Document Composition Software

This page considers software that you can use to create the following types of documents:

This page does not cover web documents or conversion of such documents to PDF.

Types of Available Software

Three types of document processing software are available:

1. Limited word processing programs included in your Operating System (e.g. Window's Wordpad). A pastor of a small church (less than 50 in attendance) used this by composing a newsletter in it and saving the document in *.rtf. He sent out this file as an attachment in an e-mail to his members. He knew that *.rtf can be opened by a host of programs, including all who had the same operating system as he did.

2. Stand-alone programs, free and commercial. These range from free and outstanding to free and watch out to expensive and extrordinary to expensive and a waste. Do your research!

3. Suites of Programs. These often contain any or all of the following programs integrated with a common interface and "feel." These suites contain some or all of the following individual types of programs. Each publisher has several different combinations of their programs. The more programs, the more expensive they are.

Available Software Suites

OpenOffice - Open Source Project coordinated by Sun Microsystems - Free Download

Ability Suite - Full - $79: Fully Compatible with MS Office Premium (This also includes a special license provision for not-for-profits. See the web site for details. This suite also comes with German a Portugese installations.)

Corel Office - Full $ 270; Upgrade: $ 145 (Word Perfect, etc)

Microsoft Office - 8 Differently configured sets ranging from $150 up.