Word look alike?

Hi,

I'm looking for a simple free (or gratis) program to replace Word. Me, I
use LibreOffice without a doubt, but it is not for me. I need something
simple, that ideally saves in word 97-2003 format by default, so that
the user doesn't have to think.

I was considering AbiWord, but to my dismay it has abandoned the Windows
version for lack of volunteers.

Are there other possibilities I should consider?


If I'm not mistaken, Word comes with the full Office suite; I know two
versions: one that you pay once about 200€ and keep, with no upgrades,
another called Office 365 that is a yearly subscription, and I think I
heard about a gratis version, perhaps online inside a browser. Is this
correct? If that is so, perhaps I should suggest my friend to use that
online version and not spend an euro.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

On 9/16/20 8:28 AM, this is what Carlos E.R. wrote:
Hi,

I'm looking for a simple free (or gratis) program to replace Word. Me, I use LibreOffice without a doubt, but it is not for me. I need
something simple, that ideally saves in word 97-2003 format by default, so that the user doesn't have to think.

I was considering AbiWord, but to my dismay it has abandoned the Windows version for lack of volunteers.

Are there other possibilities I should consider?


If I'm not mistaken, Word comes with the full Office suite; I know two versions: one that you pay once about 200€ and keep, with no
upgrades, another called Office 365 that is a yearly subscription, and I think I heard about a gratis version, perhaps online inside a
browser. Is this correct? If that is so, perhaps I should suggest my friend to use that online version and not spend an euro.

You can set Libreoffice to default to the .doc (word 97) format in settings.
Options - load/Save - General You'll find a tick box to turn off warnings if not odt and a drop down for default format (pick word 97
doc).
Al

Carlos E.R. wrote:
Hi,

I'm looking for a simple free (or gratis) program to replace Word. Me, I
use LibreOffice without a doubt, but it is not for me. I need something
simple, that ideally saves in word 97-2003 format by default, so that
the user doesn't have to think.

I was considering AbiWord, but to my dismay it has abandoned the Windows
version for lack of volunteers.

Are there other possibilities I should consider?


If I'm not mistaken, Word comes with the full Office suite; I know two
versions: one that you pay once about 200€ and keep, with no upgrades,
another called Office 365 that is a yearly subscription, and I think I
heard about a gratis version, perhaps online inside a browser.

That's also called Office 365 but is online only. The paid for one allows
you to download the desktop applications.

Is this
correct? If that is so, perhaps I should suggest my friend to use that
online version and not spend an euro.

If online only is acceptable there's also google docs.

Carlos E.R. wrote:
I think I heard about a gratis version, perhaps online inside a browser.
Is this correct? If that is so, perhaps I should suggest my friend to
use that online version and not spend an euro.


https://support.google.com/docs/answer/6055139
Work with Office files

You can edit, download, and convert Microsoft® Office files in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

To edit an Office file, you can either:

Edit the file using Office Compatibility Mode (OCM)
Convert the file to Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides.

Once you've edited a Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides file, you can then save and export it as an Office file to share with others.


The formats (from wp):
Files in the following formats can be viewed and converted to their Docs format:[34]

For documents: .doc (if newer than Microsoft Office 95), .docx, .docm .dot, .dotx, .dotm, .html, plain text (.txt), .rtf, .odt




--
Mike Easter

On 9/16/2020 5:28 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Hi,

I'm looking for a simple free (or gratis) program to replace Word. Me, I
use LibreOffice without a doubt, but it is not for me. I need something
simple, that ideally saves in word 97-2003 format by default, so that
the user doesn't have to think.

I was considering AbiWord, but to my dismay it has abandoned the Windows
version for lack of volunteers.

Are there other possibilities I should consider?


If I'm not mistaken, Word comes with the full Office suite; I know two
versions: one that you pay once about 200€ and keep, with no upgrades,
another called Office 365 that is a yearly subscription, and I think I
heard about a gratis version, perhaps online inside a browser. Is this
correct? If that is so, perhaps I should suggest my friend to use that
online version and not spend an euro.


Here's something that's free:
https://www.amazon.com/MobiSystems-I...266972&sr=8-13

or https://amzn.to/35HozLF

I've never used and know no details about it, so I have no opinion on
how good it is, but you might want to try it.

--
Ken

Chris wrote:

That's also called Office 365 but is online only. The paid for one
allows you to download the desktop applications.

Wrong. The 365 subscription gives you the Office components to install
on your own computer. I had an Office 365 (now called Microsoft 365)
subscription for 3 years, and went from the 2016 to 2019 Office
components *installed* on my computer. You do NOT need to be online to
use Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, etc as you are using the local
programs.

