CNET Editors' review
Although technical writers and other users who need a lot of advanced options will find this program lacking, for the average user, PolyEdit Lite provides everything one would want in a basic word-processing program. Its familiar layout allows users to get started right away.
The program's interface will look familiar to anyone who's used a pre-2007 version of Microsoft Word. The contents of some of the menus are a little different, but for the most part, everything is where experienced Word users would expect it to be. Users can also customize the color scheme of the interface, which we thought was a nice touch. Our experience with the program's features, in general, was that anything we'd typically use in Word was there, and anything that we usually had to go hunting around for in Word due to infrequent use was not there. Notably, there's no mail merge or label creation options, and the view options were lacking (we prefer to write in Word's print layout, but PolyEdit contains no such thing). We did like the fact that the program handles multiple open documents with tabs, which keeps everything tidy. Users will find the usual text-formatting options, find-and-replace, spell check, headers and footers, and most other basic word-processing features. Overall, we found the program to be a great lightweight alternative to more cumbersome word-processing programs.
PolyEdit Lite is free. It installs and uninstalls without issues. We recommend this program to all users who have light-to-moderate word-processing needs.
Publisher's Description
From PolySoft Solutions:
PolyEdit Lite is a free word processor that lets you handle a wide variety of word processing tasks. It is designed to be lightweight, reliable, easy-to-use and extremely fast. All the expected functions are featured, including the usual text formatting tools, search and replace, support for images and objects, and much more. PolyEdit Lite can open and save documents in RTF, MS Word 95-2007, Unicode (UTF-8 and UTF-16) and other formats.
Documents can also be exported to HTML and PDF. The program has the ability to encrypt your documents for total security. Another key feature of PolyEdit Lite is its tabbed interface with support for intuitive docking.
Version 5.4 adds more keyboard shortcuts and UI enhancements.
What's new in this version: More keyboard shortcuts and other UI enhancements.
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All versions:
4.2 starsout of 10 votes
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Current version:
4.2 starsout of 9 votes
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My rating:
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Results 1-9 of 9
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"Excellent for what it is"
Version: PolyEdit Lite 5.4
Pros
Lightweight and fast - ideal for basic word processing or viewing documents. I have Word on my computer and Open Office on my laptop, both of which I find infuriatingly slow to start up and to open a document. PolyEdit Lite starts much faster and opens documents without any noticeable delay. The default Courier 10 font is easily changed (Edit/Options).
Cons
If you want all the bells and whistles pay for the full version or use another programme. This should be valued for what it is; a basic fast word processor.
Summary
Far and away my first choice both for basic word processing and for opening documents.
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"Great little program"
Version: PolyEdit Lite 5.4
Pros
*Light
*Easy to use
*Bug-free
*Intuitive
*Clean interface
*Enough # options to keep most ppl happyCons
*Keeps all files under one toobar tab; should include the possibility to choose to see individual icons. Apart from this, perfect!
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"Nearly perfect for me."
Version: PolyEdit Lite 5.4
Pros
Lightweight, fast, simple. Surprisingly good feature set.
Cons
Template system is a bit quirky, documentation sparse.
Summary
PolyEdit Lite is not so much a lite version of MS Word as it is a super WordPad, and I mean that as a complement.
Word, OOo Writer, and WordPerfect can do amazing stuff, but for the kind of routine tasks most people need to do, those kinds of upper level tools aren't necessary. Like WordPad, PolyEdit Lite is fast, simple, and will by default save files to RTF that can be read by almost any word processor.
Advantages over WordPad are spell checking, a format paintbrush, header, footer, and pagination options for printing, and search using regular expressions and non-printing characters, just to name a few.
I've used Word and Writer for years and would still recommend them for heaving lifting, but for my own day-to-say purposes, PolyEdit Lite is now my favorite word processor to run on Windows. -
"Reasonable Microsoft Word replacement."
Version: PolyEdit Lite 5.4
Pros
Easy to use. Light on resources.
Cons
I couldn't get it to import graphics.
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"Good little program for a lite version word processor."
Version: PolyEdit Lite 5.4
Pros
The ability to encrypt documents from the program is a nifty feature. Imports graphics easily. Table commands and spell checker work well.
Cons
I miss the ability to change the default setting for my font. It always wanted to change back to the default courier 10 pt size which is too small for me to read. Requires external plug in software to create formulas and extra dictionary
Summary
I really disliked the fact the program wanted to change back to the default Courier 10 pt font after nearly every single action. Even if you changed the font and then skipped a line it defaulted back to Courier. The program requires a user to purchase external plug in software (created and sold by other vendors) which I found off-putting even though those programs have free trial versions. There is no templates in the lite version, but they can be easily created and saved for future work.
I found that the table creation commands worked well as did changing text colors and inserting graphics or formulas created with other software programs. The help menu was a little lacking in the free version, but the professional version offers more features and better documentation I am told.
Except for the contstant battle of the changing default font and font size I would recommend this software to anyone looking for something easy to use in a word processor. -
"easy to use. identical, or close to ms word."
Version: PolyEdit Lite 5.4
Pros
fast and easy
Cons
nothing that i can complain about
Summary
well worth the download
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"Very good - but no print view/layout"
Version: PolyEdit Lite 5.4
Pros
small
can default save in word doc format
fast
many other featuresCons
no print layout - their website says it is coming soon in version 6.0
Summary
I find it hard to use without the print layout - if that doesn't bother you then this is the one
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"Best Free Word Processor I've Tried"
Version: PolyEdit Lite 5.4
Pros
Very easy to use and customize, lots of options.
Cons
No built-in PDF Exporting.
Summary
I tried AbiWord and Jarte before settling on this one. I hated AbiWord. Jarte is a lot better but it doesn't have as many options and features as PolyEdit Lite. I had been using OpenOffice but all I ever used was the Writer and the rest of it just sat there taking up 320 MB. PolyEdit has everything I ever used in Writer (except for PDF exporting built in) and only uses a little over 3 MB!
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"great free program word processor"
Version: PolyEdit Lite 5.4
Pros
works easy, easy to use, free
Cons
do not see any
Summary
good product
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