This fully featured online translation software helps you translate web pages, web sites, as well as word, sentence and documents into your native language, if your native is any of the following languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Great improvement on multiple server support, IE Observer and Unicode Viewer since last version.

Features include:

• Translate whatever you can imagine, document, web contents, letters, chats, and emails and more
• Translation among 11 languages
• Build-in, full-featured word processor
• Supports Microsoft Word, Notepad, WordPAD, Adobe Acrobat, Outlook Express, Outlook, Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Frontpage and more
• 100% Unicode compatible
• Unicode Viewer enables users to automatically download Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian fonts from Microsoft website, when neccessary
• Open a wide variety of documents, .DOC, .RTF and .TXT
• Save or print the translated text with a print
• Multilingual user interface

Download Web Translator 8.01 in Softonic

As far as free PDF converters go, doPDF is one of the best out there saving you tons of cash on Adobe's patented version and whatsmore, doing it in half the time.

The program is remarkably simple to use. Just open a document in Microsoft Word, WordPad, NotePad or practically any other text editing software, choose Print and select doPDF. The program asks you where to save the PDF file and when finished, the PDF file will be automatically opened in your default PDF viewer. This process takes less than a minute and you'll be amazed at how accurate the PDF is. Occasionally, it can suffer with unusually formatted text and images and so they won't come-out exactly as you want but this can be remedied.

Unfortunately, there's also no option to print large web pages (such as long news articles or forum pages) without dividing it into separate pages so you'll end up with lines dividing the article up throughout your PDF documents. The other slight downside is that it seems the PDF files it creates can be rather large although if you ZIP them up, this is not much of an issue.

An excellent PDF converter that's fast, easy to use and serves as more than an adequate replacement for Adobe's software.

Download doPDF 6.1.274 in Softonic

If you need to create or edit text files and want something with more options than the default Notepad/WordPad programs that come with Windows but don't need the power and complexity of a full-fledged word processor, check out NotePro. Although it has many powerful features typically found in a word-processor, it's very simple to use.

NotePro has a clean, attractive interface that puts nearly all the options you'll need right on the well-designed button bar. NotePro handles standard text files, and also creates and saves Rich Text Format, Word, Windows Write, and HTML files used by Microsoft Word and other word-processors. You can have multiple documents open at one time.

Download NotePro 3.71 in Softonic

aMSN is an alternative to the classic MSN Messenger, with more features yet a much weaker interface. The chat client looks very similar to Microsoft's product yet differs on a number of points. aMSN developers have delved into the preferences menu, adding extra little features like event alerts and sounds, conferencing support or autoaway messages. Like with MSN Messenger you'll be able to transfer files and organize all your contacts into groups.

Audio/Video support is the number one function that users look for in IM clients nowadays, yet an area which aMSN doesn't particularly focus on. Webcam support is fairly weak and unstable, and instead of integrating into your chat window will open up in a new Quicktime window.

One of the biggest pet peeves of users with aMSN is the interface. It simply doesn't compare with more sleeker, more recent IM clients. To the developer's defense though you can download all sorts of skins from the program's website. Similarly it offers up a range of plugins, to customize your client to your liking. Chat addicts will also appreciate the animated emoticons on hand.

In terms of performance, you have to keep in mind that aMSN is still a Beta product, so still liable to some crashes and bugs. We did have some trouble when opening up new chat window and noticed that the client tended to use a lot of CPU.

In a few words, aMSN is a good alternative to MSN for users looking to add more plugins, skins and delve into the preferences menu.

Download aMSN Messenger 0.97.2 in Softonic

Find Desktop is the entry level solution for document management. The extreme simplification of all operations, allows you to drammatically decrease the time needed to find, view and elaborate documents. Find Desktop is integrated with a powerful "full-text" retrieval engine, supported by O.C.R. (optical character recognition) engine.

This allows you to search directly in the text, starting from one word or exact phrase contained in electronic or image documents. Other important functions are the mail indexing system, the enhanced scanning functions (with virtual annotation capabilities) as well as the management of the classification fields associated with documents render Find Desktop the fast and economic solution for document management.

Find Desktop is equipped of technology "Highlight" that evidences directly on the original document (image file or electronic file) the search results and supports the most common electronic document formats (Adobe Acrobat PDF, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, etc..) with search capabilities also in ZIP file. The Automatic Web Update allows you to maintain the software always up to date.

Download Find Desktop Standard 1.84 in Softonic

Do you need the processing power of Microsoft Word but don't have hundreds of dollars to pay for the Office package itself?

