Jarte – An excellent (free) word processor

So what is Jarte…

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.

I’ve been looking for something a bit less cumbersome than Word. Jarte is a small application that can also run off my usb flash drive. As far as I can see it has everything I will need.

• Fully compatible with Windows Vista
• Tabbed interface to provide easy access to open documents
• Opens files with file extension RTF, file extension DOC, and file extension DOCX (new default format in Word 2007)
• Fast start up
• Compact screen size
• Optional “Clickless Operation” feature greatly reduces clicking
• Can be run directly from a pluggable USB flash drive
• High quality spell checker with custom user dictionary
• Included spelling dictionaries: English (American, British, & Canadian), Spanish, French, German, and Dutch
• Link to, or import, your existing custom Word spelling dictionaries
• Support for templates
• Export to HTML or PDF
• Single click bookmarking and bookmark navigation
• Send documents via e-mail
• Full drag and drop file support
• Instant access to recently opened documents and folders
• Instant access to documents and folders designated as favorites
• Adjustable document zoom
• Detailed Help documentation

Here’s the link to the Jarte homepage Jarte

Creative Writing Course

Welcome to my writings. 

This weblog idea is completely new to me, but looks exciting.  My plan is to post my writing journey for everyone to read.  I thought this would be a good way to allow my friends, family and readers to keep up to date with what I’ve been up to.

I have just started a Creative Writing course with Writers News. It is called ‘Becoming a Successfull Writer’.  It covers: Practical Article Writing, Practical Novel Writing, Short Story Writing, Exploring Your Markets, Writing Style, and Your Writing and the Law.  There are six assessments that are graded by your personal tutor who then provides constructive feedback on them.

I have also signed up for NanoWriMo which is the National Novel Writing Month.  This takes place between the 1st-30th November. The goal is to write a novel of 50,000 words during the 30 days.  This is a pretty big challenge for me seeing as I’ve hardly written anything for years. The one consolation is that my Writers News course has the practical article section first and then the practical novel section second.  So all I need do is ensure I’ve completed the article writing section by the 26th of this month. This will then allow me one week to get stuck into the novel writing section, before NanoWriMo begins on the 1st.