6 Finest Free Options to Microsoft Phrase

Google Docs: Finest for sharing and actual time collaboration

Google Docs, which is well the preferred Microsoft Phrase different on this checklist, is free to everybody with a Google account.

If you would like the essential options of Microsoft Phrase, you don’t must look any additional than Google Doc — it helps all of your primary phrase processing wants and is tightly built-in with Google Drive and different merchandise. Since every little thing is saved in Google’s cloud, you don’t want to fret about shedding your work (Determine A). Docs mechanically save after each single keystroke, so within the occasion of a crash, it is best to have the ability to decide up proper the place you left off, right down to the letter. Google Docs additionally helps Microsoft Phrase’s .doc and .docx codecs, so that you shouldn’t have any issues importing and enhancing these information.

Determine A

Certainly one of its finest options for enterprise customers is real-time collaboration. When you share a doc with one other Google person, each of you may be within the doc concurrently, see the opposite person’s cursor place, watch what they’re typing, and chat with one another. It’s an incredible collaboration instrument that stands out amongst phrase processors.

Nonetheless, superior Phrase customers might discover the options missing — it truly is a bare-bones phrase processor. Moreover lots of its new AI-powered options, just like the addition of the AI assistant Gemini, are completely out there to paying customers with Google One AI Premium accounts or the Gemini for Google Workspace add-on.

Standout options

• Actual-time collaboration functionality.
• Pageless view.
• Dropdowns.
• Desk templates.
• Watermarks.
• Doc abstract.
• Google Meet integration.
• Menu shortcut that permits you to tag folks, add components, and carry out different actions.
• Commenting, notes, and recommendations.
• Assembly notes.
• E mail draft.
• Checklists.
• Customizable templates.
• In-doc chat functionality.
• Desk of contents sidebar.
• Discover and substitute functionality.

SEE: Turn into a Google Docs energy person.

Apache OpenOffice Author: Finest for lengthy and sophisticated paperwork

When you hate Microsoft Phrase due to its ribbon, then Apache’s OpenOffice Author is the 2003 throwback you need. It has a traditional interface that, whereas it will possibly look a bit cluttered, mimics the menus that Microsoft tossed out when Workplace 2007 was launched (Determine B). It should undoubtedly really feel acquainted to Workplace 2003 customers, with the added perk of nonetheless receiving updates and safety patches from its energetic assist group, which is vital for a enterprise software program suite.

Determine B

OpenOffice Author has its personal doc format, but it surely additionally helps .doc and .docx information, and it does an incredible job of sustaining formatting when importing these forms of information. Lots of the superior options of Microsoft Phrase are included in OpenOffice Author as properly, so enhancing complicated Phrase paperwork gained’t be a difficulty.

If on-line collaboration or native cloud assist are important to you, then it’s possible you’ll wish to go on OpenOffice Author as a result of it consists of neither. It’s doable to retailer information in a cloud drive and entry them utilizing OpenOffice, however you’ll want the desktop shopper of Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Apple iCloud put in so as to open your cloud storage like an area pc folder.

Standout options

• Desk of contents and references.
• AutoCorrect dictionary.
• AutoComplete functionality.
• Multi-page show.
• HTML, PDF, and MediaWiki codecs.
• Over 900 templates.

Zoho Author: Finest for automation

Zoho Author is a free doc creation instrument with a clear writing interface and highly effective built-in capabilities. Writing paperwork in Author is essentially distraction-free, whereas vital textual content instruments are nonetheless inside attain. The native options of Author, lots of which leverage the capabilities of different Zoho apps, actually set it other than the remainder.

Use the built-in AI instrument, Zia, for higher high quality content material, quick grammar fixes, and perception into the doc’s readability for various audiences (Determine C). It will probably additionally test for plagiarized and duplicated content material. AI instruments are sometimes included as a paid add-on, so the truth that Zia is free is an actual bonus.

Determine C

The Doc Signal instrument places e-signature instruments proper within the doc in order that groups can go from draft to approval to signature, all in the identical area. Doc Fillable instruments additionally put types proper in your paperwork, giving them knowledgeable really feel that’s prepared for embedding wherever you want a kind.

To not be outdone by Google Docs or Microsoft Phrase, Zoho Author’s real-time collaboration has granular controls, together with feedback, recommendations, textual content masking to cover some gadgets from collaborators and even content material locks for blocks of textual content. Zoho Author is constructed for company collaboration, authorized approvals and artistic groups.

