Windows 7 - Open Office, And MS WORD/EXCEL Questions

Hello,

Great Forum. Wonderful, knowledgeable folks.

Had to re-format HD, and seems to be working now.
But for how much longer, who knows.

On the old setup, I had MS WORD and Excel.
Many existing files of both.

I only have, if I remember right, 2 or 3 downloads allowable/available from the
Student Edition of them that I purchased a while ago.

So, I don't want to use up what is left on my present PC, as I have real doubts about it lasting much longer.

I heard about Open Office, and that it is free, and "completely" compatible with the MS equivalents. True ? Or,... ?

Is this what I want ?
Are there "better" free ones tghat would work very well with my existing WORD and Excel stuff ?
If so, suggestions would be most appreciated.

Thanks,
Bob

Both Open office and Libre Office can open most Word/Excel documents provided they don't use any incompatible features. They will not open any encrypted documents however. It is also possible to save documents in .doc and .docx format though how compatible the .docx format is I am not sure.

Home » LibreOffice

OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite

There is also Kingsoft which looks like Office 2003 and can read but not write the later Office file types. There are free versions of this.

Downloading Office Software suite, --- Kingsoft Office software download

I've used Open Office in both Windows 7 64-bit & Mac 10.7.2 without issues. It's good software.