Replacement for Word and LibreOffice

Tasmania Green · Dec 26, 2025

Can someone recommend a good replacement for Word and LibreOffice? With Word you have to get a yearly subscription, pay a lot of money to buy it outright, or allow Microsoft to store your data (and have access to it). I don’t like the format or quirks of LibreOffice. And to remove it completely I had to reinstall Windows.

FreeBooter · Dec 26, 2025

FreeOffice and LibreOffice are both excellent alternatives to Microsoft Office for those seeking a no-cost version or considering a lighter-weight option.

FreeOffice: The best office suite after LibreOffice, not open source, good compatibility with MS, mature project.

FreeOffice: The best free alternative to Microsoft Office

FreeOffice, the best free alternative to Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) for Windows, Mac and Linux

www.freeoffice.com

idgat · Dec 26, 2025

Tasmania Green said:
And to remove it completely I had to reinstall Windows.

Well that's not correct. How did you try to "remove" it???

Anyway, I assume you're looking for a freeware version ... of what? An office suite, or just the word processor?

A suite? Then freeware office suites at DuckDuckGo

XxXxX · Dec 26, 2025

if you are looking for just a Word replacement then there is Jarte

Download the Jarte Word Processor

its a very simple word processer based on WordPad and is all self contained
i myself use LibreOffice as every one in the house now uses LibreOffice.

best of luck Steve ..

kelper · Dec 26, 2025

Google docs and Google sheets are good

idgat · Dec 26, 2025

kelper said:
Google docs and Google sheets are good

Only good for any-/every-one working in GDocs or GSheets. If you want to share documents and spreadsheets, other users also have to use Google, no compatibility with Word/Excel.

That aside, it's still a good alternative.

pewa · Dec 26, 2025

Are you interested in having Word and Excel for free? It is 100% legit.

Check out my post. If you are interested, let me know. I can reactivate the links.

Can I use Office 2010 when install limit is reached?

I currently have Office 2016 installed but I found a Student & Faculty copy of Office 2010 that's been in the drawer for a while, ( it's one with the big yellow sticker on the back with the product key). I was hoping to give to a family member to use but after installation when opening Word it...

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kelper · Dec 26, 2025

idgat said:
Only good for any-/every-one working in GDocs or GSheets. If you want to share documents and spreadsheets, other users also have to use Google, no compatibility with Word/Excel.

That aside, it's still a good alternative.

You can save your files in open document format or in Microsoft format so that's just not true.

retiredat44 · Dec 26, 2025

Tasmania Green said:
Can someone recommend a good replacement for Word and LibreOffice? With Word you have to get a yearly subscription, pay a lot of money to buy it outright, or allow Microsoft to store your data (and have access to it). I don’t like the format or quirks of LibreOffice. And to remove it completely I had to reinstall Windows.

you can buy MS Office 2019 for less than $20 (less$ with sales on), just go a cheap office key website, I got a couple copies myself, for my computers. Libre office was good, but is much better to have the real thing. There are several threads about this.

GCG1000 · Dec 26, 2025

Hi-
You night find "OnlyOffice" at: www.onlyoffice.com to be of interest.

LeLibran · Dec 26, 2025

Although I have an MS365 subscription, for a 'full suite' alternative to MSOffice I tend to use OnlyOffice which seems (to me) offer better compatibility with MSOffice files than LibreOffiice and the other suggestions so far mentioned. One of my other resons for using this alternative is that (like LibreOffice) it is can be installed on Windows, macOS and most Linux distributions.

Ediit: Above suggestion as per the @GCG1000 suggestion which just beat mine.

For a 'simple' Wordprocessor only option, I find Atlantis useful. Personally, the free 'Lite' is more than adequate for my own needs, but a commercial licence is available at reasonable cost for access to more 'powerful' features. It's a Windows only option, but does work well as a 'WINE' installation on Linux and macOS.

Hazel123 · Dec 26, 2025

It's £119 to buy it outright, which is supported till 2029 I think . So from now would work out approx £30 a year (or £2.50 a month equivalent) - which I don't think is too bad. Other than that I have only used Libre office, and Abiword. If you just want a word replacement, and not full office, you could try abiword. There's also a portable version. OR you could just use Wordpad

It's possible to install it on Windows 11. Personally I'd rather buy the real Word outright.

I can't see what the difficulty was with uninstalling libre office either it should just uninstall normally and no need to reinstall Windows. However I did have to reinstall Windows to completely uninstall a "cheap" copy of MS Office Professional Pro Plus 2021 - which was a total pain and why I next bought the full price version of Ms Office Home from the Microsoft store.

idgat · Dec 26, 2025

kelper said:
You can save your files in open document format or in Microsoft format so that's just not true.

No you can't "Save" your files in Word/Excel/etc format, the gdoc/gsheet/etc file has to be exported to the MS Office format. Then the file has to be moved from the Download folder to an appropriate location in the user's folder system. Do-able, but a PITA

I've seen many unmanageable systems where s-o-o-o-o-o many files are left stored in the Downloads folders it's almost impossible to find a particular file ....

(In so many cases, offending user's file naming convention/protocols leave so much to be desired ....)

Not a system/alternative I'd recommend for the casual home user.

worf105 · Dec 26, 2025

GCG1000 said:
Hi-
You night find "OnlyOffice" at: www.onlyoffice.com to be of interest.

Been using OnlyOffice for ages now

Ghot · Dec 26, 2025

Tasmania Green said:
Can someone recommend a good replacement for Word and LibreOffice? With Word you have to get a yearly subscription, pay a lot of money to buy it outright, or allow Microsoft to store your data (and have access to it). I don’t like the format or quirks of LibreOffice. And to remove it completely I had to reinstall Windows.

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Hazel123 · Dec 26, 2025

I believe office 2021 is only supported until October and Office 2019 is no longer supported? It was Office Professional Plus 2021 that led me to having to do a clean install. When I tried to install Office 2024 (from Microsoft) it kept reverting to 2021 despite remote assistance from Microsoft. It was so much hassle I wouldn't want it again personally. In future I'll only buy it from Microsoft. And now I have Office 2024 I won't need to think about that for another four years.

I suspect these cheap copies do something to the registry, to get it to activate.

Edwin · Dec 26, 2025

I've been buying $30 StackSocial keys for years..., nuthin wrong with them!

If it's a supported version, it'll install.
If the purchase key has been verified by Microsoft, they could care less which version you use!

james73 · Dec 26, 2025

I installed Libre Office on all the office PCs around 4 years ago.

On the server, I created a group policy in the default domain policy to force Libre Office to save files in the latest Microsoft format (namely .docx, .xlsx, .pptx) and have never had a single minutes problem with it.

NormanF · Dec 26, 2025

Tasmania Green said:
Can someone recommend a good replacement for Word and LibreOffice? With Word you have to get a yearly subscription, pay a lot of money to buy it outright, or allow Microsoft to store your data (and have access to it). I don’t like the format or quirks of LibreOffice. And to remove it completely I had to reinstall Windows.

ONLYOFFICE. Its free. If you need to collab, their DocSpace is a worth a look.

Ghot · Dec 26, 2025

Hazel123 said:
I suspect these cheap copies do something to the registry

All software does things to the registry.
That's why most of us use REVO Uninstaller (with it's "scan" for leftovers function), to uninstall software.

Another option when trying out software is to make a fresh backup first.
Then if you want to "completely" remove it... just restore from a backup.

Replacement for Word and LibreOffice

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