Seeking Free Word Processing App.

[Marrk]

Is there somewhere on the Web where I could get a word processing app. for free? TextEdit would be nice. Something that would work on both Mac and PC platforms.

Thanks.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Home | LibreOffice - Free Office Suite - Based on OpenOffice - Compatible with Microsoft
Apache OpenOffice - Official Site - The Free and Open Productivity Suite

For starters. Both are available for Windows, macOS and Linux.

 

[ferrarr]

There's an article for that, https://www.slant.co/topics/10782/~cross-platform-writing-apps

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Is there somewhere on the Web where I could get a word processing app. for free? TextEdit would be nice. Something that would work on both Mac and PC platforms.

Here is an entire web site for Macintosh word processors, including several free ones:

Macintosh Word Processors

Do you need the same word processing program on both a Mac and a Windows PC, or do you just need to be able to share files between the two?

Most word processors have the option of saving files in a number of common denominator formats that any word processor can work with. There is "plain text" which is a file with text but next to no formatting. There is "RTF" which is a Microsoft format that saves a good amount of formatting. And most world processors today can save and read a file in ".doc" or ".docx" format, which is a Microsoft Word format.

You might want to have a look at:

FreeOffice (free)
www.freeoffice.com - FreeOffice for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android

Which is a really nice program that is very similar to Microsoft Office, but it's free. It is cross platform.

 

[Marrk]

I teach. I need my students to submit their work in Word, but they often tell me that they don't have Word. They can get Office 365 for free through the college, but apparently that's too difficult. I just figured out that they can save their Google Docs as Word files. So, now all they have to do is tell me that they don't have Google Docs. I started this thread because I thought that if I could give them a download link to some universal app. (but has to be format-able), I could solve the problem.

 

[MacInWin]

They can get Office 365 for free through the college, but apparently that's too difficult.

Then they fail. Easy.

 

[Randy B. Singer]

I started this thread because I thought that if I could give them a download link to some universal app. (but has to be format-able), I could solve the problem.

FreeOffice fits your needs perfectly. It's word processor is very similar to Microsoft Word, it reads and saves Word format files extremely well, it is cross-platform, and it is free. It can be instantly downloaded with no hassle.


FreeOffice (free)
www.freeoffice.com - FreeOffice for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android

 

[Slydude]

I have to second Randy's recommendation of FreeOffice. I started using it a few months ago because Office 2011 was not going to continue working going forward and I wasn't thrilled about shelling out for Office 365. After a few weeks of using FreeOffice I concluded t was a solid program.

The formatting in my documents wasn't exceptionally complex so I had none of the formatting/layout issues that seem to plague some of the programs I've tried. I also found it to be much faster for me than LibreOffice.

×

 

[Marrk]

Then they fail. Easy.

Guess you haven't heard. Nobody fails. Everybody gets a participation trophy (even in college), then we all have milk and cookies. It's required, or I get fired. Then, taxpayers scream to fire the teachers and close the schools because our dumb*ss students aren't learning anything. Beautiful system.

 

[Marrk]

FreeOffice fits your needs perfectly. It's word processor is very similar to Microsoft Word, it reads and saves Word format files extremely well, it is cross-platform, and it is free. It can be instantly downloaded with no hassle.


FreeOffice (free)
www.freeoffice.com - FreeOffice for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android

I've bookmarked this. Thanks.

Question: These downloads are reasonably safe vis-à-vis malware?

 

[Slydude]

I've downloaded both the free version of the program (FreeOffice)and paid version (SoftMaker Office I think it's called) with no hint of malware.

×

 

[chscag]

Question: These downloads are reasonably safe vis-à-vis malware?

Yes, they are safe. I've downloaded from there several times myself.

 

[MacInWin]

From those locations, the downloads are relatively safe. But don't download from "aggregator" type sites -- Download.com, softonic, soft<<anything>>, etc. Stick to either the Mac App Store or the developer's own site.

 

[MacInWin]

Guess you haven't heard. Nobody fails. Everybody gets a participation trophy (even in college), then we all have milk and cookies. It's required, or I get fired. Then, taxpayers scream to fire the teachers and close the schools because our dumb*ss students aren't learning anything. Beautiful system.

I guess I could dream, right? That kind of system really does a great job of preparing the little snowflakes for the real world.

 

[usagora]

...shelling out for Office 365.

Just to put things in perspective...Microsoft 365 (what it's now called instead of Office 365) for 1 user (but installed on any number of devices) is only $70/year...that's less than 20 cents per day...you could probably find that and then some every day by just walking down a couple city blocks on the sidewalk, LOL. That also includes 1TB of cloud storage (Apple charges $120/year for 2TB of cloud storage by itself). It's really dirt cheap when you think about it, especially if you use these apps frequently.

Just throwing that out there in case you ever change your mind about FreeOffice as you go along or if your needs change.

 

[Slydude]

It wasn't the cost that kept me from upgrading. It really boiled down the fact that the features that I used regularly didn't require Office other than being able to pass certain documents to colleagues. Once I knew I could do that reliably everything was good.

I have Office 365 now as part of a work license I'd never used. The up side is that this allows my to print one specific document that didn't print well in FreeOffice. Prior to that the solution had been to save the document as a pdf and then open it in Preview and print it.

I've kept both programs on my machine so I can keep working even if one of the misbehaves.

×

 

[chscag]

I know I've commented before about this, but SoftMaker Office and Free Office while excellent choices for a lot of folks may not be right for everyone. I need to maintain compatibility with Office documents especially formatting and the layout of older Word documents. Neither SoftMaker product does that for me. Which is why I use MS 365.

To be frank, if I didn't need to maintain document compatibility I would just use the latest Apple Pages. Pages is very easy to use and integrates well with dark mode, iCloud, and the rest of macOS.

 

[Marrk]

Just to put things in perspective...Microsoft 365 (what it's now called instead of Office 365) for 1 user (but installed on any number of devices) is only $70/year...that's less than 20 cents per day...you could probably find that and then some every day by just walking down a couple city blocks on the sidewalk, LOL. That also includes 1TB of cloud storage (Apple charges $120/year for 2TB of cloud storage by itself). It's really dirt cheap when you think about it, especially if you use these apps frequently.

Just throwing that out there in case you ever change your mind about FreeOffice as you go along or if your needs change.

Duly noted. But if it costs 1 cent, we cannot get any traction on it. The students will spend $1,000 on Nike shoes, but they complain that they have no money for books or education. Go figure.

 

[Marrk]

I guess I could dream, right? That kind of system really does a great job of preparing the little snowflakes for the real world.

It's complicated. Parents don't parent, so, by the time the students reach the education system, it's a little late.

 

[MacInWin]

It's complicated. Parents don't parent, so, by the time the students reach the education system, it's a little late.

Yep. That's why my daughter and her Ph.D. husband homeschool their children. Don't want to waste their time in public schools.

But we are getting close to politics and the board monitors will close this if we don't stop, so I'm done.