Guest post by InfoWorld’s Serdar Yegulalp looks beyond OpenOffice.org to list 10 great free and open source desktop tools for word processing, page layout, graphics editing, illustration, task management, and more. Some of the featured tools provide a worthwhile alternative to expensive proprietary software, while others carve a niche all their own. All are available for Windows, and nearly all are available for Linux and Mac OS X as well. From AbiWord, to Inkscape, to Task Coach, each of the tools provides further proof that the roster of available free programs is growing remarkably — in both the breadth and depth of functionality offered.
writer: I just finished an article about open source apps
editor: how many web pages can we make out of it
writer: 5
editor: make it 6 and we’ll publish it
Edited 2010-10-04 21:51 UTC
Yeah, c’mon web publishers… *1* page, 2 at the most. For those of us that like reading content offline, this is a PITA.
Anyway, nice list. You can certainly find apps that are better than these in many cases, but it’s hard to beat free
Why not use http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
I hate Infoworld. Do I really need to visit 10 pages plus one full ad to see 10 apps? What a waste of time.
Should we ban article base on Inforworld , their contribution of information/pain to the world ratio is quite low (this one is especially obvious).
You haven’t yet learn to (ab)use the Print article option?
And use AdBlock…
KOffice is the big forgotten here!
All of the KDE SC/Qt applications were studiously ignored.
Krita, KWord, Kexi, Karbon, k3b, digikam, sKrooge, Kdevelop, Cantor, Kompozer, Kile and Umbrello … not a single one to be found even insofar as a hint of their existence. Together the functionality of these applications would stomp all over the ten that were mentioned.
(Unfortunately I can’t mention Kivio instead of Dia because Kivio is in limbo at this time, and Dia is a better option right now).
I mean … Paint.Net, for goodness sakes!
Edited 2010-10-05 03:00 UTC
I see that they are all available on Windows.
Yes, indeed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE_Software_Compilation_4
The entire KDE SC is cross-platform.
Having said that, the Windows versions are still experimental for many of the applications.
Other applications which have been available on Windows for longer are more stable. Krita is probably the most worthwhile stable application if you want a raster graphics editor (paint program) with some vector graphics ability:
http://krita.org/
http://krita.org/features
http://krita.org/showcase
Karbon14 is capable enough if you need the reverse: vector graphics with some raster capability. It is as good a way to produce SVG graphics as any other.
Digikam is a decent photo manager and editor, but there are a number of programs for Windows that fit this bill.
Still, Krita plus digikam plus karbon plus kipi plugins gives people a fairly decent graphics suite overall that will all work together (at least it does on the KDE platform, I can’t say how well they integrate on Windows). Hard to beat the combination.
Likewise kword plus kspread plus kexi plus kpresenter plus kformula … each one by itself is okayish, but together they start to add up to a pretty powerful set of applications.
On a full KDE desktop distribution, you get all of this plus more (e.g. KDE PIM, k3b etc) out of the box. It is by far the most powerful desktop collection out of the box for any OS distribution. To match this desktop after a new Windows installation you would have to install an extra ten or so applications, some of which are going to cost you a pretty penny.
And I have to say Scribus is a Pile of confusion at the moment and seriously buggy. It looks like the main developers are all out on those famous 6 week European vacations. Much deserved indeed, but definitely explains the long delays between releases.
Inkscape is turning into a Pile of Bloat and missed so many of it’s original roadmap:
The technical Drawing area of the roadmap completely gone for one.
: and with the Cairo changes that are taking forever with Cairo/Poppler and the OpenGL backend, not to mention Pixman’s every changing API current Inkscape trunk has serious memory leaks and bloat.
When Scribus 1.5.x is finally released it might be considered on par with InDesign 1.0 beta, if that.
When Inkscape 1.0 is finally released it might be equivalent to Corel Draw from 5 or more years prior, let alone the Technical Drawing Suite from Corel that was one of the goals for Inkscape now completely gone.
http://www.corel.com/servlet/Satellite/us/en/Product/1152105051461#…
If Inkscape focused on this type of technical drawing capabilities [which would allow for a proper 3D Vector coordinate system] all of their hacks and current workarounds based upon dealing with a flawed coordinate system would be gone.
Instead, we won’t see that for another 4 years, if we’re lucky.
The current roadmap:
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/Roadmap
The lack of several old goals gives one pause for concern in the sense that Inkscape is seriously running on empty with developers and funding.
Everyone I know uses the app for web development and yet they still don’t even have a basic means of funding other than for conferences.
These types of goals are all on hold.
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/CAD
Without features like this:
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/BlueprintGeometricAndTechDr…
which will be more useful when WebGL takes off, make Inkscape continuously behind the curve.
I’m not holding my breath with the rate at which progress diverts and moves forward.
If they could first get all the damn memory bloat and lag on the CPU [we don’t have SMP support let alone OpenCL support even though it compiles w/ openmp I’m not seeing more than one core touched] perhaps we’ll see all their lofty original goals, by the next 5 years.
Re Scribus: absolutely. I’ve tried to use it, but ultimately have had to move to something that crashes less.
Re Inkscape: I obviously have lower requirements than you do for my vector programs. It works great for my simple design needs. It works better than any paid app I’d used in the (admittedly very distant) past.
I can add that Abiword is not that great in its current state too (unless you do some small documents with it only and don’t share documents with others). Whenever I tried it, Abiword just didn’t have enough compatibility with MS Office, had problems with stability and handling bigger documents and the list goes on. On the other hand I like gnumeric from Gnome Office (though I don’t use spreadsheets often).
Not only does Abiword have trouble with compatibility with MSOffice, it also has trouble with compatibility with OpenDocument (ODF) files.
Meanwhile, KWord is another relatively lightweight wordprocessor, but uses ODF as its native file format, it has picked up a lot better compatibility with legacy MSOffice through the work of Intel for Meego, and it is very well integrated with other KOffice applications which gives it the ability to include fancy word-art, diagrams, all kinds of graphics, spreadsheets and databases. Finally, it is scriptable.
http://www.koffice.org/kword/
Edited 2010-10-05 11:09 UTC
Isn’t ODF an open specification?
Yes, but that doesn’t mean Abiword doesn’t still have trouble with it.
Sigh. (at Abiword)
People complaining about the layout (number of pages) should check the Readability addon for Firefox. It also removes the clutter aroud the things you want to read
Unfortunately, it thwarts Safari Reader. Only gets one page.
You can use Readability on any modern browser without the need for a plugin.
http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
Dia is well known. They should instead have mentioned IPE, which is another diagramming tool, with more of a focus on scientific and mathematical diagrams (it can handle latex), and is way way way more awesome than Dia.
Way more awesome, and totally under-appreciated.
http://ipe7.sourceforge.net/
Some good examples of what you can (very easily) do with it:
http://melusine.eu.org/lab/ipe