Thread: MS Word without buying MS Office?

I do a lot of writing but dont really feel like shelling out the dough for MS Office. Is there a free version that I can use to open docs or some other compatible software anyone can recommend? This may be a stupid question I admit but every other computer I owned already came with MS Word.

Any advice or recommendations greatly accepted.

Not that I know of, but "OpenOffice" is a free program that works a lot like MS Word, and it will even let you save your files in MS Word format. Try that unless someone tells you how to get MS Word for free, legally

Open Office, Hip.

You can always find a cheap Office 2003 for $40ish on Craigslist.
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I use OpenOffice at work, but I don't really like using it. Sometimes I don't know how to use even the most simple features because I'm so much used to MS Word.
If you need it for simple type-and-print-and-maybe-add-a-picture documents, OpenOffice should be just fine.

And as King Taco said, search for cheap copies of MS Word. To me personally, there's not much difference between MS Office components, so maybe an even older version than 2003 should do the trick.
I still work with PowerPoint 97 and it looks good.

If you're willing to spend a couple extra bucks, pick up the MS Office Teachers/Students Edition. I think there are a few things different between the MS Office Standard and the T&S Edition but I havent found them. The T&S Edition has worked great since day one.

If it is just word documents that you are looking to read and write (including office 2007 documents) you can also look at a program called Abiword. AbiWord This program was setup to be an open source version of MS Word. not to mention it is free!!

we're still using Office 2003 at work and it still runs brilliantly.

You can also look into Microsoft's Home Use Program which can get you Office Enterprise 2007 for $9.95.

Microsoft Home Use Program

I don't know if they still make it, but Microsoft used to have a poor-man's office suite called "MS Works" (stripped down word processor, spreadsheet, calendar etc.,) that was pretty cheap.

Has anyone looked into Google docs? Are the user's files strictly online (never residing on their harddrive or movable to a flash stick .... that might be kind of limiting to some folks)?