Jarte 6.2

Jarte is a free, small word processor based on the Microsoft WordPad word processing engine built into Windows. It is built as a fast starting, easy to use word processor that expands well beyond the feature set available in WordPad and whose documents are fully compatible with Word and WordPad.

When word processors replaced typewriters they helped free the creative expressions innate in all of us. But somewhere along the way word processors evolved into enormous machines designed primarily to serve the needs of the corporate world. Office word processors have become huge, cumbersome vessels of software that remind us of ocean liners. The seeming goal of both is to become as large as possible by including every imaginable feature, whether anyone actually needs all those features or not. That's fine for an ocean liner since you are there to relax and marvel at its grandness. However, it is not so fine when the size and complexity of your word processor makes it as cumbersome to operate as an ocean liner in a yacht race.

It does not have to be like that. Jarte is a WordPad based, FREE word processor whose unique interface will make you feel like you are piloting a swift, nimble yacht by comparison. Although Jarte doesn't look anything like the office word processor you are used to, it can handle your word processing tasks with aplomb. If this sounds like the kind of word processor you are looking for then maybe you owe it to yourself to give Jarte a try.

The problem with word processors designed for the corporate world is they tend to sap the joy out of writing. Office word processors have so many features it becomes frustrating trying to find the features you actually need among the seemingly endless excess of unused functions. You either lose your train of thought while wrestling with the program or you simply do without the feature you want rather than embark on an expedition to find it among the endless cascading menus and pop-up windows.

The Jarte word processor relieves that problem by including only the features likely to be needed by real people. Jarte is designed for students, writers, small business people, and home users. But what really makes Jarte special is the unique way it makes the features that are included easily accessible.

You expect a word processor to be able to handle Word documents, font and paragraph formatting, spell checking, print preview, and more. While Jarte performs all the standard functions well, the most important aspect of Jarte is the numerous small details that make it an efficient and enjoyable tool for creating documents. Small details like:

Tabbed document windows for easy access to your open documents
Larger buttons for the most commonly used functions
Instant dictionary and thesaurus word lookup (integrates with free WordWeb)
Spell check and text search tools that do not park themselves on top of the text you are trying to edit
Single click bookmarking that make bookmarks both useful and usable
Instant access to the documents and folders you designate as your favorites
Instant access to the fonts you designate as your favorites
Use of the mouse scroll wheel button to copy and paste text

It is Jarte's thoughtful details that will leave you wondering how you lived with that cumbersome office word processor for so long.

Jarte may be the best netbook word processor available. Jarte takes up very little space on your hard drive, it runs quickly and efficiently on the low power CPUs built into netbooks, and Jarte's compact display is perfect for small netbook screens. Unlike office word processors, Jarte is an ideal word processor for netbooks.

In addition to running well on netbooks, Jarte may also be the best portable word processor available. Jarte can easily be run directly from a USB flash drive (or even a CD), so you can carry your word processor with your documents on the same flash drive for the ultimate in portable word processing.

Release notes:

New Release
Enhancements:
Jarte now supports plain text templates in addition to rich text templates.
The tabs "Sort" command sorted open tabs in strict alphabetical order. Tabs are now sorted in natural order similar to how Windows sorts file names.
Bug Fixes:
Jarte's automatic check for updates option stopped working when the Jarte website was moved to a new server in 2017. The automatic update check now works properly in Jarte 6.2 but unfortunately it will continue to fail in older versions.
The "Close and Delete" feature used to close the the currently open file before prompting to see if see if the user really wanted to send the file to the Recycle Bin. If multiple files were open then this could be a little confusing because the newly active file being shown by Jarte was not the one being deleted. Jarte now waits for the user to respond to the prompt before closing and deleting a file.
Occasionally Ctrl+click of a hyperlink would fail to properly open the linked page in a web browser.
[ Jarte full changelog ]