I use Open Office on my Ubuntu. Its fine with me but I think it doesn't really rival MS Office 2007 in terms of overall functions, quite noticeably the user interface. It doesn't match the ribbon interface on MS Office 2007 and 2010. It has a few bugs and it needs Java Runtime Environment on a few things. But if you are looking for a free alternative, there is no better choice than Open Office.
OpenOffice is the right alternative for you.
I'll second the motion for AbiWord if you don't need all the other functions like spreadsheets, presentations, etc. Another possibility for just a word processing application is Jarte. Documents are compatible with Word and WordPad.
FREE Word Processor Based on Microsoft's WordPad Engine
you should consider if you also need to use spreadsheets and presentations and how they are compatible to MS products. As far as I know MS macros don't work in all those non-MS products.
the comparisons I've seen between Open Office and MS word referred to Office 2003 products. I don't doubt in that case OO is better, but is it better than Office 2007 and Office 2010?
If you only use them at home, that is great... but if you need to exchange documents compatibility is key. You don't want to go to a conference where they have MS PowerPoint and you bring your USB drive with your OO presentation and then you stand in front of 500 people without working slide show
If you work professionally, you'll need MS Office IMHO. I recently worked with a consultant who doesn't use Outlook and so he can't get the meeting invites in readable form. for a private person it sucks to pay $ 200 or so, but when you make a living by using the PC, the little cost doesn't matter.
You can try OpenOffice as a free alternative as it's a decent program but if you've spent any amount of time with Office 2007 or Office 2010, you will notice a certain lack of features, particularly UI wise but then again, it depends on what you use Word for. Also, IBM Lotus Symphony is free and ok for basic editing. I kind of recommend these more as alternatives to Microsoft Works than Word.
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