Anyone can use their web apps (via web browser) ... and for free! For
"Office 365 but is online only" then you are talking about their free
web apps only. I did not see the OP wanted local programs, but then the
OP did not mandate web apps were unacceptable. Since the OP mentioned
LibreOffice and AbiWord, those are local/offline programs, so likely he
is looking for similar offline alternatives, and not for web apps, like
Microsoft's free 365 web apps, and neither for Google Docs.

If online only is acceptable there's also google docs.

Google does not sell an Office suite you can install locally and
offline. So, yeah, web apps is the only way to use Google Docs through
a web browser.

Microsoft 365 gives you offline programs and their web apps (but the web
apps are available to everyone, and for free). Google Docs is a free
web-based office suite (i.e., web apps suite) that is part of all the
services you get with a Google account (Gmail, Google Voice, Maps,
YouTube, Drive, yadda yadda.

"Carlos E.R." wrote:

I'm looking for a simple free (or gratis) program to replace Word. Me, I
use LibreOffice without a doubt, but it is not for me. I need something
simple, that ideally saves in word 97-2003 format by default, so that
the user doesn't have to think.

I was considering AbiWord, but to my dismay it has abandoned the Windows
version for lack of volunteers.

Are there other possibilities I should consider?

If I'm not mistaken, Word comes with the full Office suite; I know two
versions: one that you pay once about 200¤ and keep, with no upgrades,
another called Office 365 that is a yearly subscription, and I think I
heard about a gratis version, perhaps online inside a browser. Is this
correct? If that is so, perhaps I should suggest my friend to use that
online version and not spend an euro.

If the implied "other user" knows Word, why can't they use Writer in
LibreOffice? It can be configured as to which is the default output
document format. LibreOffice has a new but experimental ribbon bar that
mimics the one in the Office components; see:

https://www.howtogeek.com/294439/how...n-libreoffice/

Abiword has not bothered to update their site certificate. When I go to
abisource.com, I get an error regarding lack of support for TLS 1.2.
TLS 1.0 was just SSL 3.0 with different handshaking, so they are
incompatible. SSL 3.0 was deprecated because it was insecure, which
also means so, too, is TLS 1.0. TLS 1.2 is the minimum supported by
most web browsers, but there may be workarounds, like a setting to
enable the older versions of TLS. Most sites have moved up to TLS 1.3.
They probably don't need a site certificate because I can't see why they
would need to encrypt anything from their site. Downloads are public,
their site content is publicly accessible by anyone, and they probably
don't have any accounts to log into. A bit foreboding that a site
thinks they need a certificate when nothing must be encrypted; however,
lots of similar sites use a cert to identify you have reached the site
you intended to visit.

Why does the Word alternative have to be supported? I'm using an NNTP
client that was abandoned 15 years ago. AbiWord is open source and
free. That usually means no support, so it's not like the "other user"
is going to contact AbiWord for help. Likely they rely on peer support
in a web-based forum, if they even operate one.

You can buy Word alone, or buy a standalone suite that includes Word.
With Microsoft 365 (aka Office 365), you get a suite of products, not
just Word, along with a 1 TB storage quota in OneDrive, and a 60-minute
quota of SkypeOut. You can look at Microsoft 365 as either buying
Office and getting a free 1 TB OneDrive quote, or as buying the 1 TB
OneDrive quota and getting Office 365 for free; however, whichever way,
you are buying into subscriptionware.

FreeOffice.com is Softmaker's free version of their office suite. As
such, it is crippled, but many users find the free version more than
sufficient for their needs. They have a free vs paid comparison at
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/freeoffice-comparison, but it doesn't list
all differences. I remember back a couple years ago when I trialed it
there was some function missing that I wanted, so I would have to buy to
get a more robust product. The payware edition has customizable
ribbons, but not in the freeware edition. You can see more detailed
comparison at:

https://www.softmaker.com/en/compari...ftmaker-office.

Be aware they sell both a subscriptionware ("NX" edition 1-year license)
and lifetime license versions of their product. With a subscription,
you get updated to whatever is the latest version. Microsoft Office 365
costs $100/year (but you can find cheaper licenses elsewhere) while a
Softmaker Office costs $40/year. Their lifetime licenses are a lot
cheaper, too. Start with FreeOffice to see it is satisfactory for your
"other user", and let them decide whether or not to buy it. You never
mention the budget for the "other user". Do they demand the product be
free (after all, they are now paying for Microsoft Office), or have they
budgeted for a payware alternative? As for the default output document
format, I suspect that's a user configurable option. If the "other
user" only accepts freeware alternatives, and besides LibreOffice which
you don't specify why it is not an alternative, you can check the
manuals at https://www.freeoffice.com/en/download/manuals; else, you can
view the online manuals at https://www.softmaker.com/en/manuals for the
payware edition. Softmaker is a German company.

