Bean 2.4

Bean is a very basic and lightweight rich-text editor.

Bean is a very basic and lightweight rich-text editor. It provides a very clean interface that allows you to carry out basic text editing.

The application is limited, that is true, but that was a decision made by the developers and not a design flaw. Bean targets a very specific group of users: those who want a word processor that can let them them write without interruptions or distractions and that supports basic rich-text features. So, you won't see tables or macro support, or anything like that. But you can format text in any way that Word or OpenOffice lets you. The graphical user interface doesn't really have any toolbars or buttons that deal with text formatting, but you can do that from the app's menus or use the hotkeys. I find that using hotkeys helps me type faster.

One of the advantages that Bean has over other word processors is speed. It is very fast to load, and it doesn't really get slow when you have a lot of text in it. Just remember that this isn't a full word processor, it is a rich-text editor. I don't really use word processors a lot, but if I had to write simple text, I really wouldn't need to pay for Word or download OpenOffice. I could just use this. It has all the features that I would need.

Pros

Very nice interface
It is light and to-the-point
Free

Cons

None

This program received 1 award

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Comments

Achiro 10 years ago

It is pretty simple, probably too simple for a text editor. But it serves its minor purpose.

Gustav Olafsson 12 years ago

Of course, I understand this program wasn't developed as a potential competitor of Microsoft word or Libre Office; i certainly agree that you shouldn't expect a breath-taking functionality from a freeware program; that's surely clear that when it comes down to the layout and not to the contents of a text, you'd better turn to commercial editors. But come on, why should I want to download a text editor with a feature set little more than that of Notebook? I just see no point in installing this program on my computer, as I am not likely to use it instead of its more decent counterpart.