Early versions of LocoScript were noted for combining a wide range of facilities with outstanding ease of use.

[4] These programs and a dot matrix printer were included in the price of the PCW,[5] which was £399 plus VAT for the base model.

[9] LocoScript was regarded as easier to use than Wordstar and WordPerfect, which in the mid-1980s were the dominant word processors on IBM-compatible PCs,[3][10] and many users needed no additional information beyond what the manual's "first 20 minutes" introductory chapter provided.

[10] Most of the program's other features were presented via a pull-down menu bar in which the top-level options were activated by function keys.

[3] When the PCW product line was discontinued in 1998, The Daily Telegraph said that the range of independently produced add-on software for LocoScript had contributed to the series' longevity.

[10] As late as 1993, a journalist found "special characters" much easier to produce on LocoScript than on PC word processing software.

[20] Journalist Dave Langford published a collection of his articles about the PCW, and titled it "The Limbo Files".

[3] For each language supported by the PCW, the keyboard and LocoScript were configured so that users could easily type all of the normal character set.

[3] LocoScript's menu system enabled users to add, singly or in combination, a range of sophisticated typographical effects: monospaced or proportional character spacing; normal or double width characters and spacing; various font sizes;[23] bold, underline, italics, subscript or superscript, and reverse video.

[29] LocoScript allowed the user to edit one document while printing another, so that the relative slowness of the bundled dot matrix printer seldom caused difficulties.

LocoScript automatically adjusted the size of margins so that the same number of lines per page appeared on both single-sheet and continuous stationery.

[31] Despite the sophistication of the software, the great drawback of the PCWs was the exclusive reliance of the early models (the PCW 8256 and 8512) on a poor quality dot matrix printer, coupled with the eventual introduction (with the 9512) of a high quality daisy wheel printer that could not print any of the wide range of non-alphanumeric symbols which the LocoScript software was capable of producing.

[3] It could also format, copy and verify disks by itself, instead of requiring the user to switch to CP/M and use the Disc Kit utility.

[33] Besides the addition of LocoSpell, LocoScript 2 was also the earliest version to support the optional LocoFile add-on, providing database functionality.

Released in 1990,[35] the program's feature set was largely inline with LocoScript 2,[36] supporting LocoSpell, LocoMail, and LocoFile, while also adding a few new features, such as support for mixing text with different fonts and new text styling options, as well as a substantially increased range of compatible third-party printers.

[36][39] Some issues exist as to its compatibility with Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, and 10 (when run on those systems' DOS mode or using the DOSBox emulator).

[40] According to the vendor, LocoScript 3 also had the ability to include pictures and draw boxes within documents, a facility to print odd-numbered and even-numbered pages separately, and a word counter.