Free Word Processing Software?

[The Mighty Gerbil]

Generally I just write any notes I need to as drafts in Thunderbird, however, I've got a couple more elaborate projects calling for multiple pages. Looking for...

1. Free
2. Offline
3. Multiple pages in one document
4. Basic paragraph formatting
5. Speeeeeelchecker
6. A file format that isn't going to lock me to a single program

Do you guys all just use Google Docs or Microsoft’s Office Online? Is Apache Open Office any good? Considering word processors have been around since computers began there is bound to be a decent free offline program. I was just wondering if there is a "go to" program nowadays. I mean we have Firefox, Chrome, Thunderbird, Gimp, Blender and Notepad++ so there is bound to be an equivalent for normal writing, right?

Worse comes to worse I'll just use Photoshop (because I have some actual skill with it ) but I thought I'd ask for curiosity if nothing else.

 

[Atown]

Generally I just write any notes I need to as drafts in Thunderbird, however, I've got a couple more elaborate projects calling for multiple pages. Looking for...

1. Free
2. Offline
3. Multiple pages in one document
4. Basic paragraph formatting
5. Speeeeeelchecker
6. A file format that isn't going to lock me to a single program

Do you guys all just use Google Docs or Microsoft’s Office Online? Is Apache Open Office any good? Considering word processors have been around since computers began there is bound to be a decent free offline program. I was just wondering if there is a "go to" program nowadays. I mean we have Firefox, Chrome, Thunderbird, Gimp, Blender and Notepad++ so there is bound to be an equivalent for normal writing, right?

Worse comes to worse I'll just use Photoshop (because I have some actual skill with it ) but I thought I'd ask for curiosity if nothing else.

I use word online a lot. Highly recommend since u can export as PDF and docx as needed

 

[Tek7]

Considering word processors have been around since computers began there is bound to be a decent free offline program. I was just wondering if there is a "go to" program nowadays.

I asked on Discord and @saudi recommended the following:

1. LibreOffice
2. ONLYOFFICE
3. Giggle Computer Suite

Hope this helps!

 

[Snowflake]

OpenOffice. Free and comes with word processing, spreadsheet, power point, and stuff.

 

[Kendrik]

+1 to OpenOffice recommendations. Used to run NeoOffice when I had a Mac some years ago. I'm personally invested in the Google suite, but since you said "offline" was an essential feature, I'ma stick with the OpenOffice recommendation.

 

[Snowflake]

I'm personally invested in the Google suite

Anything Google spies on you. Their suite, their browser, everything.

Avoid Google whenever possible.

 

[Hescominsoon]

libreoffice.org. The libreoffice suite is nearly 100% microsoft office compatible and i have multiple clients using it in place of office. It does default to the odt format but changing to to default to the *.x file formats is easy...

 

[Hescominsoon]

+1 to OpenOffice recommendations. Used to run NeoOffice when I had a Mac some years ago. I'm personally invested in the Google suite, but since you said "offline" was an essential feature, I'ma stick with the OpenOffice recommendation.

openoffice.org...90% of their devs left and started libreoffice because oracle tried to close up the source on OO. Once the devs forked OO, oracle then lost interest and dumped OO on the Apache foundation. LO is the most current of the free suites and is kept up2date by most of the original devs...plus more.

 

[The Mighty Gerbil]

openoffice.org...90% of their devs left and started libreoffice because oracle tried to close up the source on OO. Once the devs forked OO, oracle then lost interest and dumped OO on the Apache foundation. LO is the most current of the free suites and is kept up2date by most of the original devs...plus more.

Ah that explains it. I noticed it had been forked from OO and wondered if it was significantly different or better. I'll probably try Libre Office next time I need to process mah words (it will happen but not until I dig back into that project). Thanks Saudi and HCS, I was going to try OO until you informed me of LO's existence and history. Thanks to everybody else who gives/gave suggestions too .

 

[Snowflake]

How is LO when it comes to grammar checking? I'm thinking of ditching Microsoft Office, but didn't like OpenOffice's grammar checker. That was years ago, though.

I don't do too much with Word. Spelling, grammar, and comments are the three big things I use it for. Comments for collaboration.

 

[Hescominsoon]

do not know..it's been a bit since i have used LO regularly. give it a try..it's free so if you do not like it you jsut get rid of it..