Standout options

• WordPress integration.
• Zia AI.
• Feedback and notes.
• Lock or masks delicate data.
• Publish to WordPress from Zoho Author.
• Phrase doc import.
• Export to .docx and .pdf.
• Doc automation.
• Doc fillable.
• Unsplash and Pexels extensions for embedding royalty-free photographs.
• Desktop app permits you to create and edit native paperwork.

LibreOffice Author: Finest for personalisation

The Doc Basis’s LibreOffice Author, like OpenOffice, is a totally free and open-source product that provides phrase processing, assist for .doc and .docx file codecs and all of the instruments the typical Microsoft Phrase person will want in a phrase processor. LibreOffice Author and OpenOffice Author are comparable in a variety of methods: interface fashion, file format assist, lack of cloud integration and real-time collaboration, and normal phrase processing options (Determine D). Each are stable decisions for these searching for a free different to Microsoft Phrase, and choosing one over the opposite largely comes right down to choice.

Determine D

One facet of LibreOffice stands out, and that’s what’s within the app — it’s the community-driven nature of the platform. Collaborating with customers and builders to enhance the product is entrance and middle on LibreOffice’s web site, and that focus has grown LibreOffice right into a thriving group of customers and coders that preserve making it higher.

Standout options

• Desktop publishing.
• Built-in calculation perform.
• Drawing instruments.
• Spellchecker, thesaurus, AutoCorrect, and hyphenation.
• Drag-and-drop supported.

WPS Workplace Author: Finest for superior options

If you would like a phrase processor as feature-packed as Phrase however don’t wish to pay a premium, try WPS Workplace Author. It’s a full-featured software suite that feels premium.

WPS Workplace Author does a lot of the identical issues as Microsoft Phrase, and it consists of native cloud assist to make storing paperwork on-line a snap; nonetheless, it does lack real-time collaboration (Determine E). Take a look at any overview of WPS Workplace Author, and also you’ll discover statements that attest to how a lot it’s like Phrase. With its inclusion of extra options than different free suites like OpenOffice, this may be the one to go for — particularly contemplating it’s free.

Determine E

With something free and top quality, there’s normally a catch, and also you may have the ability to guess what it’s in our fashionable age of “freemium” apps: Advertisements. Don’t let that dissuade you from attempting WPS Author — you won’t see an advert. There’s no banner throughout the highest of the app; adverts solely seem while you wish to use choose options like printing or exporting to PDF. If you might want to do a type of issues, you’ll have to take a seat via a roughly 10-second advert, which unlocks the characteristic for half-hour. When you like what WPS Author affords, you possibly can get rid of adverts by paying a yearly subscription payment of $29.99 or £33.49, or $9.99 or £16.49 for 3 months.

Key options

• Suitable with 47 frequent doc codecs, together with PDF.
• File format conversion.
• PDF to Phrase conversion.
• Doc to image export.
• Image to textual content conversion.
• Skins and design customization.
• Helps 13 languages on PC and 46 languages on cellular.

Microsoft Workplace Phrase On-line: Finest for customers preferring Microsoft Phrase’s interface

Don’t overlook Microsoft’s free different to the paid model of Phrase: Workplace On-line. Like Google Docs, Microsoft Phrase On-line is a simplified, cloud-based model of Phrase (Determine F). It lacks lots of the superior options of a locally-installed model of Phrase, corresponding to pointers and rulers, bibliography, and autosave, however that is as shut as you may get for customers who desire a free model of Phrase.

Determine F

Similarities between Google Docs and Phrase On-line are current all the way in which right down to the interface, however with just a few tweaks you may make it really feel extra just like the Microsoft ribbon as a substitute of the dropdown menus Google Docs makes use of. Paperwork created in Phrase On-line are saved in Microsoft OneDrive, and real-time collaboration options like these in Google Docs can be found as properly. One huge plus in Phrase On-line’s favor is formatting: When you create a doc in Phrase On-line after which import it to an area model of Microsoft Phrase, it’s going to retain the formatting method higher than a Google Docs file.

Key options

• Actual-time collaboration.
• .docm, .docx, .pptm, .pptx, .xlsm, and. xlsx assist.
• 5GB of cloud storage.
• Templates, fonts, icons and stickers.
• Spelling and grammar.

SEE: Discover every little thing Microsoft 365 has to supply.