Abiword is a free word processing program. It does not have all the bells and whistles of Microsoft Word, but it doesn't need them. If all you want to do is write a letter, or a novel, then you won't want all the formatting tools that come with MS Word.

If you really do need all the bells and whistles on the cheap, then Open Office is for you. It is free. It is a full suite of programs to rival Microsoft Office. It comprises:

• Word Processor (called Writer)
• Spreadsheet (Calc)
• Presentation (Impress)
• Database (Base)
• Drawing (Draw)
• Equations (Math)

Open Office is a product of Oracle, one of the biggest names in computing.

Desktop Publishing

Desktop publishing is used when the location of items on the page is more important than the text. Often there is very little text. Desktop publishing programs can be very expensive, but there are good inexpensive ones available. The best of these that I have used is Serif Pageplus.

Serif produces high quality yet affordable desktop publishing software. I have been using Serif Pageplus for three years and use it when I want to be able to quickly and efficiently put together a neat, well organised page without having to pull out the big guns. This program will do the job for you. I consider it superior to Publisher as it gives much more control over placement of items.