There once was a time when if you wanted a decent word processor you'd have to shell out for a copy of Word. Since the rise of decent open source office suites such as OpenOffice these days are thankfully disappearing. What's more, many developers are now investing their time in online solutions, such as the world's biggest Internet company's Google Docs. Now, even Adobe is looking to get in on the act after acquiring Buzzword, a rather lovely online word processing application.

This can only be good news for us users, because editing text online not only saves you money but also makes it easier to synchronise work and collaborate on shared projects. It also means that Google will find it even more difficult to get a foothold in the market, which already boasts some very workable applications. Here are five great online Word alternatives you can try now:

• Writeboard - Allows you to create 'writeboards,' which can be formatted with ease
• Google Docs - Create documents in Word format for free and apply HTML
• Zoho Writer - Online editor which Word users will find easy to pick up
• ThinkFree - Capable editor with a whopping 30Mb of storage space
• AjaxWrite - Another faithful Word clone, but only supports Firefox at the moment