6 Greatest Free Options to Microsoft Phrase

Google Docs: Greatest for sharing and actual time collaboration

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

If you need the essential options of Microsoft Phrase, you don’t must look any additional than Google Doc — it helps all of your fundamental phrase processing wants and is tightly built-in with Google Drive and different merchandise. Since every thing is saved in Google’s cloud, you don’t want to fret about dropping your work (Determine A). Docs mechanically save after each single keystroke, so within the occasion of a crash, you must be capable of 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 modifying these recordsdata.

Determine A

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

Nevertheless, superior Phrase customers could 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 ideas.
• Assembly notes.
• E mail draft.
• Checklists.
• Customizable templates.
• In-doc chat functionality.
• Desk of contents sidebar.
• Discover and change functionality.

SEE: Develop into a Google Docs energy consumer.

Apache OpenOffice Author: Greatest for lengthy and complicated paperwork

In case 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 may well look a bit cluttered, mimics the menus that Microsoft tossed out when Workplace 2007 was launched (Determine B). It’s going to positively really feel acquainted to Workplace 2003 customers, with the added perk of nonetheless receiving updates and safety patches from its energetic help group, which is essential for a enterprise software program suite.

Determine B

OpenOffice Author has its personal doc format, however it additionally helps .doc and .docx recordsdata, and it does an awesome job of sustaining formatting when importing these varieties of recordsdata. Lots of the superior options of Microsoft Phrase are included in OpenOffice Author as effectively, so modifying advanced Phrase paperwork gained’t be a problem.

If on-line collaboration or native cloud help are important to you, then it’s possible you’ll need to go on OpenOffice Author as a result of it contains neither. It’s attainable to retailer recordsdata 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 a neighborhood laptop 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: Greatest 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 essential 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 may possibly 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 varieties proper in your paperwork, giving them an expert really feel that’s prepared for embedding wherever you want a type.

To not be outdone by Google Docs or Microsoft Phrase, Zoho Author’s real-time collaboration has granular controls, together with feedback, ideas, textual content masking to cover some objects 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 info.
• Put up 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 pictures.
• Desktop app permits you to create and edit native paperwork.

LibreOffice Author: Greatest for personalisation

The Doc Basis’s LibreOffice Author, like OpenOffice, is a very free and open-source product that provides phrase processing, help for .doc and .docx file codecs and all of the instruments the common Microsoft Phrase consumer will want in a phrase processor. LibreOffice Author and OpenOffice Author are comparable in plenty of methods: interface model, file format help, 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 desire.

Determine D

One side 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 operate.
• Drawing instruments.
• Spellchecker, thesaurus, AutoCorrect, and hyphenation.
• Drag-and-drop supported.

WPS Workplace Author: Greatest for superior options

If you need a phrase processor as feature-packed as Phrase however don’t need to pay a premium, take a look at WPS Workplace Author. It’s a full-featured utility suite that feels premium.

WPS Workplace Author does a lot of the similar issues as Microsoft Phrase, and it contains native cloud help 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 is likely to 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 be capable of guess what it’s in our trendy age of “freemium” apps: Advertisements. Don’t let that dissuade you from making an attempt WPS Author — you may not see an advert. There’s no banner throughout the highest of the app; advertisements solely seem if you need to use choose options like printing or exporting to PDF. If it is advisable to do a kind of issues, you’ll have to sit down by way of a roughly 10-second advert, which unlocks the characteristic for half-hour. In case you like what WPS Author provides, you’ll be able to remove advertisements by paying a yearly subscription price of $29.99 or £33.49, or $9.99 or £16.49 for 3 months.

Key options

• Suitable with 47 widespread 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: Greatest 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, comparable 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 best way right down to the interface, however with a number of 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 effectively. One large plus in Phrase On-line’s favor is formatting: In case you create a doc in Phrase On-line after which import it to a neighborhood model of Microsoft Phrase, it’s going to retain the formatting approach higher than a Google Docs file.

Key options

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

SEE: Discover every thing Microsoft 365 has to supply.