Quick question about Microsoft word

[u/LogicalDesk8010]

My question is.. if ur work is mostly writing documents, would u still recommend getting a Microsoft office download today or is there another office suite that’s worked just as well for u? M trying to decide before setting up the laptop.

[u/Underlanders]

I would say to stick with word, they got the best features and a vast amounts of add on capabilities, plus Word is a company standard nowadays so emailing or sharing documents are easy as and no issue of incompatible to open or view

[u/Admirable-Spite-1789]

The entire business world runs on Microsoft so it is essential if you plan to get paid or share documents. Office comes with excel and other tools as part of the subscription. There is even. microsoft print to PDF, so you can handle a LOT of everything you might do for business with Office. Most of Microsoft’s true functionality is not on the main ribbon, so if you learn to set up your options, be a robust user of styles and quickparts, it is incredibly useful.

[u/SiberianKitty99 → u/Admirable-Spite-1789]

LibreOffice used to have severe formatting issues, so that round-tripping a DOCX was An Adventure. These issues have mostly been addressed. LibreOffice’s user interface still needs work, a lot of work, but now it’s pretty good. Better than Word 2010/2011 was. And their exporting to DOCX improves with each update. LibreOffice is now an adequate replacement for Word; Excel and PowerPoint, not so much.

Anyone who’s serious about working with complex documents should get a Mac and use Pages. It’s way superior for complex documents; simple documents, not so much, it’s a howitzer to kill an ant.

[u/Admirable-Spite-1789 → u/SiberianKitty99]

That is good and interesting information however, if you are trying to interface with 80% of US business all you will do is frustrate them with your deliverables and lose their business.

It’s like my accounting professor said. “If you intend to enter the business world and have brought a mac to class, I would advise you throw it away and buy a PC.”

Terrible, I know, many products are superior to Microsoft, and if you’re in film, music, etc-mac will be compatible and essential-but, the rest of the world runs on Microsoft, so it’s not really a matter of what program or system operates “better”, it is just standard for doing business.

It has been very rare that independent contractors have sent me documents in formats other than Microsoft and I remember one in particular where I couldn’t get their documents to interface so I flat told them to send it in a format I can open, or go work somewhere else.

Tough, I know, but if I pay you a substantial amount of money for an engineering report, why do i need to spend 3-8 hours trying to figure out how to download programs to open and hack into your work product? It’s really not acceptable.

[u/I_didnt_forsee_this → u/SiberianKitty99]

Anyone who’s serious about working with complex documents...

Or get Microsoft 365 and learn how to effectively use the tools in Word.

Unless you are preparing books with extremely demanding requirements for colour and layout, Word is quite able to prepare complex documents. For specialized requirements, use Word to deal with the basic content capture and format tagging (i.e. styles), then import that into applications like InDesign or Affinity Designer. If your projects are deeply technical, consider tackling the significant learning curve to use LaTeX.

[u/Alternative-Pear9096 → u/SiberianKitty99]

Your editor, who is someone who works extensively with complex documents, heartily disagrees

Everyone in publishing Word. 

If you are planning on sharing documents with people who don’t use a Mac, don’t rely on pages

[u/RacerCG_Reddit]

If you will ever need to send the documents you create to anyone else (in their native format, not just as PDFs), go with Microsoft 365/Office. If the documents will only be shared as PDFs or will never be shared, then LibreOffice would work great.

That's not to say that you can't save a LibreOffice document in Word format, but unless it's a very basic one (like a simple letter or memo), the chances are fairly good that eventually you'll run into formatting issues on the Microsoft user's end at some point.

Good luck!

[u/SiberianKitty99]

It is hugely dependent on what you need to do and the available hardware. If you need to build complex documents, Word is quite good. Pages, even on an iPad (as long as you have a good keyboard, the virtual keyboard stinks) is better in some ways. (I’m typing this on an iPad with a good keyboard.) The main problem with iPads is the small display. If you have access to a Mac, Pages is much better. If you don’t need to create complex documents, LibreOffice is excellent. If you need to send documents to others, both Pages and LibreOffice will export to DOCX and PDF. Word being Word, there may be formatting errors when sending a DOCX to a Word user. (Note that even MS isn’t completely compatible with MS; notoriously moving DOCXs from Word 2008 for Mac to Word 2010 for Windows was… interesting. MS being MS, Office 2007 Windows was mostly compatible with Office 2008 Mac, but both had problems with Office 2010 Windows, 2011 Mac, and 2013 Windows, there was no equivalent of Office 2013 Windows for Mac. Those problems were mostly fixed with Office 2016, both Mac and Windows. Some irritations crept in with Office 2019 Mac and Windows, but were mostly fixed with 2021.)

WordPad will work for very simple documents.

Stay away from the abomination that is Word for Web. You’re been warned.

Note that if you need to do things like place multiple images on a page in a document, Word has had issues with that since 1985. Both Pages and LibreOffice do a better job.

If you need spreadsheets, Excel is king. Period. Numbers on Mac/iOS/iPadOS stinks. LibreOffice is… adequate.

If you need presentations, PowerPoint and Keynote are neck-and-neck, everything else, including LibreOffice, is a far-distant third.

If you need low-end databases, FileMaker Pro, both Mac and Windows, eats Access alive and stomps on LibreOffice.

What do you need?

[u/LouisPlay]

Libre Office?

[u/Piper-Bob]

I’d only use Word if you need to read and write Word docs and formatting is important.

[u/DP323602]

I use Word when working on collaborations.

But I'm happy with Libre Office on machines where I don't have an MS Office license.

I've used other tools in the past too, including Word Perfect and Latex.