Jarte may be your answer. It's a free word processor based on Microsoft WordPad's word processing engine. It's extremely fast and easy to use. In a way it acts more like WordPad on steroids, adding tons of useful features to the basic word processor. It's very portable - it can fit on a USB stick - and yet it can open any document compatible with Word and WordPad.

Believe it not, Microsoft is continually upgrading the simple WordPad editing engine, although WordPad itself hasn't changed. never know it by examining WordPad. Jarte however takes advantage of these changes and has evolved to take advantage of the new useful features that Microsoft have added. These include tabbed document windows for easy access to open documents, larger buttons for the most commonly used functions, instant dictionary and thesaurus word look-up and a free spell check and text search tools that do not impose themselves on top of the text you are trying to edit.

There are many new features in Jaxtr that make it a superb option for those that can't afford or access Word but need it's processing power.

Download Jarte 3.3 in Softonic

I've always used MS Word for my word processing needs but if you don't have Office installed, then it's not exactly a cheap option.

AbiWord can read and write all standard industry docs ranging from open source efforts such as those created in OpenOffice to those created in professional apps such as Microsoft Word. It also features support for WordPerfect documents, Rich Text Format documents, HTML web pages etc. Although the editing options can't compare with Word, I do like the fact that this is a very light word processor that doesn't take up much more processing power than even MS Text. This makes it especially suitable for those working on slower machines who haven't got a decent word processor installed. What's also nice is that AbiWord is fully customisable with several different plugins to extend its capabilities. These can vary from format converters, document importers and thesauruses to image importers and a text format managers.

This may be basic but it's generally a very impressive word processing app that has everything you need to edit simple documents.

Download AbiWord 2.6.4 in Softonic

OpenOffice.org is both an open-source product and a project. The product is a multiplatform office productivity suite. It includes desktop applications such as a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a presentation manager, and a drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to those of other office suites. OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office.

Localizations of OpenOffice.org are available in 27 languages, with more being constantly added by the community. OpenOffice.org runs on Solaris, Linux (including PPC Linux), and Windows. Written in C++ and with documented APIs licensed under the LGPL and SISSL open-source protocols, OpenOffice.org allows any knowledgeable developer to benefit from the source.

Download OpenOffice.org 2.4.1 in Softonic

We're always being bombarded by warnings about the dangers of malware and although the level of threat is probably not as high as the antivirus companies make out, it's still essential to take precautions. Although it's far from a complete antivirus tool, DriveSentry does a very thorough job of preventing certain applications trying to access the Internet without your knowledge.

A good thing about this program is like, unlike many of its rivals, it doesn't bombard you with pop-up messages warning you whenever a program is trying to access the Net. Instead, you have an easy-to-manage list of programs that are automatically granted permissions, which you can quickly add to at any time.

What's more, permissions can also be applied on a Registry level, meaning you can give writing access to certain common processes. With an instant access System Tray icon thrown in for good measure, this is a great no-frills firewall app for those who want their system protection to be done in the background.

Download DriveSentry 3.1 in Softonic

I use Gmail so much now that in many ways, I prefer it to even using Outlook. However, integration with Windows is nowhere near as good as Microsoft Outlook for obvious reasons.

gAttach! bridges that gap somewhat by allowing you to attach files directly to Gmail or Google Apps Mail directly from Windows. In other words, just right click on a file, select "Send To" and "Mail recipient" and the plugin will automatically open your Gmail client with the file already attached. It not only attaches files directly from Windows Explorer - it also opens up a whole new world of attachment possibilities from Microsoft Office, Adobe Acrobat, Windows Live Photo Gallery, Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox.

There's not much more too it than that - it integrates perfectly into Windows Explorer. However, you may experience some glitches. If you are sending a file attachment whose filename is in a different alphabet to the one you use normally (e.g. your computer uses English but you're sending a Spanish attachment), it may not recognize or attach the file. It's also limited by Gmail's 20MB file attachment restriction. If you're logged into your Gmail, it won't prompt you for your details but if you are not, then it does ask you for your username and password which you may or not feel comfortable submitting.

For any Gmail fan, this is an excellent utility that makes attaching and sending files so much easier than opening your web client all the time.

Download gAttach! 1.2008.7.7 in Softonic

If you're constantly opening new programs throughout your working day, do you realise how much time you could save by using a launch application such as Key Launch Portable?

