Libreoffice
this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2026
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Are we anti google docs here? I feel like it has everything word does and you can easily save/download files onto your computer as a PDF.
If that doesn't work, you can use word online! It's basically MS word, you just can't access it offline. It's on the web.
Thanks when I save docs from online and try to open them on my laptop it comes up with the "give me money" pop up.
Does Google docs layout look anything like word?
I recommend the data approach since you can just change layout on the fly and not have classic word processing mess up:
This looks great; will play with it. I wonder if it's got versioning.
Cool, thanks for linking this, I was just looking for something like this!
If that's it, Libre Office.
Thanks mate! I've downloaded it but I'm really struggling with the layout any tips? it's so different looking to word
I find it's exactly identical to MSWord, but from the mso97 days before the Ribbon bollocks. I used o97 Word because it was like win3.1 Word .. word-perfect? It's been a while.
But, TL/DR, LOWord is like Classic MSOffice from when it didn't suck. This will not help you adjust, but hopefully the knowledge that you're going back to a better era of UX could help blunt the pain.
Go carefully, and have your favourite vice handy to goose the positive reinforcement loop.
Thanks mate
Also if you’re using windows and avoiding acrobat try Sumatra for reading pdfs. FOSS is the way. Libre draw also does document signing for pdfs
Hardcore nerds use TeX but if I understand your question, you probably want LibreOffice. I'm unfamiliar with OnlyOffice so ok, maybe that's good too.
I've been using LibreOffice's Writer for several years. And I've been happy with it.
all words are free. i just used thirteen of them and paid nothing.
I used fourteen of them and got arrested for hate speech, so I think your theory has a flaw and I blame minorities
No it's not minorities it's trans people they somehow caused it by sneakily sneaking in a bathroom
You are paying with time and you are DYING. Hell, i am typing right now! That means that I'm also DYING RIGHT NOW!
proceeds to crash out
Both OnlyOffice and LibreOffice (Writer) would work. The main differences are that OnlyOffice has all the tools (documents, presentations, and spreadsheets) while LibreOffice separates them. LibreOffice also has an additional two tools: Draw (kind of like Adobe Illustrator or Inkscape) and Base (database stuff).
Generally documents that are exported to and from MS Office will be better when working with OnlyOffice. If you aren't doing a bunch of formatting that is absolutely critical (or no formatting at all), I wouldn't worry about using LibreOffice. LibreOffice, for me, works well, but sometimes page break can happen a line or two earlier/later depending on how images, tables, headings, etc. are rendered, which is slightly annoying. In "Impress" (presentations), whenever I made one object transparent, ALL objects became transparent when viewing from MS Office, which was strange. That's my experience, and it seems that other people have had similar formatting problems with LibreOffice too.
Another thing that's different is that, on Windows, LibreOffice doesn't look very nice. On Linux, it looks fine (I selected "Tabbed"), but on Windows, I'm not sure if they're using some other graphical package or something, but the top toolbar is all squished together with no wiggle room, even if you select "Tabbed". One other thing, LibreOffice uses Qt so it will work with those themes in Linux (e.g. In KDE Plasma, which is what I run, LibreOffice will match with the system theme!)
For a Linux-specific thing, it seems that LibreOffice doesn't really like Wayland much, and was chugging and running at a jogging snail's pace (certainly not a fast snail, this one), so I had to manually set the shortcut to run LibreOffice in XWayland or something like that anyways.
One thing I like about LibreOffice is that there's a few more plugins available than OnlyOffice. For example, LanguageTool has a LibreOffice plugin but don't think there's one for OnlyOffice. LibreOffice also has like a bazillion different settings to change how everything is rendered, you can change the order of the items in every toolbar and menu, I think Writer has a basic Java IDE built in too? Basically, LibreOffice is more customisable and configurable than OnlyOffice, and by a lot. OnlyOffice tries to be a little simpler than LibreOffice and I guess is more "dumbed down" with fewer buttons and settings?
TLDR: LibreOffice has five separate programs, OnlyOffice has three in one. Files exported from OnlyOffice generally render with correct formatting on MS Office (and vice versa), the same may not be true for LibreOffice depending on the content of your documents. LibreOffice Windows isn't nice (but looks better on Linux), LibreOffice doesn't play nice with Wayland, LibreOffice has more plugins, options, etc.
Ahhhh I really struggled with Libre earlier I'm old and neurodiverse and can't handle the layout. Does only office have a similar layout to word?
If you use Windows, yeah, LibreOffice doesn't look all that nice. Setting it to "tabbed" view mode makes it a bit better (try that first)
but the icons are still pretty small with little padding (on Windows at least. On Linux it is perfectly fine, so I use LibreOffice!). OnlyOffice will be more padded and has bigger icons than LibreOffice in Windows, yeah. I think it would work.
That's so helpful thanks so much! Have a lovely weekend
Maybe not the exact answer: for CV and job applications I used latex with some template I found on the interwebs. Overleaf is a good latex provider
Is Overleaf an Interleaf clone? My lord that's ancient.
LibreOffice
Or if you can spare $10-20 you can get a gray market Office key
What's a grey market office key
If I understand it correctly, Microsoft sells discounted keys to organizations as part of their Volume Licensing for businesses.
Some places on the internet take advantage of that, and sell the keys individually.
Oh thank you
Your best bet is either LibreOffice Writer, or OnlyOffice's word processor. Another one I tried was Abiword, which is an old word processor.
+1 for Onlyoffice. I tried both it and Libreoffice. Onlyoffice UI is both closer to how MS word looks, and supports word documents better. (Eg text format remains the same in onlyoffice, while in liberoffice it's flying off the edges. At least in my experience)
OnlyOffice is a bit less featureful and doesn't support some languages that Word and Writer do
The best free version is the one provided by MASS. Any other word processor typically has some kind of downside.
I still have open office on my pc. But I believe it isn't as well known as it was 15+ years ago.
OpenOffice isn’t as well known now because it was replaced, for all intents and purposes, by LibreOffice in ~2010.
It shows how much I use it :D
I did that stuff online with canva since it already comes with a bunch of CV templates and the layout is easier done than in a regular text editor.
If you look for a word like experience, I agree with what others stay recommended: libre office
If you have a Google account, Google Sheets is free and probably does everything you need.
MS Office is also really easy to pirate.
Great thanks how user friendly is it?
ITYM Google Docs.
The student version.
massgrave.dev
Word online is free
You can probably get it cheaper, but I've used this site a few times and it's never failed me
https://www.cjs-cdkeys.com/categories/Windows-and-Office-Keys/