Who Is It For ?
If you are looking for some of the following features with your word processor, you will be interested in using ConstEdit :
- You don't want your word processor to run on the cloud, but locally in your own desktop device, for maximum data security.
- You usually write relatively large documents; you want functionality to arrange the document sections structure conveniently.
- You want the document format to be standard, not proprietary, and be future-proof.
- You don't want to do document formatting at the same time while you are authoring your content. Ideally, document formatting should be done automatically, according to an external stylesheet.
- You want voice typing / dictation functionality for faster input.
- You are a blogger who wants to get the html code of your articles quickly and conveniently to save effort during posting.
- You want it free.
General Features
Non-cloud. ConstEdit is a word processor designed for ease of use. Unlike cloud apps and online html editors, you do not work with an online external server. It runs entirely within your web browser in your own desktop device, for better performance, convenience and data security.
Simplicity. By omitting functionality that is unnecessary for the average user requirements, the user interface is kept clean and simple. The editing functions are sensibly arranged across the toolbars and the drop-down sub-menus, making them directly and quickly accessible, while saving working space. Extensive pop-up tips are provided to help you start up quickly. Document authoring becomes intuitive with ConstEdit.
Standard Internet Document Format. Because the created documents are of the standard internet webpage format, you are in effect writing your own webpages without any prior knowledge of html coding.
Document Sections Structure. You can visualize and manage your doc sections structure conveniently with drag-and-drop.
Separation of formatting from authoring. Formatting of document is done fully automatically by assigning an external stylesheet to your document. You can now concentrate on your authoring. Elements in your doc is formatted automatically on-the-fly as you type, according to the stylesheet.
Design Html Stylesheets. With ConstEdit, you can design and generate your own custom stylesheets for use with your documents. ConstEdit comes with four ready-to-use stylesheets.
Voice Typing. ConstEdit supports text input through voice typing with Speech Recognition.
Footnotes. You can set footnotes conveniently and you can switch quickly between the locations of the legs of the footnotes.
Copy Html for Bloggers. You can make use of the "Copy Html" option to copy your content as Html code to paste into your blog authoring tool, if your tool accepts Html code (such as Google Blogger). This way you can prepare complicated formats such as Table for your blogs conveniently.
Free To Use. ConstEdit is totally free to use for any purposes without any limitations on the available functionality.
| feature | ConstEdit | Regular word processors |
| User Interface | ||
| Single-window multi-tabbed | ✘ for simplicity, only 1 editor tab with 1 doc can be opened | ✔✘ supported by most modern word processors but not all; some are still using the old multi-window approach with one window per file |
| Auto-wrapping toolbar with auto-dropdown sub-menus | ✔ an auto-wrapping toolbar is used to automatically adjust to fit available window width; auto-dropdown and auto-hide submenus are implemented for the toolbar, so that all user interface items are directly accessible without occupying much working space | ✔ some uses the more sophisticated ribbons in place of toolbars, but that which requires the additional effort to switch between different categories of ribbons |
| Context menu | ✔✘ ConstEdit does not put any customized items into the web browser default context menu; all functional items are directly accessible from the main toolbar | ✔ |
| Shortcut keys | ✔ | ✔ |
| File | ||
| File formats supported for editing | Html (supported by all common web-browsers in all platforms in all devices) | odt, rtf, doc, docx, html, plain text are the commonly supported file formats (only html and plain text formats are directly supported by common web-browsers; all other formats are viewable only by using dedicated web-browser add-ons or using dedicated viewers or with the word processor itself); html is very rarely the default doc format; the html doc generated usually does not make the full use of modern Html features |
| Privacy-related metadata such as author and company name | ✘ no metadata regarding privacy is stored in documents generated from ConstEdit | ✔ you have the choice whether or not to store such metadata in the document; metadata can be passed over easily to someone else unnoticed and unintentionally, because these data are not normally shown on screen during editing |
| Word count | ✘ | ✔ |
| Auto-save | ✘ | ✔ |
| Compare documents | ✘ | ✔ |
| Recent-files list | ✔ | ✔ |
| Last Editing Position | ✔ upon reopening, the last editing position for the doc will be restored automatically | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Print Preview / Print / Page Setup / Export as pdf | ✔ These are built-in features of Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge web browsers. | ✔ |
| Create blog post | ✔✘ you can copy the html code of the selection to the clipboard to facilitate blog authoring | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| ✘ | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors | |
| Fax | ✘ | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| View | ||
| Print/Page layout view | ✘ | ✔ |
| Web layout view | ✔ | ✔ |
| Full-screen mode | ✔ This is a built-in feature of Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge web browsers. | ✔ |
