MS Word replacement?

March 2, 2005 11:22 AM

Tabbed word processing -- is it out there? I'm working on a very long writing project and need some way to keep track of notes, sections of the document, timelines, etc. I've been using a simple index card system next to my computer, but I find it disruptive to go from pencil to keyboard and back as I move along. So, is there anything available (cheaper the better) that is better than Word for this kind of thing? I'm on a Windows system.
posted by _sirmissalot_ to Computers & Internet (25 answers total)

I love a little text-ish editor called NoteTab. Not much for formatting but the tabbyness can't be beat and they have a Lite version that is free. It does HTML coding or any sort of macro-based text work and you can keep little libraries of things you use a lot. Their Pro version has standard word processing things like spellcheck and whatnot. I ponied up for it and I think it's pretty well worth it. You might have to do the final draft in Word, but as a dashboard place for planning projects, it's great.
posted by jessamyn at 11:28 AM on March 2, 2005

Try keynote or crimson editor. Both free.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:31 AM on March 2, 2005

Gobe Productive (www.gobe.com) is a pretty good stripped down office suite that allows you to have multiple tabs within one document, with each tab being a word processing doc, a spreadsheet, or images, such that you can reference between tabs to automatically update. It's pretty nifty; however, at this point, you can't rely on the company for much support. Email support may be different (in fact, the one experience I've had with email support went well), but it's pretty much sitting out there as is, and it's completely unclear what future it has. (For instance, I bought it, based on the promise of a Linux version within 6 months; that was two years ago, with no Linux release yet). The Windows version also has not been updated in that time.

Also, it's probably less useful for catching notes and more useful for starting to pull a big document together.
posted by claxton6 at 11:34 AM on March 2, 2005

Emacs is free; stable and widely used; and transcendantly awesome.

Buffers should act like your tabs, and the various outline and show/hide modes are wonderful for maintaining large writing projects.
posted by freebird at 11:37 AM on March 2, 2005

Emacs might be free, but busting in seems like an awfully big challenge for me. I've learned the basics (opening and closing documents, moving around), but have never found a good tutorial on how to use emacs for very large text (not code) documents. Does anyone know of any?
posted by terceiro at 11:53 AM on March 2, 2005

Another vote for NoteTab.
I have found the free version very helpful when working on projects that require multiple open documents.
posted by raedyn at 12:01 PM on March 2, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks for the recommendations so far. NoteTab looks promising and I will download it during my lunch break. The others look more like HTML/code editors -- maybe I'm wrong.

I should have also asked this: is it possible I'm missing something in Word's functionality? Is there a tool or something that allows you to keep track of multiple sources of information? Tabbed sections would be best, but maybe there's some other way?

(Side rant: It's just so strange to me that Word is basically the same program it was ten years ago--basically a bunch of formatting shortcuts to help you create a document one page at a time. So lazy!)
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 12:20 PM on March 2, 2005

Have you tried Word's "Document Map" feature? It is pretty useful if you're writing a technical document that is broken into distinct sections (as implied from your question). Not to defend Microsoft Word, which is probably the most frustrating program I've ever used. Least astonishment my ass.
posted by knave at 12:28 PM on March 2, 2005

TextPad is good (especially for programming as in has syntax coloration and stuff) and has a "document selector", which serves the same function as tabs with slightly less style.
posted by callmejay at 12:38 PM on March 2, 2005

Is there a tool or something that allows you to keep track of multiple sources of information? Tabbed sections would be best, but maybe there's some other way?

Outline view, perhaps?
posted by kindall at 12:47 PM on March 2, 2005

I use EditPad Lite, which is free, simple (though with more options than Wordpad or notepad), and uses tabs similar to FireFox.