If you've used a Mac, you'll instantly recognise the format of Key Launch Portable from the Spotlight application on Mac's. With this program however, the small interface appears when you repeatedly press the spacebar or control key. You can also configure other keys to activate the interface in the preference menu.

As you write something in the interface, you'll see the name of the program you want to launch before you've even typed it as Key Launch Portable predicts as you type. You can configure this to recall specific web pages and even documents too according to their name. For example, you can enter 'c' to open the 'calculator' or assign the letter 'w' to open 'Microsoft Word'.

With Key Launch Portable, you'll save precious minutes of your day rather than looking through your Start menu for programs. However, it can sometimes be annoying when it brings up the wrong program which it frequently can do if you have many installed on your PC.

Download Key Launch 1.9 in Softonic

Whenever I hear the word "Pro" and "Microsoft" in the same package, I get inherently nervous because it's often nothing more than a few add-ons for hundreds of dollars more.

The first thing to warn you about is upgrading from Office 2007 with this package. You are almost certainly going to experience a myriad of upgrade problems, compatibility issues and goodness knows what else. certainly. Note that you'll certainly need a considerable amount of time to adjust to upgrading to this new version of Office although those used to the Classic version will probably have least problem and for the cost of the upgrade, it's debatable whether it actually increases productivity or speed of use at all. The ribbons in particular are still cluttered, poorly organised and occupy too much of the desktop. In addition, there's not much added functionality although they have manged to make sure that the ‘saved’ file sizes are smaller. I really can't see much reason in upgrading from Office 2003 based on this very frustrating version of 2007 but if you really do enjoy constant technical hiccups and error messages, then go ahead.

This is one Microsoft upgrade to definitely avoid although the one advantage is that saved file sizes are smaller.

Download Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Beta 2 in Softonic

No matter how accurate your typing is, you probably do a few typos every time you write an email or post something to your blog. How can you avoid this?

The answer is Enso Words. This universal spell checked takes care of your written accuracy when writing, be it in your word processor, your web browser, your email client or even your instant messaging app.

Simply select the text you want to analyze in whichever program you've written it and launch Enso Words using its keyboard shortcut. The spell checker will be displayed as a new layer over your screen, showing a copy of your text and highlighting all those words that seem to be wrong. To correct them, simply click on them and select the right option from the context menu. You can also make Enso Words learn new terms in this same context menu.

Any drawbacks? Well, if you're to be picky, Enso Words only supports English, and doesn't include advanced options to replace the same word all through the document or simply ignore it.

Enso Words can correct any text on an application, provided is written in English and you don't need any advanced features.

Download Enso Words 1.0 in Softonic

In the beginning was Microsoft Office. Then OpenOffice appeared as an open-source alternative. And now IBM makes a new move and offers its own productivity suite, all free of charge. The idea is not new: there have been a few free suites launched lately, but all of them were online. IBM Lotus Symphony is the only desktop suite that, together with OpenOffice, can offer a free alternative to Microsoft's proprietary apps.

IBM Lotus Symphony offers three tools: word processor, spreadsheet and presentations. It's true that other productivity suites are usually more complete. However, Lotus Symphony stands out for a convenient, single-windowed interface from which you can launch the three apps. Simply click on the "Open" button and select the kind of document you want to open: the program's toolbar will change accordingly. What's more, you can have as many opened documents as you want at the same time, no matter which type, and switch between them in the top tab bar.

The suite includes all the basic tools that you could expect in such an application: spell checker and tables for documents, predesigned templates for presentations and charts for spreadsheets - to name a few - besides the usual configuration options as regards fonts, colors and the like.

In my personal opinion, I'm glad to have another possibility to choose from when deciding which suite I'm going to use. A little rivalry is always good and usually produces better and wider options for computer users. And it seems IBM is beginning to take the suite competition quite seriously.

IBM Lotus Symphony has left the beta stage behind and now offers a stable, highly functional productivity suite that, despite not being as complete as other suites, may perfectly fit your needs.

Download IBM Lotus Symphony 1.0 in Softonic

WordPipe is used by IT personnel to repair hyperlinks when a server gets renamed, by SMEs and large organisations when they change their contact details, name or office bearers, by translators to apply massive search/replace lists - the list of uses is endless.

WordPipe applies one or more replacements to thousands of documents, to every part of your Microsoft Word documents. To use WordPipe, you simply add a list of search/replace pairs, and for each one, specify where in the document it should be found. Then you tell it which files to process - that's it!

