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PCWindowsProductivityWord Processors

What are the best free MS Word-compatible word-processors?

10

Options
Considered

70

User
Recs.

Aug 16, 2020

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 1 of 10 OptionsWhy?

Best free MS Word-compatible word-processors	Price	Platforms	Word processing
90 LibreOffice	-	Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD	Yes
-- WPS Writer	-	Windows; Linux; Android; IOS	-
-- AbiWord	-	-	-
-- Google Docs	FREE	All, cloud-based	Yes
-- ONLYOFFICE	Free for personal use	Web-based (Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Android-clients)	Yes

LibreOffice

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Top Pro

Multilingual

It is available in more than 110 languages. See More

Top Con

Track Changes needs to be improved

Collaborating on a single document is difficult. Track Changes makes the document hard to read as both edited and deleted text is displayed, it's not possible to print comments, tracked differences between document versions are sub-optimal and there's no system for accepting/rejecting changes. See More

davidak's Experience

Just the best free and open source office suite. I prefer Markdown now for text. See More

Specs

Platforms:Linux, Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD

Word processing:Yes

Spreadsheets:Yes

Presentations:Yes

Top Pro

Widely used

There is a large base of satisfied LibreOffice users worldwide. See More

Top Con

May be unstable in some setups

It runs fine until it crashes. Users have experienced multiple crashes when using the cursor to select text in writer, running in Kubuntu 18.04. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

LibreOffice is available for free with code available here. It's licensed under LGPL v3 with new contributions dual-licensed under MPL. See More

Top Con

Not fully compatible to MSOffice

Its not fully compatible to MSOffice and often breaks documents. See More

Top Pro

Portable version

LibreOffice offers a version of the suite that does not require installation. It can be kept on a thumb stick to ensure that you have an office suite on whichever machine you choose to use. See More

Top Con

Looks old

Top Pro

Cross-platform

All major operating systems are supported, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux (Arch, Fedora, Mandriva, Debian, Ubuntu, Suse). See More

Top Con

Ribbon is experimental

Top Pro

Comprehensive suite of applications

LibreOffice includes applications for word-processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and database management. See More

Top Con

Documentation is out of date

Good luck turning off autocorrect, because the place that the documentation says that option is in doesn't exist. See More

Top Pro

High compatibility with MS Office

Possible to use in corporations. See More

Top Pro

Font embedding support

Font embedding ensures that the document will display correctly whether or not the target machine has that specific font installed. See More

Top Pro

Encryption support

LibreOffice allows encrypting and password-locking files. See More

Top Pro

Multiple themes

Many icon themes available to customise the look and get consistent look with the OS. See More

Top Pro

Lots of extensions and dictionaries

Has many extensions that can add additional features. See More

Top Pro

Ribbon design

Since 5.3, LibreOffice offers a Ribbon design view, similar to Microsoft Office. See More

Top Pro

LibreOffice can take from OpenOffice, but not the other way around

Due to licensing each office suite uses, only a one-way transfer of code is possible, offering more long-term potential for LibreOffice over OpenOffice. See More

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9 Other Options Considered

AbiWord

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Top Con

Drab and uninspiring interface

Google Docs

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Top Con

Doesn't work well with other online storage

Forces you to use only Google Drive. There are independent add-on work-arounds but they are inconvenient and hard to use. See More

Top Pro

Easy to cooperatively write

It's a piece of cake to set up a document where many individuals can edit at the same time. See More

ThriftyAmeNoKoyane's Experience

You can just open an old tab and continue writing See More

Specs

Platforms:All, cloud-based

Word processing:Yes

Spreadsheets:Yes

Presentations:Yes

Top Con

Doesn't work well with MS Word docs

Forces you to translate them into Google docs, then forces you to save them in Google drive. There are work-arounds, but it's very inconvenient. See More

Top Pro

Can use voice to type

You can use your microphone to write (Chrome only). See More

ONLYOFFICE

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Top Pro

Nice clean modern ui

David Aslan French's Experience

It's basically like Libre office but with a nicer ui. You can also self host it on a server and use it like Google docs. Nextcloud 13 just came out with integration for the cloud version so if you own or use a personal cloud it's highly recommended See More

Specs

Platforms:Web-based (Windows, Linux, Mac OS, Android-clients)

Word processing:Yes

Spreadsheets:Yes

Presentations:Yes

Top Pro

Free and open source

ONLYOFFICE is distributed under AGPL v.3 license with the source code available on GitHub. See More

Top Pro

Integration with Nextcloud

Easy integration with Nextcloud for collaborative work. See More

Top Pro

Has a portable version

ONLYOFFICE portable works on almost every Linux distribution. See More

Top Pro

Collaboration capabilities

Top Pro

Can be used as a web app

ONLYOFFICE offers a web-based office suite that can be deployed on your own server using various deployment options, including Docker script and virtual machines with the software pre-installed. See More

TextMaker

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Top Pro

Compatible with Word

DOCX is the default file format of TextMaker since Version 2018 See More

Top Con

Advertising

Sends advertising email, for the free version you have to sign up. See More

EnterprisingPoseidon's Experience

Works fine on Android, Linux (Ubuntu), Windows. Detailed and accurate manual. Relatively cheap. Compatible with Word, layout and tables included. Regular updates. See More

Top Pro

Built-in spell checker

Finds spelling mistakes in more than 75 languages. See More

Top Con

Formating in document requires a learning curve

When copying screenshots from the browser or other programs, then pasting into a document, the margins are difficult to maintain. And in some cases, the post is cropped off the end. Otherwise, quite a good substitute. See More

RickZeeland's Experience

Free version available, excellent Word compatibility. See More

Top Pro

Portable

Runs from a USB Stick. See More

Top Pro

Integrated thesaurus

For ten languages. See More

Top Pro

Multi-platform

Works on Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. See More

AbleWord

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Specs

Platforms:Windows

Exports:.doc; .docx; .pdf; .rtf; .txt; .htm; .html

Real-time collaboration:No

Imports:.doc; .docx; .pdf; .rtf; .txt; .htm; .html; .tif; .wmf; .png; .jpg; .gif; .emf

SSuite WordGraph Editor

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Top Con

Not compatible with MS Office or Libre Office

Documents are only saved as html and SSuite cannot convert from MS Office or Libre Office. See More

Top Pro

It's menu structure is no more than 3 levels deep

Making it very easy to find whatever functions you need a breeze. See More

ReverentRaijin's Experience

It has plenty of functions and features to make creating a document easy. Fully compatible with MS Word by using completely free and open document formats e.g. Rich Text Format, Plain Text, and Word97-2003 *.doc format. etc. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; Portable

Word processing:Yes

Spreadsheets:No

Presentations:Yes

Top Con

Offline version is Windows only

SSuite is not available for Linux or macOS. See More

Top Pro

Quick to run and has all the necessary functions to complete a document quickly without any fuss

Runs very stable and has features not found in other word editors, like emoticons or online access to cloud storage. See More

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