyclopedia' button, Jarte looks that word up in the Wikipedia. Correspondingly 'Dictionary' and 'Thesaurus' take you online, unless of course, you installed WordWeb, a free thesaurus that fits in seamlessly.
- "Word is a great word processor and may always be the tool of choice for large projects that require elaborate formatting, but for many tasks Word's size and complexity can it feel like you're driving a tank to the grocery store.” (Bob Flora, Carolina Road Software)
- Nevertheless Jarte indulges with templates, tables, you can insert pictures and documents, manage files and folders without ever leaving Jarte. There's the 'Recents' menu and there's 'Favorites', which you define yourself to easily access your documents. Jarte remembers your clipboard, let's you take screen shots, offers statistics on the number of pages, lines, words and characters, lot's of ways to customize the software.
- If collaboration is your concern, don't be concerned. Jarte reads Rich Text Files (rtf) Word documents (doc) and even Word 2007 (docx). You can print all that, but even more intriguing and laudable is that you can export your document as a PDF-file. This feature depends on utilities like PDFCreator which you can downoad from here.
- You can install it on an USB-stick and take it with you, have it on stand-by, minimize it to your system tray, it takes less than 10 MB RAM, and it is there, when you need it. The price is priceless, and if you feel like supporting the crew, buy a license but be aware because “rather than attempting coerce users into purchasing Jarte Plus by leaving some important features out of Jarte, the idea is to make Jarte very capable and then add only "would be nice" type features to Jarte Plus. In that sense, Jarte Plus' extra features are a reward for people who enjoy using Jarte regularly and wish to support the project.” (Bob Flora, Carolina Road Software) To put it differently: Jarte Plus, the commercial version, adds some extra features but Jarte Free is really sufficient for most.
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