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MS Works

zx1zx1
edited May 2013 in Chit chat
As you know i now have a new PC, what i need to know if there s a free version of MS word available as i have several word processing documents that i need to keep.
Is there a free version i can download? I found one earlier that turned out to be a virus:sad:
Any ideas or will i have to fork out for a full copy?
Post edited by zx1 on
The trouble with tribbles is.......

Comments

  • ZupZup
    edited May 2013
    You could try Libreoffice. It's no MS Office but can open and save MS documents.
    I was there, too
    An' you know what they said?
    Well, some of it was true!
  • ccowleyccowley
    edited May 2013
    Yeah, gotta be LibreOffice for the win, I think. Should do the job very nicely.

    There are no free versions of MS Word (well, not legal ones anyway...), but Microsoft has done the "Microsoft Works" office suite which was supposed to be a low cost alternative. It is blimmin' awful though. LibreOffice is what you want! :)
  • mel the bellmel the bell
    edited May 2013
    or open office, another free alternative thats almost exact
    Professional Mel-the-Bell Simulator................"So realistic, I found myself reaching for the Kleenex King-Size!" - Richard Darling
  • djgarfdjgarf
    edited May 2013
    open office is what i recommend to anyone asking me about free alternatives to m$ office suite
  • ccowleyccowley
    edited May 2013
    If this was a proper nerdy linux forum, round about now would be a great time to go out and get a good stash of popcorn in :)

    Sadly, it isn't though.
  • fogfog
    edited May 2013
    I use open office, have for years

    http://www.filehippo.com/software/office/
  • PobbitPobbit
    edited May 2013
    You younguns and your newfangled software.

    You can use Edlin and jolly well like it.

    There is also Office Webapps, which are free webbrowser based versions of Word, Excel, etc, for use with Skydrive.

    http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/web-apps/
  • HairyHairy
    edited May 2013
    I use openoffice, but I can do you a cheap copy of this if you want
  • fogfog
    edited May 2013
    Hairy wrote: »
    I use openoffice, but I can do you a cheap copy of this if you want

    :-o

    my folks are visiting your island this week.. alas they wouldn't bring a load of scrabbles with em for ya haha
  • ZupZup
    edited May 2013
    About OpenOffice, I should recommend that you use Libreoffice instead of OpenOffice, mostly because is more actively developed.

    OpenOffice born as a evolution or replacement of Sun's StarOffice, and it remained as a cost-free version of StarOffice (StarOffice had some features not available to OpenOffice users). Also it was one of Sun's free projects, so anybody could contribute.

    When Oracle bought Sun, they bought also some software products (MySQL, OpenOffice, Virtualbox, Java) and promptly they started to secure their rights and direct the development as they intended. That has caused that most developers from OpenOffice and MySQL abandoned the projects.

    Those developers started new forks of that project (LibreOffice and MariaDB). At this moment, it is unclear to me if MariaDB is a better option than MySQL (but the usage is growing in Linux distributions); but it turned out that OpenOffice developing was almost stopped... Oracle donated the code and rights to the Apache Foundation.

    LibreOffice have most of OpenOffice developers, and they have "cleaned" unused code of 3.x versions; OpenOffice has the support of the Apache Foundation and they have received also the code from IBM Symphony. For now I guess LibreOffice is a better option, but that could change (although I think that it won't).

    Some other "derived" projects from OpenOffice, like StarOffice, IBM Symphony and Go-oo are discontinued, also.
    I was there, too
    An' you know what they said?
    Well, some of it was true!
  • zx1zx1
    edited May 2013
    Thanks guys! Installed Libreoffice and it works (and it loaded my MS Word files!):smile:
    The trouble with tribbles is.......
  • AndyCAndyC
    edited May 2013
    ccowley wrote: »
    There are no free versions of MS Word (well, not legal ones anyway...), but Microsoft has done the "Microsoft Works" office suite which was supposed to be a low cost alternative. It is blimmin' awful though. LibreOffice is what you want! :)
    The word processor in Works was replaced with Word decades ago. Although I'm pretty sure Works in general has been ditched entirely in favour of Home and Student versions of Office these days.

    If you don't really need much more than basic editing capabilities then the web versions of Office are free as is Google Docs. Beyond that LibreOffice is really the only choice you get.
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