Best of all, and a huge plus in my book, is that I can call it from the run command by simply typing "editpad."
posted by kables at 12:49 PM on March 2, 2005

When you open multiple docs in Word on Windows XP, the docs are all there on the taskbar at the bottom. How would this differ from a tabbed word processor?
posted by pracowity at 12:56 PM on March 2, 2005

Not quite sure if this is what you're looking for, but Corel WordPerfect has tabs which allow you to switch between documents, rather as Mozilla lets you switch between webpages. Various outline-view functions and so on are part of the software as well, if that's more along the lines of what you need [although admittedly I believe such functions are in Word too.] WP has the added bonus of Reveal Codes - something I never fail to be thankful for, particularly after the rare occasions when I'm forced to deal with Word and its awful auto-formatting. For simpler things, I use emacs or notepad, but for more complicated documents that require fancy formatting/need to look professional, I find WP to be best. Unless you wanna learn how to use LaTeX, of course...
posted by ubersturm at 1:15 PM on March 2, 2005

I use WinEDT, which has a tabbed interface for multiple documents, and some facility for managing multi-part projects. Not free, but pretty cheap.

I write in LaTeX, which is *far* better suited to long projects than Word. For a strongly text-oriented work, it's easy enough to get started. The hard part to get used to is that editing is split from layout -- you edit your text, and then LaTeX it to get a laid-out document.

When you open multiple docs in Word on Windows XP, the docs are all there on the taskbar at the bottom

Maybe it's just my configuration, but with more than 2 docs open I get a single taskbar-item with a pulldown in it.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:17 PM on March 2, 2005

(kables: don't know if you know this, but you can have any program start from the run command by adding the .exe to your path)
posted by AmaAyeRrsOonN at 1:26 PM on March 2, 2005

with more than 2 docs open I get a single taskbar-item with a pulldown in it.

It depends how much room you have on your taskbar. After Windows runs out of room to display them separately, it automatically stacks your open files by application.

You can also drag your taskbar to the side and display it vertically. Right now, as an experiment, I have 12 Word docs and 5 Firefox pages open and lined up from top to bottom on a vertical taskbar.

I hope I can remember how to drag it back to the bottom of the screen.
posted by pracowity at 2:00 PM on March 2, 2005

Second the WordPerfect vote, assuming you need an actual word processor and not just a text editor.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 2:16 PM on March 2, 2005

After Windows runs out of room to display them separately, it automatically stacks your open files by application.

If you want to disable this functionality, right-click an empty part of the taskbar, hit properties and untick "Group similar taskbar buttons". Voila!
posted by coriolisdave at 2:54 PM on March 2, 2005

By far the best text ap I've used (and I use it daily) is Crypt Edit. Small, free, fast, good spell checker, tabbed, a buttload of formatting options, and bug free. A text editor robust enough to replace a word processor in my opinion.
posted by dong_resin at 3:06 PM on March 2, 2005

It's an extreme solution but you could consider getting a second monitor. Depending on your graphics card you might need another one of those, too. Not the cheapest option but the productivity gains are huge: copy and paste by dragging, display two documents side-by-side etc.

I did it a year ago and now hate it when I have to use a single monitor. It really does make a huge difference.
posted by blag at 4:57 PM on March 2, 2005

Another vote for Keynote. The file sizes turn out to be very small, as well.
posted by dhruva at 9:56 PM on March 2, 2005

When you open multiple docs in Word on Windows XP, the docs are all there on the taskbar at the bottom. How would this differ from a tabbed word processor?

You can set Word up to do what's required, sorta, by going into Tools-->Options--->View, deselecting the View/Show Windows in Taskbar checkbox (so creating an MDI environment), then creating a custom mini-toolbar (easy peasy, if you've done it before -- add new buttons, assign 'em to the appropriate commands from the list and customize them for "Next Document" and "Previous document" with whatever icons and text you want) to navigate between open docs in the single window.

Works for me.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:36 AM on March 3, 2005

callmejay: TextPad is good (especially for programming as in has syntax coloration and stuff) and has a "document selector", which serves the same function as tabs with slightly less style.

Textpad is great and good news callmejay since about 4.4 you can set up the document selector to be tabs across the top and even control whether the tabs stack or not.

Dual heading is great if you can afford the deskspace. Also some video cards allow you to rotate a display 90 degrees. This allows you to place a monitor on it's side and get a portrait format display.
posted by Mitheral at 7:39 PM on March 3, 2005

Keynote is great, been using it for years.
posted by frenetic at 8:16 PM on March 3, 2005

Response by poster: Thanks all, I wish I could mark you all as best answers but I think that looks like ass. Anyway, I'm still testing these different programs and they all have something to offer -- good recommendations!
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 2:04 PM on March 4, 2005