Word Processor with Tabs

Well, not exactly tabs, but Words lets you have multiple files open at the same time in the same "window". To switch from one to another just takes a couple of clicks.

I have Page Four, which actually has tabs. I don't use it for actual writing that much, but I use it a lot as an organizational tools. There is a free version, but it only allows you to have so many folders (three or four, as I recall). With the paid version (about $30) the number of folders is unlimited.

I seem to remember Scrivener having tabs, but I'm not sure. I had the beta version for Windows. I played around with it for a while and then removed it.

I wasn't sure when you were wanting something where you can actually see multiples files at the same time (as in, a file open on the left side of the screen, and one open on the right side).

That's the way Page Four works. And maybe Scrivener (again, I'm going by memory; someone who uses Scrivener will probably reply at some point).

But really, it's not that much more trouble to switch between files in Word.

You can find the Page Four website and download the trial version. It's a fairly simple download and setup as I recall. The word processing functions are fairly simple; it's meant to be that way.

What are you using? OpenOffice or LibreOffice?

There are add-ons for Word that creates file tabs. There might be some for LO/OO as well.

Have you done a Google search to see if there are any tab add-ons available for LO? If there is, that would probably be the way to go.

Do at least try Page Four. I don't do any writing with it, other than maybe blocking out a story, or doing a rough outline, but I like it as an organizational tool.

Jarte

http://www.jarte.com/

notepad ++

It does txt and rtf, it's tabbed like what your looking for.

http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

Notepad++ doesn't do RTF, only plain text.

Check out yWriter by Spacejock. Really. It shares many similarities with Shrivener -- but it's free!

http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter.html


"Spacejock" is Simon Haynes. Australian, I believe. He not only writes software but is author of the sci-fi series Hal Spacejock. He's also a contributor here on AW from time to time.

I became familiar with him about two years ago when a friend recommended his BookDB2, which I've found to be an excellent free software program for keeping track of my home library.

I recently downloaded his yWriter program but I've only looked it over. Haven't worked with it yet but it looks excellent to me. I'm in my comfort zone with MS Word but like the concept of yWriter enough that I may eventually give it a go.

As for using tabs the way you've explained here, I know of no word processor that offers that exact feature.

Hold the presses! It was right under my nose!
IBM Lotus Symphony has TABS!


(And of course it's FREE)

I would like to check this out, too. Unsuccessful at DL for now due to some Java issue, but will get that corrected and take a look. Thanks for the info MtM!

There is no tabbed windows extension for either Open Office or Libre Office. However, there is a discussion about it among the developers of OO about implementing it, which means that if they do agree to include it as a new feature, it'll be implemented in the next major build, which is likely to be 3.5 or above, given that they've announced a code freeze on the 3.4 additions. So for now the feature isn't there, but it will be soon enough.

Lotus Symphony is actually yet another fork of OpenOffice code. It's not open source, though.

For those who use Word, there is a cool free program called Office Tabs (http://office-tabs.com/) that incorporates tabs into Word.