Utilities for the desktop and the Web

Most desktop software now have one or more free equivalents to commercial software, running on both Windows and Linux, and Macintosh often.
This software is now sufficiently advanced to create Web pages or powering databases.
Here are the best free utilities including word processors and databases software.

LibreOffice and the Web

LibreOffice is an office suite but also a tool for the Web since it includes a basic HTML editor, in addition to word processing, spreadsheet, database manager, and drawing software. It runs under Windows and Unix.

For webmaster, word processing is a handy tool when you put online documents, enhanced with images or not.
Unlike other word processing software, LibreOffice generates web pages of very compact size, pretty close to what produces a specialized software.

You can either use the ODP (OpenDocument) format, directly or HTML. This format is more limited, and this is due to the limitations of HTML itself.
Hyperlink management is taken into account, which allows to build a complete site, the pages are linked to each other and accessible in Edit mode. Moreover, the appearance is made in the presentation format CSS and style sheets are included in the text itself.

Difficulties arise when one wants to import an HTML document produced by another software. Incompatibility is often discovered between the formats of presentation then it is better in this re-use these documents as they are and continue editing with the original publisher.

DocumentFoundation.org.

Other formats

LibreOffice can create a PDF file that will be very close of the rendering of the document or web page. It is compatible with Word and other Microsoft software and can recover files produced by these software. However, it would be better to save the Word files to RTF before retrieving as LibreOffice.

Abiword
Word processing software for free. If you want to write texts without installing a full office suite. Less complete than Open Writer mentioned above, loads faster.

Free Mind
Editor of mental map. Describe a concept in associations, detailing a story visually on a graph.

Google Docs
Online word processor .

Common applications on texts

Convert HTML to plain text: this can be done with Kompozer.
Create PDF from HTML or other format: the export option of LibreOffice.
Outline converts plain text to HTML.
Zim Wiki is a text editor that supports hyperlinks that can create wikis to use local documentation. The interface is nice. Export to HTML is possible.

Management, databases and accounting for Windows or Linux

SQL databases are on the Web most often used in invisible ways by content managers like Wordpress.

DB Designer
Manager for MySQL.
Kexi
Manager of databases.
Gnumeric
Spreadsheets.
Grisbi
Account management, personal accounting.

Other utilities

Standalone Sweeper System
Software from Microsoft to disinfect a computer that installs on a USB key.
CanYouRunIt
Before buying a game, sometimes expensive, it is better to be sure it will work on his computer. The site performs an hardware analysis of your computer and tells you if you could run the game that you specify.
Definr
There are many online dictionaries, but the definitions are lost inside advertising-saturated pages, slow to load. The site is the antithesis of that. It is an online English very dictionary that is fast with a skinned interface like Google.
Bluejean
Helping you eat to be healthy and live longer, it is the mission this site, with a lot of articles about slimness and health.

More software lists

See also