What it can be used for:

• Standardize corporate name changes such as your organization's phone number, address, web site or CEO
• Performing server consolidations where document links need updating
• Server renaming or replacement where document links need updating
• Standardize Policy Headers
• Changing part numbers or SKUs across multiple files
• Removing digitized signatures from documents prior to converting them to PDF and placing them on the web
• Translating documents
• Correcting OCR (scanned) documents
• Detecting 'TOP SECRET' documents that have been saved in the wrong folder (by security identifiers located in headers)

Download WordPipe 5.7.1 in Softonic

Having a keyboard with more than a hundred keys on it, wouldn't it make sense to make the most of them? With Winlaunch now you can assign your own customizable keyboard shortcuts to a wide array of different actions.

After installing the program, you're presented with a clear, simple interface where you can start adding shortcuts straight away. Winlaunch includes a wizard-like interface that makes it very easy: select the action you want to perform, set the variables and assign a given shortcut to it. That's all!

You can choose between launching an application, opening a file or folder, starting an e-mail message, opening a webpage, executing a certain command or even inserting a predefined text string. As for key combinations there are also many to choose from, including modifiers such as Ctrl, Alt, Shift or the Win key.

I especially liked the so called "Exceptions", which enable you to disable hotkeys under certain circumstances so that they don't overrun other predefined shortcuts. This means that, for example, if you use Ctrl+T to open the Twitter website, you can disable that combination when working in Photoshop so that you can properly use the Transformation tool shortcut, which is also Ctrl+T.

On the downside, I missed having some kind of easy reminder to review all the shortcuts I had created without having to open the program's interface. Thus it'll be easier to learn all combinations by heart from the very beginning.

With Winlaunch you'll be able to perform a wide variety of actions in Windows just by using keyboard shortcuts, though it'll require some effort from you to learn them all.

Download Winlaunch 4.0 Beta 2 in Softonic

Microsoft has added new file formats to the 2007 versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to reduce file size, improve reliability, and enhance integration with external sources.

To help ensure that you can exchange documents between Microsoft Office releases, Microsoft has developed a Compatibility Pack for the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2007 File Formats. By installing the Compatibility Pack (Beta 2 Technical Refresh) alongside Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able open, edit, save, and create files using the robust file formats new to the 2007 Microsoft Office system.

Download Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack 2007 Beta in Softonic

Text2Speech is a simple application that can read any text pasted or written into the special editor provided. There is just one voice available, 'Microsoft Sam', of which you can choose speed rate and volume.

It would have been such a useful program for many different purposes, if only it really worked properly. In fact, many people would be able to have their documents as MP3 files and listen to them while travelling, without having to carry printed papers which can be difficult to handle on the move. Even people with reading difficulties might have benefited from having a text to speech synthesizer.

Unfortunately, the voice in this application is neither natural nor clear. Its quality is the same of the artificial voice you could get on a PC in the late 80s. One would expect the general standard of synthesizers to have improved in nearly twenty years, but instead of that it's basically like having Robocop reading you a fairy tale. Not the most appealing setting I can think of.

If you can handle a rather metallic, ‘Microsoft Sam’ voice, try Text2Speech to have your written documents in vocal form and save them as either MP3 or Wave files, for a listening on the go.

Download Text2Speech 1.0.2.1 in Softonic

If you've always wanted to add a check box, radio button or combo box, to your PDF documents and felt frustrated because you couldn't find any easy to use tool to help you, well look no further, this is the application for you.

It's a Microsoft Word plug-in and it requires an updated version of Office i.e. your word processor must be updated with the latest Service Pack. Having said that, the CenoPDF bar and menu are very clear to use and the tools you can add on your Word document are well symbolized with self-clarifying icons. It is of course based on the principle of 'what you see is what you get' (WYSIWYG) so if you are not happy with the size or the location of one box, you can easily move it and resize it. An option menu for each function lets you decide all the settings you might need to personalize. Finally, you can export your document as PDF and see immediately the final result.

CenoPDF is useful to add special buttons to your PDF documents such as list box, text box and check box, but why does the program have to disable the auto-saving function in Word, which is indeed a work-saving tool!

Download CenoPDF 3.0.55.0 in Softonic

Print2Flash lets you easily convert any printable document (e.g. Microsoft Word, or Excel, or PowerPoint document) to a Macromedia Flash file (SWF). This file can be shared with users who don’t have the software that created the original document (for example, Microsoft Word).

You can view such files with Macromedia Flash Player that is available across a number of operating systems. And these files can be easily published on the Web as well for fast and easy access to them from anywhere across the globe

Download Print2Flash 2.7.2 in Softonic