What is the best FREE word processor for windows

[mikeleblanc413]

After looking for some time I finally purchased a little HP laptop computer and am pleased...HP came with Note Pad...a most basic word processor...I've used Office before and gave it some thought, but I believe it is way more than I need. I would like a word processor to change fonts, be able to make bold, underline, and change color.

Can I get a FREE program to do that...or one with a few more bells and whistles for minimal money?

THANKS!

[strollin]

MS also has on-line versions of Excel, Word & Powerpoint that can be accessed from OneDrive just like Google Docs & Google Drive.

[AllegroD]

Kingsoft is pretty good.

[AsheGuy]

I agree with the Google Docs suggestion. It is free and opens MS Word files. Very simple if you have a gmail account. And it has the advantage of being able to access your documents from any device you access the Internet from including smart phones and tablets.

I was an original WordPerfect user, used Open Office for a while, but Google Docs is way more an app of the future.

[rgwilliams69]

I was an Open Office user for several years, but have recently switched to Google's cloud solution "Google Docs/Drive". Lots of free online storage, security of the files that is better than most financial institutions, and full portability of all documents between all open source (Open Office) and purchased (Word) suites. Additionally you can access/create/edit documents on multiple platforms - windows, iPad, Android, etc. seamlessly. Even on your mobile phone if you want to just look at one of them or do some light editing.

They have made some vast improvements over the past 18-24 months and it is all, of course, completely free.

http://www.google.com/about/products/

[tenbear]

I have used Libre Office since before this thread was started and have seen no reason to change. It opens and saves files in word format as well as many others.

[Dutch_12078]

Libre Office is more actively maintained and improved than Open Office now, making it the better choice in my opinion.

[jplante4]

Dtaylor wrote:

Cy wrote:
Anyone got a good free word program for IPad?

Polaris Office, but not sure if it is free

I'm pretty sure that was an attempt to start a war, but no one took the bait.

Open Office has come a long way performance wise since the early versions. I have one caution for those who think it's free; It's really not. The Open Software Movement relies on volunteers and donations to make quality software available to the masses for little or no money. The price you pay comes in the form of inconvenience if you have an issue, and backwards compatibility across several releases. Bugs may not be fixed in a timely manner (timely being relative, but it won't be tomorrow), and your only means of support may be some internet forum for users where you may or may not get an answer in time to complete your project today.

Unlike RV forums, technical forums tend to be less tolerant of... let's say... idiots. Posting a question without first checking the FAQs (pretty common here) will get you flamed. Even more to prevent you from solving an immediate problem.

[wa8yxm]

Traver8 wrote:
Take a look at Open Office - it is an open source package that very closely duplicates Microsoft Office.

Not only that but it can read and write most Microsoft formats,,,,,, and a few others as well.

[strollin]

I use MS Office on my Windows computers but use Kingsoft on my Android devices (phone, tablet, min-PC) to be able to read/edit MS docs interchangeably with my Windows computers.

[Chris_Bryant]

Not really a word processor, but a Desktop Publishing program- Scribus. There is also LyX- a document processor. I think that's the one that has the Shoe comic strip in it-
Skyler: "Uncle Cosmo, what's word processor do?"
Cosmo: "Well Skyler, you know what a food processor does to food?..."

[VE3ESN]

Surprised that nobody has mentioned Kingsoft Office Free which we recently installed on our netbook. (Had been using Abiword, but found it not nearly as good as Kingsoft.) We like Kingsoft so much that we also installed it on our main computer and find it easier to use than MS Word (although it looks strikingly similar to MS Word!)

[tatest]

For free, I would say the word processor in Open Office, although that is also a lot more than you need.

I did quite well with Wordpad as my light duty PC word processor in the years I was using Word Perfect as my primary (writing computer manuals on three different OS platforms) but as we took our PCs from DOS to Windows and WYSIWYG apps, my employer eventually had us standardize on MS Word and I outsourced my publishing tasks and used Wordpad for the occasional document.

So look for Wordpad in your programs, it might be enough for your need.

[wittmeba]

Judge for yourself.

Check out these sites:

Other choices here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_office_suites


https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_LibreOffice_-_Microsoft_Office


http://www.itworld.com/software/368184/apache-openoffice-4-vs-libreoffice-41


http://www.infoworld.com/d/applications/review-apache-openoffice-4-vs-libreoffice-41-224280

[tenbear]

Glad we could help. As you use Open/Libre Office you will find a lot of uses for them. I agree that Libre Office is the better one at this time but that could change with time. Play around with the drawing part of it, pretty cool.

Thanks for letting us know.