That means if you need to use advanced tools you may find a paid platform is much more worthwhile. When deciding which free word processor to download and use, first consider what your actual needs are, as sometimes free platforms may only provide basic options. We've also featured the best free cloud apps for business.įAQs Which free word processor is best for you? WriteMonkey is a portable app, so there’s no need to install it – just extract all the downloaded files to a removable drive or cloud storage service and fire it up by running the file WriteMonkey.exe. We also like the ability to look words up in Wikipedia, Google Images,, , and many others without opening a browser winder manually and leaving yourself open to the temptations of Twitter and Facebook. That said, if you’re happy to commit those shortcuts to memory, you’ll find WriteMonkey faster to use than toolbar-based alternatives. WriteMonkey’s hidden controls are trickier to navigate, too – everything is accessed via a large right-click menu, or a vast collection of keyboard shortcuts.

Unlike FocusWriter, which is compatible with all the most common text formats (including Microsoft’s DOC and DOCX), WriteMonkey only works with TXT files, so you’ll have to convert any works in progress before opening them. It’s not intended for documents like letters or CVs, but is great for committing early ideas to paper (or screen) so you have the raw material to develop later. WriteMonkey is another no-frills word processor designed to help you maximize your output without fussing with editing and formatting. It’s not great for editing, but for productivity, FocusWriter is hard to beat. This also makes FocusWriter a good tool to use in tandem with the Pomodoro Technique, which involves working hard for a period of time that’s long enough for you to work productively, but not so long that you become fatigued.

In normal use, all you see is a blank page – toolbars are only visible if you move your mouse pointer to the edge of the screen – but there’s a killer feature in Focused Text, which fades everything into the background except the current paragraph or sentence.įocusWriter also features alerts that are triggered at certain times, or when you’ve reached a predefined word count, so you don’t need to worry about watching a counter (as you would in Microsoft Word). If you simply want to hammer out some words without worrying about formatting, you could just use Windows’ built-in Notepad app, but FocusWriter is full of clever tools that will help you maximize productivity without ever getting in the way.Īs the name implies, FocusWriter blocks out all distractions so you can give that all-important first draft your full attention. WPS recently launched a free PDF to Word converter as well, which is a great companion to its word processor. Overall, WPS Writer is very impressive, and in our opinion it’s the best free word processor available to download today. WPS Office Writer is supported by discrete ads, which can be removed by upgrading to the premium version, but they’re barely noticeable and no features are locked behind a paywall. It’s compatible with every text file format you can think of, including current and legacy versions of Microsoft Word dating back to Office 97. Its selection of pre-installed templates gives you everything you need for common document types, and you can easily create your own for bespoke tasks.

This free word processor looks and behaves almost exactly like its premium counterpart, and even has its own equivalent of OneDrive, offering 1GB free cloud storage. If you’ve used a modern version of Microsoft Word, there’ll be no learning curve when you switch to Writer – the word processing component of WPS Office Free. If you’re looking for a word processor that can stand in for Microsoft Word, either of these two will be a perfect candidate.

The word processors also work together with the other office software in their respective suites – so you can use Base to create a bibliography, for example.īoth word processors support all the most popular file formats, and can export documents to PDF without the need for additional software. The two versions of Writer include wizards and templates for common document types, such as invoices and letters, and it’s easy to create your own templates for future use as well. The word processor, Writer, is a feature-packed analog of Microsoft Word, packed with all the tools you could need for any text-based work. LibreOffice is a fork of Apache OpenOffice, and the two offer very similar word processing apps, but LibreOffice receives more frequent updates and has a more lively userbase, so we're inclined to lean in its favor.

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