Sep 23, 2015 With the 2016 version of Word for Mac, Microsoft offers a solid and long-awaited update to an essential OS X application. Brawny word processor: With its solid collection of templates.
Microsoft Office is a staple for computers everywhere, but the price tag often stings people who just want a decent word processor. Fortunately, there are lots of free alternatives for Microsoft Word, and there are plenty of reasons people may turn to them.
In years past, “alternative” programs usually meant “lousy.” You’d end up with something buggy and incompatible with other services. Now, that’s no longer the case. Many programs are almost as advanced as their expensive inspirations, and some users might argue that these offerings surpass them.
2008 Microsoft Word for mac app. EMBED (for wordpress.com hosted blogs and archive.org item tags). Download Microsoft Word for macOS 10.13 or later and enjoy it on your Mac. This application requires a qualifying Microsoft 365 subscription. Microsoft 365 includes premium Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps, 1 TB cloud storage in OneDrive, advanced security, and more, all in one convenient subscription.
Some of the below-mentioned alternatives to Microsoft Word are free to use, and some come with an inexpensive price tag. So let’s go ahead and check out the top Microsoft Word alternatives for Mac and Window:
Also Read:Best Alternatives for Microsoft Word for Android & iOS [iPhone/iPad]
Best Alternatives For Microsoft Word For Mac and Windows
Whenever it comes to Office Suite applications, Microsoft Office has dominated businesses and homes around the world. The MS Office suite has everything you need: a word processor, excel, spreadsheets, presentations, and email.
Out of all, Microsoft Word is the most preferred option available out there. But as you already know that, MS-Word comes with a price tag, and not everyone is interested in paying for the software. However, luckily, there are many other alternatives to Microsoft Word for Windows and Mac are available online. They’re all free, they’re all capable of working with the .docx format, and they all offer some handy features on top as well. Some of them are:
- LibreOffice
- Google Docs
- OpenOffice
- Microsoft Office Word Online
- WPS Office Writer
1. LibreOffice – Best full-featured Microsoft Office Alternative
LibreOffice is one of my favorite Microsoft Office alternatives for Mac and Windows. LibreOffice is free and open-source software with what Microsoft Office has, plus some perks, such as extensions and templates. It comes with a clean user interface and features rich tools that help you unleash your creativity and enhance your productivity.
Moreover, the suite package includes everything that you get to see in Microsoft Office. The word processor, called “Writer,” can handle documents from Microsoft Word, and the rest of the LibreOffice suite can upload and modify files from their corresponding Office programs. Also, you can save files in different document formats.
2. Google Docs (Web)
Google Docs is one of the top Microsoft word substitutes that you can try out. The best part of Google docs is that it is a cloud-based office solution. As a result, you can access Google Docs on Windows, Mac, Android, Linux, or others.
Also, all your files get saved in the cloud only. As a result, you can work on the same document from different devices.
Another cool feature of Google Docs is that it allows you to share your documents with other users. As a result, you can collaborate on the same project together easily. Google docs also come with some of the pre-made templates for different purposes. Or you can start with a blank page.
Google Docs is free to use, and there are no limitations. Just make sure you have a Google Account, and you are good to go.
3. OpenOffice – Best Alternative For Microsoft Office
OpenOffice is another leading open-source office software suite that you can use. Since it is an open-source application, so you can download the software free of cost.
The OpenOffice suite includes software for word processing, spreadsheet making, presentation making, and so on. Moreover, the office suite is also available in many languages, and it works on all standard computers.
You can download OpenOffice for your Windows, Mac, and Linux computers and use the software free of cost. However, unlike Google Docs, it does not have collaborative features. But if you are looking for an offline word processing solution, OpenOffice should work fine for you.
Microsoft Office Word Online (Web)
If you want nothing but Microsoft Office Word only, you can check out Microsoft Office Word Online. It is an alternative to Google Docs as it is a cloud-based version of Word. However, it lacks a lot of features compared to MS Office Word. But again, if you want a free version with basic features, this should do the job.
Microsoft Office Word Online comes with an easy to use interface and comes with collaboration features. Also, all your documents are saved in OneDrive.
However, the best part of Microsoft Office Word Online is importing your documents from cloud to local Microsft Word. The formatting will be the same, unlike Google Docs documents. It’s an MS Word alternative free to download.
WPS Office Writer – Best Microsoft Word Clone
In the end, you can check out WPS Office Writer. This is also one of the best alternatives for Microsoft Word for Windows and Mac. Its a free software that can be downloaded on your Windows, Mac, and Linux computers.
The user interface of the platform is pretty impressive and extremely easy to use. So it will not take much time for you to get started with this.
Also, with this office solution, you will get solutions for Documents, Spreadsheets, Presentations, PDFS, and so on. Along with that, it also comes with cloud capabilities. Simply create a WPS account, and you will be able to work anytime and from anywhere. Moreover, it allows you to create, convert, compress, sing PDFS.
Final Words on Microsoft Word Alternatives:
So those were some of the best alternatives for Microsoft Word for Mac and Windows. Now go ahead and check these MS-Word alternatives out and see which one works the best for you. If there is any question regarding the free word processors for Windows and macOS that you wish to ask, do comment below, and I will help you out.
Microsoft Word 2016 is one of the most reliable, powerful, and feature rich word processors around, and while it's since been replaced by Word 2019, it still offers most of the functionality modern professionals need. For most people, Word needs no introduction. It's been a reliable standard on the Windows operating system for decades, and it's regarded by many as the benchmark by which all other word processing platforms are judged. But as free and cheap competitors came to the market, Word was starting to lag behind in terms of relevance. Fortunately, the 2016 is a return to form, bringing with it some smart updates and features that make it worth checking out by lapsed customers.
But just because Word has seen a significant update doesn't mean that veteran users will have to learn a new interface. In practical everyday terms, this is the same old Word. The menus and navigation interface are functionally the same, and you can expect to be able to find functions exactly where you remember them to be and rely on the old trusted keyboard shortcuts that have been a part of the product for years. But learning how to more efficiently use the platform is easier than ever before. A new search tool gives users the ability to quickly look up all the available commands. There's also improved protections built in to avoid data loss.
The ribbon was a controversial addition to the Office interface when it was first introduced, but it's since become a hallmark of the Word experience, and it works as well as ever. By condensing the most common tools that you're likely to use in a small but accessible menu bar, the ribbon gives more real estate to the document you're writing while allowing you to reach a variety of tools without having to dig deeply into menus.
But the big changes are reserved for collaboration. Word has always worked best as part of the largest Microsoft Office ecosystem, but Word 2016 brings this to a whole new level. Integration with the various components of the Office suite are tighter than everything before, and a major shift towards cloud based sharing has changed the way that professionals can use Word in some pretty major ways. Through the use of OneDrive, users can quickly share their Word documents with anyone they've given the proper privileges. But that's not the only way you can share files. Through integration with Outlook, you can attach a document via email and allow your recipients to go in and edit it at their discretion. An additional commenting feature allows you to mark up documents without changing their basic content. In short, Microsoft has paired Word with the sorts of functionality available through their Google cloud suite. Combine that with the polished and refined features at the heart of Word, and you have one of the finest word processing applications around.
Pros:
Download Microsoft Word For Mac Free
- Builds off the framework of one of the strongest word processors on the market
- Brings a whole wealth of new sharing and collaboration options
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Cons:
Download Microsoft Word For Mac Free Trial
- More expensive than many of its competitors
- Outdated since the release of Word 2019