

Open OfficeĪnother freeware alternative to Word, Open Office has been around for over 15 years. If your word processing needs are limited, it's a fine alternative to Word. But it's free and constantly being improved. It's not quiet to the level of Word, with an occasionally clunky interface and some problems handling Office documents. LibreOffice is an open source word processor, so if you believe that " information wants to be free," this is the Word alternative for you. It also opens documents in tabs, instead of different windows, keeping desktop clutter to a minimum.

This free software allows you to drag and drop paragraph layouts on a paragraph by paragraph basis, making it easy to get everything in exactly the right place. Linux users love it, but so should lawyers trying to get their formatting down right. This small player is actually great for complex layouts. But, it's a perfectly adequate word processor, which is good enough if you're a member of the Cult of Steve. Like Google Docs before it, Pages also lacks some advanced features, such as mail merge. Its main drawback is, of course, that it's a Mac-only program. The word processor is very well built for design - its showcase website features it being used almost exclusively for image-heavy documents - but also does a fine job with old fashion typing. Pages for MacĪpple's Word alternative is Pages. Formatting the cover page of a brief is more difficult, for example, and offline editing is only available through the Chrome browser. However, while Google is simple, it also lacks many of the features you'll find in Word.

Since it's cloud-based, your documents can be accessed from wherever you have an Internet connection, or downloaded as plain text, a Word document, or a PDF. The online word processing platform is simple and free, like many things Google makes. If there's a potential Word-slayer out there, it's Google Docs.

Here's five quality alternatives to MS Word that are functional, affordable and, most importantly, compatible with the Microsoft documents everyone else still uses. If you're looking to break free from Bill Gates or simply want to explore other options for your firm, there are alternatives out there. But it's starting to see its dominance challenged, as consumers move to online word processors and tablets, where Word's reign is much less established. The program, which was first released over 32 years ago, is installed on over 1 billion machines and used for just about all non-specialized word processing needs. There's no question that Microsoft Word is the standard when it comes to computer word processing.
