Any Alternative to Word?

dellas1979

Hi guys,
My usual laptop is being repaired at the moment. I am using a laptop I "thought" had MS Word, but doesnt - keeps asking for a product key.
Anyways, I need to edit an urgent document this evening, but it would allow me. Is there any alternative or anything I can do?
Thanks

mikom

http://www.openoffice.org/

PogMoThoin

Most of the OpenOffice devs moved to LibreOffice over fears that OpenOffice would be discontinued or not remain open. Development of OpenOffice has now ceased.
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice

Big Lar

Office 365 is an free basic online version of ms office, I think.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_365


Edit: Its only a free trial.

fionny

+1 on Libreoffice or you could look at google doc's if you dont mind being all up in the cloud! (think there might be an offline method too though!)

Big Lar

fionny wrote: »

you could look at google doc's if you dont mind being all up in the cloud! (think there might be an offline method too though!)

Google Gears

Meesared

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Most of the OpenOffice devs moved to LibreOffice over fears that OpenOffice would be discontinued or not remain open. Development of OpenOffice has now ceased.
http://www.libreoffice.org/download/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LibreOffice

Thats not entirely true, Development of Open Office as a commercial platform has ceased, it now exists as a purely community based project.

PogMoThoin

Meesared wrote: »

Thats not entirely true, Development of Open Office as a commercial platform has ceased, it now exists as a purely community based project.

Its dead, most of the devs that used work on it moved to LibreOffice.

scotty_irish

not much help to you now cos it won't accept .doc files but latex is worth learning. free and makes the best looking documents. can use lyx as an editor - takes most of the nastiness out of latex. daunting at first but worth it. and you get the satisfaction of not giving microsoft money.

tommycahir

IBM has also brought out a free alternative to MS Office via its Lotus division..
Lotus Symphony
It is based on Open office and has built on that adding features taht were common in MS Office such as VBA support etc.

*I am an IBMr and all IBM staff are starting to use this suit of tools

Antar Bolaeisk

Big Lar wrote: »

Office 365 is an free basic online version of ms office, I think.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Office_365


Edit: Its only a free trial.

You can use skydrive (microsoft live cloud service) or googledocs for an online solution.

Both have basic word, spreadsheet and presentation solutions.

Meesared

PogMoThoin wrote:

Its dead, most of the devs that used work on it moved to LibreOffice.

Nope development is ongoing, Oracle donated openoffice.org to the Apache foundation to keep it open

mikom

Loud noises.

Capt'n Midnight

Meesared wrote: »

Nope development is ongoing, Oracle donated openoffice.org to the Apache foundation to keep it open

Ubuntu has moved to libreoffice so that's 50% of your linux users gone straight away. And all the free distros Have to mover from openoffice because the license is no longer open.

http://fossforce.com/2011/06/libreoffice-vs-openoffice-when-the-ball-bounces-your-way/

Oracle’s pass to Apache was an interception, a move that played right into The Document Foundation’s hands. License compatibility issues means LibreOffice will be able to use any changes made in OpenOffice, but not vice versa. Let me repeat: Any improvements made in OpenOffice will be available to the folks at LibreOffice to use or reject as they please while any changes to LibreOffice are forbidden to the other.

bette

Whether Openoffice is, or is no longer being developed is irrelevant to the OP. Openoffice will work for his Word files!

fionny

bette wrote: »

Whether Openoffice is, or is no longer being developed is irrelevant to the OP. Openoffice will work for his Word files!

Yes and so will Libre Office which will continue to receive attention from the devs.

bette

fionny wrote: »

Yes and so will Libre Office which will continue to receive attention from the devs.

Try to curb your pedantry! The OP asked whether there was an alternative to Word and Openoffice was suggested. The suggestion was valid. The OP obviously wants to do the basic stuff and is obviously not a computer geek!

Arguing the various stuff available is rather unhelpful.

fionny

Try to reign yourself in!

People are trying to give the OP the BEST possible solution, that happens to be Libre Office given its advantages and dev community support... therefore people are trying to point out the merits of chosing Libre Office over Open Office.... kthxbye.

mikom

I ate a big red candle.