Microsoft Office/LibreOffice

I use Libre at home (on both Linux and Windows) and find it's absolutely fine, however not as good as MS Word. But with Word being so expensive now, the slight extra quality is not worth that price tag.

Besides, just download Libre, and uninstall if you don't like it, that's the beauty of free software.

And there is one other alternative that I would never suggest, and that is looking into way to acquire Word which might bend the law a little.
 
@Mouse you can afford ms office. Do you have an eBay account? If not, get one.

Look up Microsoft Office 2016 you will he able to buy a license key from an oem pc that never installed ms Office. Look for one from a decently rated seller (there are plenty) make sure they state it is unused, and that they supply the download link from the Microsoft site.
This is all legal and I have done this multiple times for people.

The last office 2016 license I bought cost £3.99 and it is the complete suite, licensed for 1 computer.

Edit- it is a lifetime license too, don't even concider an office 365 sub.
 
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If you need any help, I will find one for you.
 
I personally would stay away from Celeron/Atom processors. But unfortunately i3's and above would be more expensive. eBuyer have two HP i3's listed for around £299. Although that won't work with your John Lewis voucher.

Microsoft Office online is free if you have a hotmail/outlook account. You need to be online to use it, which is the same as Google docs.
 
If teh lappy is just for work, Acer make good woork horses for cheap prices, just dont expect speed or gaming.

I have been using an Acer Aspire (the smaller screen one, think its 11 inch or something) for two years before getting another desktop, and it is a solid little netbook, and still going strong. Think it was around £299 or so when I got it. It has an i3 processor, so its a nice little beast. Also very compact for travelling, but has a well spaced keyboard.
 
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I'm leaning towards the one Aber suggested at the mo, I think, but not 100% yet!

Laptop's literally just used for work, writing, and watching TV.
 
I see you've already picked LibreOffice over OpenOffice - the latter is basically a less-often updated version of the former, so good choice.

I use LibreOffice. I've never had any issues opening Excel files, or saving as Excel files, then opening them in Excel. I haven't done anything complicated spreadsheet-wise in LibreOffice Calc though - like pivot tables or complicated formulas.

LibreOffice Writer is fine. Sometimes I've noticed slight formatting changes when opening Writer files in Word e.g. something right-aligned to a tab won't be in the right place. You can track changes and view comments, but I find Google Docs a lot easier for this - unless there are some settings I don't know about, longer comments in LibreOffice are awkward, as I have to scroll within a small box.

Google Docs is also free, and available offline if you use Google Chrome and install the Google Docs Offline extension.

Jo Zebedee said:
Believe it or not the computer I'm replacing is 15 years old! It's only cos Vistas security upgrades are ending that I'm upgrading.
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I've recently replaced a very old Windows XP PC, that still works quite well. Albeit it is rather slow for demanding tasks like Photoshop and lots of Chrome browser tabs.

HanaBi said:
Or if you can't stretch to that there's this dedicated Chromebook at £299 (more of a notebook than laptop, hence its smaller screen size and weight); but again it only has 4Gb of memory, which should be sufficient since it is not running Windows as an OS; and you can install LibreOffice onto a Google Chrome OS

Buy ASUS Chromebook Flip C101PA, 4GB RAM, 16GB eMMC Flash, 10.1" Touch Screen, Silver | John Lewis
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If the 10.1" screen isn't too small - it might not be ideal for spreadsheets. Larger Chromebook screens are available.
 
Dave said:
Anyhow, can you not pick up an older copy of Word from somewhere like a charity shop?

Edit: sorry, just realised Brian already made that last suggestion. I'm sure you must have an old version of Word with spare licenses somewhere in the bottom of a drawer.
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Interesting, Dave. I'd be interested to know if anyone has done this on Windows 10. My old version of word refuses to load on Windows 10.
 
mosaix said:
Interesting, Dave. I'd be interested to know if anyone has done this on Windows 10. My old version of word refuses to load on Windows 10.
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Windows 10 has a compatibility mode.

Type the name of the software in the taskbar search box (if you can't see it, just start typing) and right-click > View file location (or find it in the taskbar menu and right-click > more > file location). Then right-click the resulting file that was found > Properties > Compatibility tab > there should be a greyed out box you can enable to select previous versions of Windows.
 
mosaix said:
Interesting, Dave. I'd be interested to know if anyone has done this on Windows 10. My old version of word refuses to load on Windows 10.
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That's probably the case. It is why I didn't upgrade from Windows 8.1.

@Nick B says he can get it to work though, unless he is talking about using other Operating Systems.
 
Upgrade to win 10, there's really no reason not to. You can still upgrade for free too, dm me if you need info.

If you are struggling with upgrades and can stretch to the princely sum of £20 or so, you can buy an original win 10 disc and unused legal licence key for that too.
 
I use Office 2000, from a disc, it works perfectly. Any older version will, I expect, because all tis is a word processor? Unless u use fancy excel or whatever else it is they have bundled in there. You certainly deserve better than freeware. )
 
My new laptop arrived today (I went for the one @Abernovo recommended) but I'm in the office, so it's been diverted to the post office - I'll collect it tomorrow. I think I'm going to go for Microsoft Office - @Nick B was kind enough to send me a link.
 
J Riff said:
I use Office 2000, from a disc, it works perfectly. Any older version will, I expect, because all tis is a word processor? Unless u use fancy excel or whatever else it is they have bundled in there. You certainly deserve better than freeware. )
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which is why I don't use word... (sorry, that was uncalled for...) We all have our preferred program, and if we can't run it on a new OS, it really sucks...
 
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