AbiWord is worthy of consideration should you be looking for a free word processor but don't require the comprehensiveness of Microsoft Word and its ilk.

It is very similar in design and layout to Word, and is fully compatible with Word documents (.doc) and many other file formats, inlcuding rich and plain text, WordPerfect, Microsoft Write, and various Psion and Palm document formats.

It may not be feature-packed but it has more than just the basics. Images can be inserted into documents (BMP and PNG formats only), documents can be saved as web pages, and comprehensive text formatting is included.

More advanced features are freely available as plugins from the AbiWord website (see above). These include dictionaries, translation tools, thesauruses and image editing tools.

Obvious omissions are the inability to insert tables and a lack of 3D support.

However, the majority of you probably use about 10 per cent of Word's total functionality, so why waste money on such a product when Abiword does it for free?

Note that Linux and Mac OS X versions are available on the download page.