LibreOffice Word Processor
Also see: Word Processing Software Available from Amazon
LibreOffice Word Processor - Another Free Writer App
Nowadays there are two free word processors in widespread use instead of just one.
Just a few years ago, Apache's Open Office seemed to be the universal free alternative to Microsoft Office suite. Today we are just as likely to find people using LibreOffice, another office productivity suite.
Both the Open Office and LibreOffice include their own word processing application. Both give their WP program the same name, "Writer". Open Office and LibreOffice both have developed as "open source" software and are free to download, install and use.
ZDNet's Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols published a great review of LibreOffice last year, summing up "maybe Microsoft's Office 2016 for Windows is perfect for Windows 10 users, but for the rest of us, LibreOffice 5.1, the full-featured, open-source office suite, is a better choice."
Most of us use our office suite just for word processing most of the time, and then some of us do spreadsheets too. As far as world processing goes, we can do a lot of our basic composing using an app as simple as WordPad.
However, having Word or one of the two free "Writer" alternatives available is important for those occasions when you need to read documents created by other people or organizations.
Any kind of special formatting also relies upon features that only come with an office suite type word application.
Most users will find the layout for LibreOffice, just like Open Office, to be very similar to word processing programs like MS Word and our old Corel favorite Word Perfect.
Basically the Windows versions for all these programs are arranged similarly so that they can use the Windows operating system resources to run their features.
According to Vaughan-Nichols, LibreOffice's newer version offers a user interface that is more familiar to most Windows users than the newer MS Office is.
"Unlike Microsoft Office, which long ago embraced the annoying ribbon interface, LibreOffice has stayed with the tried and true menu-based interface that any Microsoft Office 2003 user will recognize at a glance.
"What The Document Foundation, LibreOffice's parent organization, has done is reorganize the menus for Writer, Calc, and Impress -- LibreOffice's word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation program. They're designed to provide faster access to the most-used features.
"Guess what? It works. I found all three programs to work faster after only a day or two of getting used to the new menus."
LibreOffice can be downloaded for free at https://www.libreoffice.org/ .
See Vaughan-Nichols' full review at http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-best-desktop-office-suite-libreoffice-gets-better/ for further details extending beyond simple word processing interests.
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