I've trialed WPS Office (back then they were called Kingsoft). Used it
for several months, and then WPS turned it into adware, so I uninstalled
it. A year ago I still saw user complaints about WPS showing ads when
you load their software. Alas, that's the affliction with many
freewa you accept their ads (whether for their own products or for
others) as the price you pay for their, ahem, "free" ware. See
https://blog.malwarebytes.com/detect...onal-kingsoft/.
Kingsoft (or WPS as they now call themselves) is a Chinese company.
Avast (a Czech company) has a free version that lots of users employ,
but also had ads, especially when their Marketing group decides to start
another ad campaign to push popups at their users. WPS has a ribbon bar
that mimics the one in later versions of MS Office. The 1-year WPS
subscriptionware license is currently cheaper (for their sale price
however long that lasts, but becomes more expensive) than for Softmaker
Office NX, but the WPS lifetime license is significantly more expensive
than for Softmaker's lifetime license. Obviously their freeware edition
is the same price as Sofmaker's FreeOffice: zero (unless you count the
ads in WPS as a price). At the WPS site, I saw no link to online copies
of the manuals, just a bunch of FAQs.

FreeOffice/Softmaker Office and Kingsoft/WPS Office are not open source.
However, you did not mandate FOSS as a requirement for alternatives.
You're already using one, LibreOffice, which you should already know can
be configured regarding the default output document format. Look at its
Load/Save settings.

Ken Blake wrote:

On 9/16/2020 5:28 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Hi,

I'm looking for a simple free (or gratis) program to replace Word. Me, I
use LibreOffice without a doubt, but it is not for me. I need something
simple, that ideally saves in word 97-2003 format by default, so that
the user doesn't have to think.

I was considering AbiWord, but to my dismay it has abandoned the Windows
version for lack of volunteers.

Are there other possibilities I should consider?

If I'm not mistaken, Word comes with the full Office suite; I know two
versions: one that you pay once about 200¤ and keep, with no upgrades,
another called Office 365 that is a yearly subscription, and I think I
heard about a gratis version, perhaps online inside a browser. Is this
correct? If that is so, perhaps I should suggest my friend to use that
online version and not spend an euro.

Here's something that's free:
https://www.amazon.com/MobiSystems-I...266972&sr=8-13

or https://amzn.to/35HozLF

I've never used and know no details about it, so I have no opinion on
how good it is, but you might want to try it.

"Offers in-app purchases" hence adware. Mobisystems is at:

https://www.mobisystems.com/

but their Office Suite is homed at:

https://www.officesuite.com/

They list Windows, Android, and iOS are supported, so they have both
desktop and mobile apps. Since the OP is looking for an alternative to
MS Word, and if Android was an option, Microsoft has their own Office
apps available for free on Android. I have MS Word, MS Excel, MS
Powerpoint, and MS Outlook on my Android smartphone, and they're all
free ... and not adware. However, mobile apps are rarely as robust as
desktop apps, so the MS Android apps are less featured when compared to
their desktop cousins, but then the majority of Office users rarely ever
use much of what is in these suites or even within a component of them.
I don't how Mobisystem's desktop and mobile apps compare regarding
which, if any, features are missing in their mobile version; however,
their Android version is also adware. MS Android Office is not adware.
Plus, Mobisystems' Android app suite is trialware, not freeware.

In article , lid says...

Hi,

I'm looking for a simple free (or gratis) program to replace Word. Me, I
use LibreOffice without a doubt, but it is not for me. I need something
simple, that ideally saves in word 97-2003 format by default, so that
the user doesn't have to think.

I was considering AbiWord, but to my dismay it has abandoned the Windows
version for lack of volunteers.

Are there other possibilities I should consider?


If I'm not mistaken, Word comes with the full Office suite; I know two
versions: one that you pay once about 200¤ and keep, with no upgrades,
another called Office 365 that is a yearly subscription, and I think I
heard about a gratis version, perhaps online inside a browser. Is this
correct? If that is so, perhaps I should suggest my friend to use that
online version and not spend an euro.

If you have a microsoft account (free), you can access the online version of
Word. Otherwise, don't forget WordPad, which is still there in Windows 10
(2004). It'll save in .rtf (default), .docx (Office Open XML), or .odt
(OpenDocument text).

