Microsoft Word

[Fierofool]

Microsoft Word is a very common word processing program and is offered on most computers that use Windows as the OS.  Do any of you have Word on your computer and have to pay a yearly fee to use it?  My PC and Melanie's laptop are relatively new and didn't come with the Word app.  I remember her purchasing it so we could read documents transferred from our old machines, but in the past, Word just was one of the apps that was included in the purchase price of the device. 

The reason I ask is that my credit card was just charged $100 for renewal of Microsoft Word.  I was unaware of anything like this since Melanie handled application subscriptions. 

[GTRS Fiero]

Word is part of MS Office, and is not included with Windows.  Wordpad is included with windows.  Office runs on several platforms, including Windows.

You may have an Office 365 subscription.  Office is moving to a subscription model (as is Windows).  Formerly, you could purchase a full retail copy of Office; now, it's usually a subscription.  The good thing about the subscription, is that you can always download the current version.  That's about the only good thing.

When you open Word, it likely says Office 365, depending on the version.

New computers do come with a trial for MS Office installed.  You can log on to your subscription, buy Office, enter your product key, or ignore it.

There is a free alternative, called Open Office.  It's clunky, and has some compatibility issues.

[TopNotch]

There is a better free alternative, called LibreOffice. It does just about everything that MS office does.

[Fierofool]

Is it compatible with Word?  I don't want to lose the ability to read my files.

[TopNotch]

Yes, it can read Microsoft word files. However, when you save files, unless you specify Microsoft Word format, it will save them in it's own format, which Microsoft Word can't read.

Edit: If you download this, here are the program equivalents.
Microsoft Word - LibreOffice Writer
Microsoft Excel - LibreOffice Calc
Microsoft Powerpoint - LibreOffice Impress

These program call all load the Microsoft program files.

[pgackerman]

Try Google Docs and/or Google Drive.

Free, easy to share, etc.

[Fierofool]

I've downloaded Libre onto Mel's laptop.  Looking at the document writer, I couldn't find any provision to save it as a Word file.  But I must say that it reminds me of the old Windows 3 or 7 Word app. 

[TopNotch]

This is for the Linux version. Hopefully the Windows version is the same.
Click on File, Save as.
In the bottom right corner of the window that pops up, click the down arrow where it says "All Formats".
Pick either "Microsoft Word 2007-2013" or Microsoft Word 97-2003" from the list.

[GTRS Fiero]

Afterward, make sure it opens with Word.  You can use the free Word viewer.