Kword is the Word Processor program which comes bundled with KOffice for KDE. You can install it on Ubuntu Linux 10.10 by using Ubuntu Software Center, and searching for KOffice, and clicking the install button.
KOffice is very easy to use as a word processor. There most of the features you need in a word processor like bold, italics, spell check, text alignment, and more. Kword also comes with a few templates for printing out letters, business cards, labels, envelops and more. The best feature of Kword is its fast start up time and low computer resource usage, so you can open other programs like music players, and web browsers without Kword slowing down your compute
Sadly, there does not seem to be a way to configure auto-save, so save your work often by clicking the save button on the tool bar or pressing CTRL+ S on your keyboard. There is also no feature to save files as an doc file for MS Word users, but KWord uses ODT as it’s main file format which is compatible with Oracle Open Office, Google Docs and IBM Lotus Symphony Word Processor.
However, you can open MS Word, Abiword, RTF and a bunch of different popular document formats. For maximum compatibility, users can also export Kword documents as PDF files, so all computers with a PDF reader can read your document.
Kword start up time is very fast, and Kword is very stable. I have only experience one crash since using Kword for a few hours. Kword also has a sidebar which is very easy to use change the font style, add pictures and shapes and style your document formats.
The user interface for Kword is simple if you take the time to learn it, or if you use other word processors like Open Office in the past. The short cut buttons are also easy to understand by looking at their symbols and pop up labels.
Sadly, I can’t figure how to add a text link. spell check also seems to not work when I go to Tools and spell check in the menu bar, or right click the wrong spelling mo lists of suggested correct spelling words show up like in Open Office, Word, Abiword, etc. I also can’t figure out how to adjust the margins in Kword.
The right sidebar can be kind of hard to use since there are so many icons, and tabs on it.
I also can’t figure out/find the bulleted and numbered auto-lists creator where all you have to do is type and press enter and a bulleted or numbered list is created. I eventually found it by randomly looking everywhere for the bulleted and numbered list in the right sidebar.
In summary, Kword is a great word processor for typing up quick notes, memos, lower level high school essays and non-research essays. But, I’ll rather use Open Office, or Lotus Symphony Word Processor as my free word processor choice if I needed a free word processor to type out an E-book, report, research essay, or other professional document. This whole review was typed up in KWord 2.2.2 for KOffice. KWord might be a good WordPad Alternative for people who are use to WordPad in Windows.