| Zoom | ✔ This is a built-in feature of Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge web browsers. | ✔ |
| Show / hide toolbars | ✘ The toolbar of the ConstEdit editing panel cannot be hidden. | ✔ |
| Document Sections Structure | ||
| Support of real "section" (the common understanding of document section is used here, i.e. a portion of the document content, not the section that is defined as the beginning of some page formatting style as is used in many word processors) | ✔ ConstEdit uses the common understanding of section, which is independent of the styles formatting of its content. | ✔✘ The scope and the level of a section in most word processors is implied from the "heading" style that is applied to some text. |
| Insert section | ✔ In ConstEdit, the action is very intuitive : you just select the "Insert Section" item. | ✔✘ Not intuitive : you may need to choose the heading style that corresponds to the section level. |
| Automatic and multi-level numbering of section headings | ✔ The numbering is done automatically for the section level according to the stylesheet applied to the document. No user action is required. | ✔✘ Not intuitive : you may need to choose the heading style that corresponds to the section level. |
| Visualization of document structure | ✔ This is the main feature of the Sections Structure Dialog. | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Section restructuring | ✔ Restructuring with direction keys, as well as with drag-and-drop, is supported in the Sections Structure Dialog | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Generate Table Of Content | ✔ | ✔ |
| Editing | ||
| Voice Type / Speech Recognition / Speech-to-text / Dictation | ✔ | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Spell-Checker | ✔ This is a built-in feature of Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge web browsers. | ✔ |
| Auto-capitalization | ✔ | ✔ |
| Auto-convert from abbreviations | ✔ 99 records of mapping can be configured. | ✔ |
| Auto-hyphenation | ✔✘ Only for English | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Grammar checker | ✔✘ This is a built-in feature of Microsoft Edge web browser, not available with Google Chrome. | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Text prediction, style suggestions, synonyms suggestions, ai-assisted rewording | ✔✘ These are built-in features of Microsoft Edge web browser, not available with Google Chrome. | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Bibliography | ✘ | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Graphics editing | ✘ | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Math/Equation | ✘ | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Mark changes while editing | ✘ | ✔ |
| Text direction (ltr / rtl) | ✔ | ✔ |
| Paragraph move-up / move-down / indent / outdent / align | ✔ | ✔ |
| Bulleted list / numbered list | ✔ | ✔ |
| Table | ✔ | ✔ |
| Figure / diagram | ✔ | ✔ |
| Auto-numbering of table / figure / footnote | ✔ | ✔ |
| Audio / Video | ✔ The attached audio and video can be played back directly within the document. | ✔✘ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Smart quote | ✘ | ✔ |
| Endnote | ✔ The "footnote" as mentioned in ConstEdit is actually endnote with cross-references. You can switch to the location of the other leg immediately by simply clicking on the footnote marking. | ✔ |
| Footnote | ✘ | ✔ |
| Cross-referencing | ✔✘ but you can achieve similar result by inserting a link to a bookmark | ✔ |
| Comment / annotation | ✔ | ✔ |
| Bookmark | ✔ | ✔ |
| Link (hyperlinks, links to files, links to bookmarks) | ✔ | ✔ |
| Multi-column layout | ✔ | ✔ |
| Change text case | ✔ | ✔ |
| Insert symbol | ✔ | ✔ |
| Insert fields, such as date | ✔✘ supports inserting date text only; no variable field is supported | ✔ |
| Insert pagebreak | ✔ | ✔ |
| Find and Replace | ✔ | ✔ |
| Formatting | ||
| Format copying | ✔ Font, font size, font color, and font background color can be copied to the last-used values in the corresponding ui buttons for convenience in reusing the styles values. | ✔ |
| Separation of content and styles formatting | ✔ The styles formatting of the whole document can be changed by simply applying a different stylesheet. The content and document structure are not affected in any way. Styles formatting is not "burnt" into the document content. | ✘ The styles formatting is "burnt" into the document content. Changing the styles of the content can affect the document structure. |
| Automatic styles formatting | ✔ Styles formatting is done automatically according to the stylesheet that is applied to the document. Elements (section, sub-section, heading, paragraph, bulleted list, numbered list, etc) are styled to the desired look on-the-fly automatically while these elements are inserted into the document. You can concentrate on content authoring. | ✘ In most conventional word processors, styles formatting must be done at the same time of content authoring. You need to specify the styles explicitly and repeatedly to give the document the desired look because content is not separated from styles formatting. A large portion of the effort of writing a document is spent on styles formatting. |
| "inline" styles formatting | ✔ when there is a need to override the external stylesheet styling, you can still choose to apply styles that are burnt into the content | ✔ |
| Text highlight marker | ✔ | ✔ |
| Design customized stylesheets | ✔ you can design your own stylesheets to be used for your documents with the Design Html Stylesheets option | ✘ |
| Tools | ||
| Thesaurus | ✘ | ✔ |
| Translate | ✔✘ This is done through opening a new tab to Google Translate. | ✔ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Mail-merge | ✘ | ✔ |
| Data binding | ✘ | ✔ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
| Macro | ✘ | ✔ only available in the more sophisticated word processors |
