WordWeb

Convert MS Word docs to e-books for free

The first time I heard someone say "Everybody has a book in them," I recommended that they see a doctor right away.

At least that explains all those books I've read that appear to have traveled through the author's colon. Writing can be painful, but there are limits.

Lots of people have unpublished novels and other book-length documents sitting forlornly on their hard drive, waiting and waiting for an audience. If your magnum opus (or even half-pint opus) is a Word document that's ready for the world to fall in love with, give the free … Read more

Office Web Apps, Google Docs go head-to-head

Microsoft's first true browser-based versions of the venerable Word, Excel, and PowerPoint applications won't make you abandon the programs' full-featured counterparts installed your hard drive. But if you splurge for Office 2010, you may find yourself spending a lot more time working in your browser.

You probably already do some word processing and spreadsheet work using Google Docs, Zoho, or another such service. (I described the Web's best desktop-app replacements in a post last month.)

These services have offered first-rate word processing and spreadsheet programs that run in a browser and let you create, open, and store … Read more

Find the right word with WordWeb

Are you ever at a loss for words? Whether you're writing an essay, a letter, a business proposal, or even a novel, there are inevitably times when the right word is just out of your mind's reach. In the old days, you might pick up a dictionary or thesaurus to find a specific word, but now most people know that resources on the Internet are only a couple of clicks away. There's one program I like to use, however, that's even easier than opening your Web browser.

WordWeb is a free program that lets you highlight … Read more

First Look video: WordWeb

This excellent freeware program will stop you from ever fretting over a definition or antonym again. WordWeb offers hot-key lookup and offline resources in a smart package.

In addition to displaying definitions, synonyms, and antonyms, WordWeb can find sets of related words. The database has more than 150,000 root words and 120,000 synonym sets, and plenty of proper nouns, pronunciations, and usage tags. It can't tell you when you've split your infinitives or garbled your gerunds, but it gives great word accuracy on the fly.

Featured Freeware: WordWeb

WordWeb is a handy utility that gives you the definition, synonyms, and antonyms of any given word without requiring you to go online, though it can connect to the Internet for expanded functionality. The interface should feel familiar, since it resembles many office application dictionaries. Users can manually type words into the Lookup text field, but the real strength of the program lies in the hot key function that lets users find definitions with a single keystroke.

The bottom pane offers tabs for such items as synonyms, antonyms, and related words. There are tools for changing the database to one … Read more

Power Downloader finds the right words

When Power Downloader recently sat down to check his e-mail, he quickly noticed a message from his niece, Kitty Kilobyte. In the message, Kitty explained that she would soon be attending a summer English class, which would mean she would probably be writing a lot of papers. She went on to explain that though she was embarrassed to admit it, spelling wasn't her greatest skill, and any software he could recommend would be a big help.… Read more