One of the most successful British word processor programs, developed by Peterborough-based Ltd between 1985 and 1995, Protext has sold over 30,000 copies. Original written for the Amstrad CPC464, Protext was subsequently released for the Amstrad PCW8256, the PC, the Atari ST, Commodore Amiga and the Acorn Archimedes.
When Arnor closed in 1995 it seemed that Protext had become another British casualty of the fast-evolving world of computers. But a group of Protext users with professional experience from other areas of business were not prepared to let it go. They formed a partnership called Protext Software with the copyright owners and original programmers and relaunched the program in an new version (v6.7) for the PC. Now, in July 2008, Protext has been issued as freeware and can be downloaded from this web site, completely free of charge.
Despite being packed with advanced features, above all the latest versions of Protext remain fast and very easy to use. It is a credit to the programmers that the user-friendly qualities of the original CPC version have been maintained through to this latest one while building in more and more useful features.
The full release of Protext 6.7 is available here as a completely free download. Just click on the link below and save the ZIP file to your computer. After the download is complete you should extract all files to a folder.
Open the folder in Windows and then:
If using Windows Vista, any other version of Windows except XP, or MS-DOS run INSTALLC.BAT which will install Protext to C:\PROTEXT. Alternatively INSTALLD.BAT will install to D:\PROTEXT. If you want to install to a different location you will need to do this from a Command Prompt by typing INSTALL {any path}.
If using Windows XP then run INSTALL16C.BAT which will install Protext to C:\PROTEXT. Alternatively INSTALL16D.BAT will install to D:\PROTEXT. If you want to install to a different location you will need to do this from a Command Prompt by typing INSTALL {any path} 16.
Download Protext 6.7 (PC version).
The manuals are available for download here. The original Protext documents are not suitable for downloading as they were formatted specifically for an early Kyocera laser printer, so they have been converted (using the SAVEA command) to a text file that can be read in Notepad or Wordpad. Unfortunately this means the document layout is not ideal but all the text is available. If anyone has the time and inclination to reformat the manuals as a Word or PDF document please contact us at the email address below and we will let you have the originals.
Download Protext Reference manual.
Protext is available for:
PC version 6.7 (MS-DOS 3.0 or later, Windows 3.x, 95/98 or NT. Requires 640K RAM and a hard disk).
Download
Atari version 6.6 (for ST, TT and Falcon. Requires 1Mb RAM).
Download (v6.5)
Commodore Amiga version 6.6. Requires 1Mb RAM.
Download
Download French and German dictionary and thesaurus.
Prodata v1.23
Protext's companion database program, includes full printed manual
PC and Atari
Year 2000 patch
Earlier version of Protext for PCs with no hard disk or with only 512K RAM.
PC only
For technical enquiries e-mail mark-AT-tigerteam.co.uk (change -AT- to @)