Is there an open source Word Document type of program available?

Our computer crashed a week ago, resulting in the purchase of a brand spanking new computer. We had been accustomed to various used computers, hand me downs, that already included the various office suites from Microsoft. The operating licensing of these programs were presumably lost with the compact discs they originated on. Purchasing these new are not in our budget.

Does anyone have personal experience with an open source program that you'll endorse?

I use LibreOffice. Made by the same company that did OpenOffice, which was purchased by Adobe. I've been using it for years.

Sounds like a great time to make the transition over to Linux.

MX Linux has libre office rolled up into it.

A great place to look for free software is

https://sourceforge.net

Mart

I haven't had enough experience outside of Windows/Mac to make a thorough endorsement, but playing around with some of the open source apps has been satisfying so far.

Libre Office (a full suite) was already mentioned.....and appears at this time to be the Go-To office suite when transitioning away from MS Office.  Most who are using it are likely doing so from within Linux.....an OS that I'm still dabbling with, and yet into which I have not taken the full plunge.

You mentioned in the title of this thread "Word Document type of program", which would be more specific than a full office suite.  With that in mind, I've just started playing with AbiWord (Word processor) in addition to the aforementioned Libre Office suite.  Not wanting to balls-up in some way my ailing and wheezing laptop running Win7, I've opted to run both Libre Office and AbiWord as "Portable Apps".....that is, as applications that don't rely on the operating system.  In doing so, I'm also not installing them on my computer's hard drive, but rather installing them as a test on a flash drive (pen drive) and running them from there.  

From their website (linked below):  "PortableApps.com is the world's most popular portable software solution allowing you to take your favorite software with you. A fully open source and free platform, it works from any synced cloud folder (DropBox, Google Drive, Box, etc), from your local PC on an internal or external drive, ***OR***  on any portable storage device (USB flash drive, memory card, portable hard drive, etc) moved between PCs. With millions of users all over the world and a full collection of open source and freeware software, compatible commercial software, and partners in hardware industry, PortableApps.com is the most complete solution for life on the go."  I added the emphasis on "OR" here to affirm that these packages will run directly off of a flash drive.  I will caution you, however, that such portable apps, in my hands at least, appear to boot more slowly than word processing or suite packages that interface with the cognate operating system (i.e MS Office for Windows or MS Office for Mac). Additionally, the support and maintenance of such software is based on the desire and resources of the application's creator.....I think AbiWord may have received a new upgrade, but was apparently lagging behind for some time...(?)..

So maybe something of use for you to try with the fate that has befallen your PC .....  https://portableapps.com/

Immediately, we need a word processing program. I will be needing a spreadsheet and other programs soon. I just didn't know where to start looking for stuff.

Open Office, mentioned above, has a Word-like word processing program. I used it for years before I opened my company and had to go all official. Never a problem and pretty easy to use.
https://www.openoffice.org/

Or if have reliable internet, why not use google docs? No software to download, you link it to your gmail account and save it in your google drive. Also has spreadsheet, a power point slide thing. The learning curve is pretty mild and if you have questions you can generally find the answers pretty easily by searching.
https://www.google.com/docs/about/

A PS about the portable apps, I had a computer issue a few years ago while traveling and bought a little tiny notebook with no real hard drive, but I also got an enormous pen drive and did just that to get me through my trip. Everything except for MS Office is available in a portable format and it`s been excellent.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Immediately, we need a word processing program. I will be needing a spreadsheet and other programs soon. I just didn't know where to start looking for stuff.

Download Libreoffice (OpenOffice is now owned by Adobe--it was the Libreoffice precursor). The format will be familiar, it looks and acts very much like Microsoft but it's free. If you decide on another, just uninstall it. The suite includes a number of different programs, including spreadsheet.

Lauren Ritz wrote:(OpenOffice is now owned by Adobe--it was the Libreoffice precursor).

Thanks for clarifying that, I was wondering what was going on with that. things have changed!!

I've been using the Libreoffice suite (and OpenOffice before that) for the past 15 years. Haven't had any problems.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Our computer crashed a week ago, resulting in the purchase of a brand spanking new computer. We had been accustomed to various used computers, hand me downs, that already included the various office suites from Microsoft. The operating licensing of these programs were presumably lost with the compact discs they originated on. Purchasing these new are not in our budget.

Does anyone have personal experience with an open source program that you'll endorse?

LibreOffice - you can open/edit any existing doc or docx file you already have. Writer is the specific Word replacement app. Calc is the Excel replacement.

If you decide you want to get away from Windows, a lot of versions of linux can be placed on a USB thumb drive and ran from it live. That will tell you if there's going to be any hardware issues which is possible with a brand new machine. If it goes well, linux can install itself alongside of Windows and create a menu at startup that allows you to choose which operating system you want to boot to. Ubuntu and various versions of it are popular, especially Linux Mint.  

I've been running Ubuntu for over a decade now. I do keep Windows around for a couple of programs that don't have a linux version. Obscure auto repair software, one is a scan tool and the other repair info. Other than that, I stay on linux. It's nice to get all your software for free. I don't think I've ever had a brand new machine. I usually buy slightly used Thinkpads from ebay that already have Windows and a decent sized hard drive and then put linux on them.

Linux as an OS has been nixed. For now. It is good to know about the external drive option, for later testing... maybe.

I have successfully downloaded the LibreOffice.

Thank you everyone!

Just needed to rant......yet maybe it will be of use to someone else here.  End of the year deadlines always bring about a lot of document submissions at work.  If I doing some teleworking, then often I'm using a few different past versions of MS Word and then **praying** that it will up-convert back to the latest version we use at work.  At the end of the work day, I kept having document crashes of the dreaded Windows "MS Word is not responding" variety.  Finally just had to close the last saved version and send it off to the next team member with apologies if something was left un-edited before sending.  Out of curiosity, I went to my copy of LibreOffice, the portable version that is installed in addition to MS Office.  The word processor in LibreOffice opened my document like a champ.....no hiccups, no freeze-ups, no ---ups of any kind!  Was rather pleased to know that,.... and may just use that in the future for any further telework documents.

Hi,

LibreOffice is a good alternative. There are lightweight alternatives too.
* Abiword - for word processing is a good light weight alternative and it is wicked fast, but i have had it crash a few times
if you are comfortable or okay with latex
* Lyx is a cool program to check out

There are more alternatives if you switch to linux.

Hope something in my post is of some use to you.

--Thomas

My vote is for Google Documents.

You need a live internet connection, but it is a fully functional word processor, spreadsheet etc...

And by default the documents are backed up o the cloud and immediately accessible from any pc just by logging in via the web browser. They are also incredibly easy to share with others just by sending a link.