Does Your Word Processor Handle Like an Ocean Liner?

I don't know if this counts as Christmas Present, but if you want a Word Processing application that gets on with the business, instead of getting overloaded with more and more bloated and overweight toys, gadgets, accessories, functions, gimmicks, tricks, and assorted rubbish that do little to make it work any better, and even get in the way, then Jarte may be ideal for you.

I'd been using version 2 it for a few years, and version 3 had been in the pipeline in beta for some time, with some minor bugs that meant I didn't want to pass it on. While it's unlikely these would cause any real problems (and I only saw one exceptional case, using a huge document filled with photographs), it worked perfectly otherwise, I preferred not to risk wasting it - First Impressions Last, as they say. It's own description sums it up...

Jarte   \jär · 'tay\ noun (est. 2001)  1. A free word processor based on the Microsoft WordPad word processing engine built into Windows.  2. A fast starting, easy to use word processor that expands well beyond the WordPad feature set.  3. A small, portable word processor whose documents are fully compatible with Word and WordPad.

Version 3 was released a few days ago...

http://www.jarte.com/

If you're used to grinding your way around something like Word (which I have, think is great, and I'm not knocking), then Jarte looks and operates quite differently, but better once you used it for a while, and got used to it - which is no different from anything else. However, it's so much easier to get on with writing in a way that the Bells & Whistles of the established packages have forgotten is their reason for being, as they are too busy trying to out-feature one another.

If you need a word processor, then I recommend Jarte, even if (as I do) you already have a big-name word processor on board already - it may not get much more use if you do.

I don't know if anyone was sufficiently moved to download and install Jarte after I offered it as a form of Christmas present last year, but if they did (or even if they didn't) now would be a good time to check for updates, or join those of us who already have, and install it now.

Version 3.3 was released a little while ago, and while it may not be an earth-shattering variation of 3.2 (very little had changed, it's so good now it doesn't have to - but there has been a little fiddling just to make it a little slicker), it does contain one particularly handy new toy for anyone that writes anything in other application that don't have a spell checking option.

"hot connect" is a new toy built into Jarte that means by hitting the hot-keys, Jarte will open with whatever text you are editing in the other application already loaded, and ready to be spell checked, edited, or whatever in Jarte. When you're done, simply saving the document in Jarte sends it back to the original application and dismisses Jarte.

If you've never done the manual version of using another application to spell check, rather than just hitting the hot-keys and saving, you would have to: select all the text in the original application, copy it, open Jarte, open a blank document, paste the text into it, run the spell check, select all the correct text in Jarte, copy it, select all the text in the original application again, delete it, and, finally paste in the corrected text. A bit more than a couple of key presses.

Same place as always if you want to download Jarte 3.3...

http://www.jarte.com/

Jarte upgrades are also easy, just install the new version over the old one, and it preserves all your settings, histories and customisations.

Still recommended, even if you have a big-name word processor which has become bloatware over the years, and handles like an Ocean Liner rather than a speed boat.

I've been using Jarte after you recommended it last year and you're right, it's a very elegant and simple progam.

The fact that the install program is so small that it can fit on a flash drive is also handy.