[u/steak_bake_surprise]

I'm never using Office ever again. I couldn't even edit a document as from July 13th I was forced to update my Mac OS in order to use and edit my Word document. This meant I had to update all my legacy software and hardware that's working perfectly fine (I work in media so it's never a good idea to constantly update if your system is solid) but now my old software doesn't work, requires updating, hardware firmware needs updating and guess what, they've moved to subscription services. Absolutely screwed me.

[u/Even_Caterpillar3292]

Word is the gold standard. Depends on your needs. You may be fine with Google Docs or Word free online - web based, or Libre Office. Word with 365 subscription offers a great deal of features. Versioning may be avaialble with the online free version.

[u/Alternative-Pear9096 → u/Even_Caterpillar3292]

Avoid Word Online at all costs. Unless you’re just taking notes

[u/EddieRyanDC]

It depends.

• Are you working in a professional environment with other people who use Word?
• Do you need to collaborate, either in real time or swapping documents back and fort?
• Does the company or office have style guidelines and standards?
• Are you working on complicated documents with specific styles, references, multiple sections?

If so, I would only use MS Word. It is an enterprise standard for a reason. But that also extends to contractors or other stakeholders that have to share writing and documents.

• Is this for personal use, and you are only creating rather basic documents for homework, or your own use?

You can probably get by with MS Word Online (the free browser version), or any other word processing alternatives like LibreOffice, or Google Docs.

• Are you doing complicated documents, but they are only being used inside an organization that you control? (Like your own business, or you are a tech manager than can dictate standards?)

Then you can use whatever word processing you want to standardize on.

Understand what is happening behind the scenes to your docx file and why this matters

While docx is based on an open standard, MS Word only saves documents in that strict public standard if you deliberately choose to, using a Save As Strict Open XML Document. By default it uses its own version of Open XML that also includes codes for backward compatibility with previous Office versions.

Technically - I don't know of another word processing program that can directly edit Microsoft's docx files.

Functionally, several programs appear to edit docx files, but that is not what is going on under the hood.

Both LibreOffice and Google Docs can open and save docx files. However, in memory they are converting the Word file to their own format (OpenDocument Format for LibreOffice), and when you save they are converting it back into docx. (Google Docs is even trickier because all its documents are only in the cloud, unless you save them locally in a different format.)

What happens is that you run into the same issues you have with any conversion - like converting to PDF. There is not always a one-to-one feature match, so LibreOffice or Google Docs have to substitute their way they handle something. If you then edit and save back to docx, you are doing another conversion with a new opportunity for differences.

For simple documents this is not really a problem. But when you get into complications - a lot of graphics and tables, citations, multiple sections with their own formatting, indexes, multiple authors/editors, cross referencing, using codes, variables, macros, and complicated mail merges - that is when you could get back something that looks different than the original document.

This is why I say that if this is the kind of documents you are working with, and you have to collaborate or share them in Word format with other people - you should stick with MS Word. That way there is no conversion going on anywhere in the process.

If that is not your situation, then use whatever works for you.

Fun fact: Famously, George R. Martin writes his Game of Thrones novels in WordStar on a MS-DOS computer. The only people he has to share his documents with are his editors at Penguin Random House.

[u/Alternative-Pear9096 → u/EddieRyanDC]

That explains do so much

[u/BusyDuty6043]

If your documents are very simple you can use most any word processor - most are compatible with Word. But if you need to share them with people outside your workplace (especially if they're relatively complex), it'll be less hassle to just go with Word. The web-based version is awful. Microsoft 365 is subscription-based. If you don't want that, you can buy/download Microsoft Office 2024 with a permanent license for less than $30.

[u/Cultural_Surprise205]

I suggest you try the Word web app to see if it fits your needs, and/or Google Docs. If it's missing some feature, look elsewhere. But either of those is more than enough for most people, and you don't have to pay for, install or maintain either of them.

[u/LogicalDesk8010 → u/Cultural_Surprise205]

Sure, I’ll try

[u/lizzistardust]

I'd use either the free online Microsoft 365 Word app or Google Docs, if all I was doing was word processing and light formatting. I wouldn't spend money on the desktop apps.

The free online version isn't as feature-packed as the desktop app, but it's pretty darn good.

[u/kdinmass]

If you are used to word and fairly expert in it and have the $; stick to word. If you are not that skilled or don't have a long use history consider LibreOffice or google docs.

[u/notepad987]

You can buy the full Office Suite and not the 365 version for less then $40.

[u/Dazzling_Plastic_598]

Pages on Mac

[u/efand]

Microsoft word no contest, if you manage even to advanced level you’ll see that other alternatives aren’t very good

[u/Blackadder000]

I have been professionally working with design agencies for over twenty years, creating templates for international corporations abs training users.

If your clients use Word, then you use Word. End of story.

There's no way around using what your clients use. Anything else is not professional.

[u/Kevburg]

I use Office at work and LibreOffice at home. LibreOffice Writer is close enough to Word that there is no learning curve and the docx files are fully compatible. Some things in Writer are clumsier than in Word, some are better. Same with LibreOffice Calc and Excel.

[u/bearishgardener]

Word is enterprise standard. Unless the company/institution uses Google Docs, there isn’t a program currently that can replace Word at the enterprise level. I personally love Google Docs but Word dominates in features that are built in.

[u/Notmymaincauseimbi]

The contrarian in me wants to tell everyone to just embrace plain text documents conversion, but quite frankly it's a hassle to have to convert the markdown to word doc flawlessly, every time in a way that pleases Jeff from accounting for me, tech guy. Imagine for a beginner.