--

Phil, London

On 2020-09-16 05:28, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Hi,

I'm looking for a simple free (or gratis) program to replace Word. Me, I
use LibreOffice without a doubt, but it is not for me. I need something
simple, that ideally saves in word 97-2003 format by default, so that
the user doesn't have to think.

I was considering AbiWord, but to my dismay it has abandoned the Windows
version for lack of volunteers.

Are there other possibilities I should consider?


If I'm not mistaken, Word comes with the full Office suite; I know two
versions: one that you pay once about 200€ and keep, with no upgrades,
another called Office 365 that is a yearly subscription, and I think I
heard about a gratis version, perhaps online inside a browser. Is this
correct? If that is so, perhaps I should suggest my friend to use that
online version and not spend an euro.


Hi Carlos,

Free Office:
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/download/applications

It is the previous edition of Softmaker

Go into settings and set the default to word.

It runs really well in Linux and loads my Libre Office
files literally 10 times faster than does Libre Office.

-T

On 9/16/2020 8:28 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Hi,

I'm looking for a simple free (or gratis) program to replace Word. Me, I
use LibreOffice without a doubt, but it is not for me. I need something
simple, that ideally saves in word 97-2003 format by default, so that
the user doesn't have to think.

I was considering AbiWord, but to my dismay it has abandoned the Windows
version for lack of volunteers.

Are there other possibilities I should consider?


If I'm not mistaken, Word comes with the full Office suite; I know two
versions: one that you pay once about 200€ and keep, with no upgrades,
another called Office 365 that is a yearly subscription, and I think I
heard about a gratis version, perhaps online inside a browser. Is this
correct? If that is so, perhaps I should suggest my friend to use that
online version and not spend an euro.


does Google docs apply?

not familiar at all to say

--
Minister Dale Kelly, Ph.D.
https://www.dalekelly.org/
Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner
Board Certified Alternative Medical Practitioner

T wrote:

Carlos E.R. wrote:

I'm looking for a simple free (or gratis) program to replace Word. Me, I
use LibreOffice without a doubt, but it is not for me. I need something
simple, that ideally saves in word 97-2003 format by default, so that
the user doesn't have to think.

I was considering AbiWord, but to my dismay it has abandoned the Windows
version for lack of volunteers.

Are there other possibilities I should consider?

If I'm not mistaken, Word comes with the full Office suite; I know two
versions: one that you pay once about 200¤ and keep, with no upgrades,
another called Office 365 that is a yearly subscription, and I think I
heard about a gratis version, perhaps online inside a browser. Is this
correct? If that is so, perhaps I should suggest my friend to use that
online version and not spend an euro.

Free Office:
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/download/applications

It is the previous edition of Softmaker

Go into settings and set the default to word.

It runs really well in Linux and loads my Libre Office
files literally 10 times faster than does Libre Office.

I just looked at their comparison page. While they have 64-bit versions
for Mac and Linux, they only have a 32-bit version for their freeware
version. That doesn't mean the 32-bit version is slower. It does mean
you can't open documents bigger than 4 GB; however, a document that size
is obvious way too huge for personal use which is what the freeware
version is geared for usage. I supposed if you got nuts with attaching
lots of photos (making your document really a photo gallery) that you
could run out of space.

The subscriptionware version at $30/year and the perpetual license at
$80 are definitely a lot cheaper than Microsoft's 365 package, but with
Office 365 you also get 1 TB of OneDrive storage along with 60
minutes/month of SkypeOut). I've only, so far, consumed 3 GB of my 15
GB OneDrive quota (5 GB default + 10 GB loyalty bonus). If I needed
more than that, getting 1 TB of OneDrive quota includes Office 365.
I've tried Google Drive (now Google Backup & Restore), but found their
client conflicts with OneDrive: when both are trying to sync the same
file to online storage, Google Drive errors but OneDrive succeeds.

Softmaker's FreeOffice is good, but Softmaker's Office payware is
definitely far more comparable to Office 365 (minus the online perks of
365). FreeOffice is faster to load documents than LibreOffice, but
LibreOffice is more comparable to Office 365 (minus the offline perks),
and is free like FreeOffice. If LibreOffice got rid of the banners (to
announce it is loading), document load times would get shorter. Whether
you notice LibreOffice is slower than FreeOffice depends a lot on what
you have for hardware. With an m.2 NVMe 1GB SSD, I'm not sure I would
see a difference in doc load time between LibreOffice and FreeOffice.
Without any noticeable different in doc load times, for me, I don't feel
any impetus to pay for Softmaker's Office payware to get nearly the same
feature set as LibreOffice. With a slow desktop or laptop, yeah, you
might see LibreOffice is slower than Softmaker's FreeOffice or Office.

