Best free word program for Vista?

**Beirut** · 03-12-2008, 01:50

The title says it all.

My buddy's Vista laptop Word program just ended its free demo life cycle and he's looking for a good free replacement. I found openoffice.org, but don't know anything about it other than the site looks nice.

Any comments on this program or any others? Oh, it has to be in French, which openoffice.org does offer.

**Evil_Maniac From Mars** · 03-12-2008, 02:11

I use the OpenOffice suite, and I've never had any problems with it. You can save in multiple formats, including MS Word, for use with other programs and computers.

**Lemur** · 03-12-2008, 02:31

Agreed, OpenOffice is very good mojo. Admittedly, if you're depending on a pile of custom VBA macros and super-customized Excel, it's not gonna work out. But for the kind of work that 99.99% of users put an office suite to, it's fine and dandy.

**R'as al Ghul** · 03-12-2008, 11:18

I've made good experience with OpenOffice in the last 2-3 years.
It's very nice to be able to open old word documents where MS Word fails sometimes. It's also nice being able to create pdf's from your documents by just hitting a button.
The best thing is that you can still save in word format if you need to exchange the docs with others.

**Husar** · 03-12-2008, 11:22

Yes, known problems include that even though you can save in Microsoft-compatible filetypes, they're often not really compatible, especially in PowerPoint.
I use it mainly for myself though, to print texts etc, and for that purpose it's perfectly fine.

**Beirut** · 03-12-2008, 11:35

You guys are great.

I think he just wants to be able to type a decent letter, not much more. Working with notepad is, you know, Gah!

Thanks!

**The Wandering Scholar** · 03-12-2008, 19:29

The only problem I see is that people have recommended various versions of openoffice which you say is not in French.

**Lemur** · 03-12-2008, 21:49

Originally Posted by R'as al Ghul

The best thing is that you can still save in word format if you need to exchange the docs with others.

Word to the wise -- the .doc format is so changeable, and so poorly documented, various versions of Word can't open each others' files. It ain't just a problem with OpenOffice.

For maximum compatibility, save your letters and recipes down in the .rtf format. Yeah, I know, in theory it's proprietary, but in practice it's readable by everything. I've used this trick to help various stymied relatives read each others lolcats jokes.