Atlantis Word Processor [not portable]

[bangbig]

Atlantis Word Processor Lite is a free version of Atlantis Word Processor. It was released a week ago or so.

Home page:
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en/lite.htm

The standard (or call it "full") version of Atlantis Word Processor has only a few extra features (mainly the customization options and eBook export) compared to the Lite version. So the Lite version is actually very feature-rich.

Of course, it is portable:
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en ... drives.htm

Screenshot:

[Midas]

Good news. Thanks for reporting, bangbig.

[webfork]

In short, a fast, simple, and slimmed down word processor with all the basics. Since a huge amount of my time and energy goes into word processing lately, I'm extremely interested. A few notes:

• Formats - by default saves to RTF, and seems to do basic image compression, unlike other programs that save to RTF. You can also export to ZIP, which cuts file size roughly in half.
• Compatibility - opened ODT fairly well, just okay when opening MS Office (some images showed up incorrectly). Doesn't support old (ala 1990s-era) MS Word files (you're still going to need LibreOffice)
• Collaboration - not much here, doesn't support collaborative edition or change tracking.
• Portability - Sort of. Saving to a non-C:\ drive doesn't work, it still writes to AppData. I really don't want to be restricted to just external devices to enable portability.
• Automation - supports wildcards (like Word) but not Regular Expressions (like every other editor).

Pros

• The document bar was pretty great, definitely better other tools I've seen such as tabs.
• Lightweight, fast, simple, and fairly intuitive. A fantastic antidote for the daily Word 2016 bulky sluggishness I have to wrestle with. The system requirements looks like every computer I've used for 15 years now: https://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/e ... ements.htm

Cons

• Found their unique ribbon system difficult to navigate
• Couldn't figure out how to write documents without a margin a.k.a. Web view
• The Document Project functionality wasn't super obvious (see here: https://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/e ... ojects.htm)
• Non-standard encryption ("COD" which can presumably only be opened by Atlantis)
• When you try to save an embedded image, it will suggest BMP format despite the program seeming to understand its a JPEG

Unique features

• "Reduce picture colors" rather than dealing with lossy JPEG compression was a great addition
• Ability to select an entire word, sentence, paragraph, page, or section (love it)
• Super simple sorting by the first letter in a paragraph (ascending / descending)

Screenshot



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Thanks bangbig. Great first post.

[bangbig]

webfork, let me point out some inaccuracies in your post (I'm quite familiar with the software since I've been using it for 15 years now).

supports wildcards (like Word) but not Regular Expressions (like every other editor)

It does support regular expressions:
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en/help/regex.htm

Found their unique ribbon system difficult to navigate

It's not Ribbon since there are no tabbed categories.
You can switch to the Classic toolbars ("View | Toolbars | Style | Classic Toolbars").
What I love about the toolbars is that when a particular command is grayed-out, you can hover the mouse over it, and a small window will tell you why the button is inactive.

When you try to save an embedded image, it will suggest BMP format despite the program seeming to understand its a JPEG

There is a drop-down list with graphic formats at the bottom of the "Save image" dialog. You can save as BMP, PNG, JPG, GIF, WMF, EMF.

Couldn't figure out how to write documents without a margin a.k.a. Web view

The view modes are the paid features (there aren't many).

[hamasaki]

It`s not portable.

AppData\Roaming\Atlantis\awpioex.inc
C:\ProgramData\Atlantis\*

[webfork]

AppData\Roaming\Atlantis\awpioex.inc
C:\ProgramData\Atlantis\*

Thanks for checking. Since we don't have a "payware that is not portable" I'll add an addendum to the thread title.

It does support regular expressions:
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en/help/regex.htm

Good to know.

It's not Ribbon since there are no tabbed categories. You can switch to the Classic toolbars ("View | Toolbars | Style | Classic Toolbars").

How about "Ribbon-like"? Anyway, good to know you can change that.

There is a drop-down list with graphic formats at the bottom of the "Save image" dialog. You can save as BMP, PNG, JPG, GIF, WMF, EMF.

Found it, thanks.

The view modes are the paid features (there aren't many).

[bangbig]

It's portable. But it needs to be installed to a portable device:
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en ... drives.htm

[FileHandler]

It's portable. But it needs to be installed to a portable device:
http://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en ... drives.htm

You obviously have not tried it out. Here's talking from experience (I naively believed their portability claims and bought a license some time ago):

'Portable' mode (or their idea of it) will leave your documents and templates etc on the host computers. This even applies to private data like your address books, clip libraries, signatures, customized styles etc. - you won't carry these settings with you when you leave the host computer, unless you always remember to back-sync all necessary user date to your portable drive.

What's more, it often would not even run. They refused to refund me, maintaining that all my setups are considered "non-standard" and that portable means running from a non-encrypted, non-mounted, removable drive, connected to a single USB-port, not a corporate hub or network and what not.

Bottom line: The only way to get it to run reliably was to install it on every machine. And then make sure I gather and streamline all varous users' appdata' folders. Not my idea of portable.

[Midas]

I'm glad another fake portability claim got caught out. I have lost count of the times a dev's claimed portability doesn't measure up to bare essentials after testing, with users being blamed for the fail.

[webfork]

The only way to get it to run reliably was to install it on every machine. And then make sure I gather and streamline all varous users' appdata' folders. Not my idea of portable.

It hasn't come up in a while but there are a few notions of what exactly constitutes portable. Andrew setup a fairly clear definition that's been in play for the life of the site for a while now: writing settings to the local directory. Any other settings saved elsewhere determine a separate status of "stealth" and the ability to switch between drive letters/folders is "path portability."

I haven't tested the program thoroughly, but if it reads and writes settings anywhere other than the drive where it's launched, it's not portable. I also don't consider thumb-drive-only portable software to be really portable, since there are many other use cases for portable software aside from USB drives (cloud, encrypted storage, and ease-of-backup).