This is regarding personal use. If the office suite is used in a
business scenario, and unless you have a good friend that is a computer
guru and only asks for a beer in return for their help, most businesses
should be geared to getting support for the software they employ, so
buying the software is almost a given. You don't suffer your business
operations because you went cheap on support. Between freeware
LibreOffice and payware Softmaker Office, both are nearly equal in
features, but for business use you get support with Softmaker and are
own your own with LibreOffice. If support is a non-issue, why pay for
Softmaker when you can get LibreOffice for free? With freeware as the
only choice (which very likely means for personal use, not critical
business use), why go with the lesser featured FreeOffice than go with
more featured LibreOffice?

Does the OP need the most compatibility in feature sets between
Microsoft Office and the alternative candidates? If so, FreeOffice is
not a choice, and only Softmaker Office and LibreOffice are candidates.

If not in a business deployment where support can be critical to prevent
suffering business impact, support is important, and that costs money.
LibreOffice doesn't have support. Yes, there are user communities, like
here, but that is not the same as business-level support. LibreOffice
is not a candidate alternative to MS Office if support is important
unless you're willing to save on support costs by doing it yourself.

There are lots of decision factors that were not presented by the OP.
Is freeware the only option? If payware is acceptable, what is the
budget for the product? What is the budget for support? Is Office, and
its alternative, for personal or business use?

VanguardLH wrote:

That doesn't mean the 32-bit version is slower. It does mean
you can't open documents bigger than 4 GB;

32-bit does not mean that.

Without dwelling on detail, 32-bit Photoshop could
malloc around 1.8GB of memory. If Photoshop had multiple
undo buffers, then the uncompressed size of images in
memory could be "relatively small" by modern standards.
The 1.8GB value was related to the 2GGB:2GB address
space split, with 2GB for kernel addresses and 2GB for
user-space addresses. And the malloc of memory for the
program is in user space, and in that example, can't be
more than 2GB. And for Photoshop, this number happened
to be 1.8GB. We don't really know what filesizes might
correspond to the availability of that much RAM.
Maybe a 2MB GIF decompresses to fill a 1.8GB space
in memory for example.

There are filesystem primitives, that support 64-bit
operands from a 32 bit call. I can seek to an offset
of 7.8TB and read one megabyte if I want. I can use
open64() and seek64() in a 32-bit application.
The operands are 64-bit operands in the call.

The FAT32 filesystem has a limit to the size of a
single individual file, but this is not what we worry
about with 32-bit applications. The 32-bit application
may not even know or care, that the filesystem is
FAT32 or NTFS (limits or no limits). It's only
if we try to exceed those limits, a write error
occurs. Like take Firefox downloading onto a FAT32
volume - it does not warn us in advance "hey, if this
download is over 4GB, you are screwed". It just
hits 4GB, returns a "too bad, so sad" error and
quits. And it's up to the user to smack their
forehead and declare "doh, dammit, FAT32 limit".

For document processing, 1.8GB of RAM is pretty decent.
The terrible scroll performance will drive you crazy,
before it runs out of RAM.

Paul

VanguardLH wrote:
Chris wrote:

That's also called Office 365 but is online only. The paid for one
allows you to download the desktop applications.

Wrong.

How can it be wrong when you say exactly the same as I did below?

The 365 subscription gives you the Office components to install
on your own computer. I had an Office 365 (now called Microsoft 365)
subscription for 3 years, and went from the 2016 to 2019 Office
components *installed* on my computer. You do NOT need to be online to
use Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, etc as you are using the local
programs.

Anyone can use their web apps (via web browser) ... and for free! For
"Office 365 but is online only" then you are talking about their free
web apps only.

See? How is that different to what I said?

On Wed, 16 Sep 2020 22:06:07 -0000 (UTC), Chris
wrote:

VanguardLH wrote:
Chris wrote:

That's also called Office 365 but is online only. The paid for one
allows you to download the desktop applications.

Wrong.

How can it be wrong when you say exactly the same as I did below?

The 365 subscription gives you the Office components to install
on your own computer. I had an Office 365 (now called Microsoft 365)
subscription for 3 years, and went from the 2016 to 2019 Office
components *installed* on my computer. You do NOT need to be online to
use Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, etc as you are using the local
programs.

Anyone can use their web apps (via web browser) ... and for free! For
"Office 365 but is online only" then you are talking about their free
web apps only.

See? How is that different to what I said?

He's just nitpicking your choice of words. The product is called
Microsoft 365, but you said Office 365. I call it that myself, but
after his comment, I checked and see they don't actually call it that.