I have been keeping an eye on TextMaker, which looks promising as a possible replacement for MS-Word. The latest beta (TextMaker 2005 beta) has some major improvements and can be downloaded at: http://www.softmaker.com/english/tmw05_en.htm

The current build (rev 436) is certainly able to import and work on Word doc files - fairly complex ones, too, with footnotes, diagrams, boxed text, tracking, comments, etc. It can also export back to Word in doc file format, though I have not yet had the time to write anything complex in TM to try this out. The software is still beta, so don't play with any data you value without backing it up.

For academic purposes it might be worth looking at this if you don't have access to Word itself. It also feels a lot faster and, at $50, is a lot less expensive.

The outliner is very like Word's one - as it needs to be for the sake of compatibility. One crucial test will be whether files from Brainstorm and NoteMap can be successfully imported directly into TM as 'live' outlines.

There are versions of the word-processor for Linux, Free BSD, handhelds and Pocket PCs. This is apparently a well-established German company that has been designing software since the 1989 DOS days.

Derek

Derek, I recently downloaded TextMaker, and it looks good.

Also, recently, I downloaded Atlantis' latest beta, and also like it. In fact, for most of my word processing work, I find Atlantis is the easiest and most pleasant of the lot. Atlantis url: http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/

Daly