Anecdote from a frustrated typer. There are no good word processors. MS office and Libre/open-whatever-they-call-it-now-office are bloated mess. I did a deep dive on this a few months ago, and there are 0 light/good options. There are a few that show up in google searches, but they are all disappointing in one way or another.

So, thoughts on a non-AI lightweight word processor.

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jitl 25 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Pages.app on Apple platforms is free-as-in-beer, native & instantly responsive UI, launches in a handful of milliseconds, collaborative. Unsure if you would consider it a bloated mess or not; the UI is pretty minimal but still competent for most work.

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dbacar 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I am not a defender of Word (2024) but it starts in 1-2 seconds in my laptop.

Actually the speed is a problem when you have hundreds of pages with track changes and comments.

Maybe you should check Wordperfect or WordStar ;)

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codethief 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What features would you expect from a good word processor? What features should it leave out, i.e. features make MS Office / OpenOffice / LibreOffice a bloated mess?

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the__alchemist 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Start fast (maybe <100ms), respond instantly, good UX.

	▲	shivenjoshi 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It is absolutely crazy to me that this is criteria. Office 2003 checked those boxes in that era. This was a solved thing that somehow warrants further deliberation now. I believe it is The Great Moore's Law Compensator.

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shivenjoshi 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

AbiWord

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AbiWord

	▲	the__alchemist 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Ty. I looked at that, and unfortunately cannot recall why I rejected it.

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nubg 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What exactly would the perfect tool look like?

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the__alchemist 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Perfect isn't the goal. But something on the tier of KiCad, Blender, Zed, Sublime, etc.

	▲	Imustaskforhelp 38 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Speaking of zed, if the team at zed is reading this, then I genuinely believe with my full heart that you guys can actually solve this issue given the impressive work you have done at trying to make the editor fast. If you work towards something like google docs etc., this product feels right within your category and can work with the team features at zed to a far greater degree. Zed also natively has AI functionality so it can work for some people and the best part about Zed is that AI functionality can be toggled off too :-) This might as well be a billion dollar unsolved problem which the team at zed could use their expertise on perhaps. Although I suggest that maybe instead of bolting these functionalities into zed itself, maybe a zed-fork can be created for a more Microsoft word alternative? Has someone tried at making a zed extension which can somehow be a word editor or anything similar, perhaps it might be possible within the frameworks of zed now itself but I am not sure. I hope someone at zed team reads this and solves this problem. Zed is fantastic piece of software, thanks for making it zed team :-)

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artursapek 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Revise is that, actually. It's a free, lightweight, fast word processor at its core. It also has real-time collaboration, also free. You don't need to use the AI features.

It even supports code blocks, LaTeX, and Mermaid diagrams.

Also, the passive spelling/grammar checking in the editor is powered by LLMs and completely free. It will catch mistakes that other word processors won't, such as malapropisms.

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the__alchemist 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Ty; will check it out. That wasn't one of the one I looked at.

Edit: Ah I see, from the OP. Unfortunately, I think Subscription-based, web-app, and vibe-coded would individually be deal breakers. Combined indicates it's not the sort of tool I seek.

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artursapek 6 hours ago | parent [-]

lol, ok bro

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Imustaskforhelp 23 minutes ago | parent [-]

Friend, this is NOT how you talk within public for a product which mind you, might handle sensitive information.

Some people (myself included) will not like subscription-based, web app.

You worked 7 months on this project full time on your savings as you mention and you might've squandered any reputational gains from that with just three words and a comma.

Might as well go down in the history of hackernews but a bit negatively. I hope that you take a deeper look at how you respond online.

I have a suggestion but if you feel like you are not sure how to respond to a comment, then don't at the moment rather than typing this for example.

perhaps treat it as a learning exercise on how to answer such questions because if you ever market to anyone, customer or business. It is natural that they will ask such questions and so in a way, it might be beneficial.

Just my 2 cents.

Anecdotally, it takes a lot of patience to answer criticism in a good manner and definitely takes a lot of time to craft a good answer if you do go through that route but in the long term/even in the short term, those are some of the best messages that I have written personally which genuinely make me appreciate myself.

I wish that you can take a deeper reflection into such question as you are most likely going to be asked it quite often and having an good answer early on might be beneficial for your product.

have a nice day.

	▲	artursapek 12 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I gave a good faith response initially, and got back a reply about how it's disqualified for being for "web based" and "a subscription". Even after I explained that the core product is completely free and even includes free LLM spellchecking. Web-based and subscription payments describes the majority of software out there today. If this is his criteria for dismissing a project outright then I'm not sure what to say other than "ok bro".