Word processor

Steltek

Diamond Member
Mar 29, 2001
3,261
1,007
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Depends, what are you doing with it? Do you need some specific Microsoft Word-only feature, such as VBA compatibility?

Libreoffice is free, and is perfectly satisfactory for everyday word processing use.
 
Feb 25, 2011
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Depends what you want to do.

In terms of overall features and compatibility, MS Word is the "best". LibreOffice has like 80% of the features and is free, so that's my go-to. Because money is expensive.

If you're one of those "creative" writing types who doesn't like distractions when you're trying to mind-meld with the computer, there are a number of minimalistic word processors and text editors out there. Wordpad is on par with a lot of them, and is probably already installed on your computer.
 

pcslookout

Lifer
Mar 18, 2007
11,958
155
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Probably not. What is it you're looking to do? (Also, define "better.")

LibreOffice is free and is competitive with MS Word for most use cases.

I don't really like MS word because of office needing so many updates all the time.

Better as in more feature rich.

I am just looking to type on it basically.
 

K7SN

Senior member
Jun 21, 2015
353
0
0
Word 2007 is still cheap - even office to 2007 is really cheap if you don't get the database access. Depends on what you do; if you just want a pretty dependable word processor you pay for then I find the Word Perfect I have on an old XP test machine does things I can't do in word without spending money; write complex mathematical equation and publish to PDF. That said unless you have to spend money; go for good free prop grams.
 

Mike64

Platinum Member
Apr 22, 2011
2,108
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I'm kind of confused by you saying you want it to be "more feature rich" but then saying you want to "type on it basically." Which sort of "features" are you looking for? Are you in a specific professional field - legal, medical, academia, etc?

And what about compatibility with other users - is that an issue? Most basic features/formatting (margins, page numbering, fonts, etc.) can be converted from/to different formats pretty automatically, but when you start using features like indices, footnotes, tables, etc., things get messier and you have to do some-to-a-lot of manual clean-up when converting documents among different formats.