Dear Lewis,
First of all let me say how sorry I am to hear of your wife's
terminal illness. It must have been extremely distressing. Having
been there with my mother and then my sister, I know something of
what you must feel. Deepest sympathies.
MS Word is not free. The current version is, I believe, not cheap and
even more expensive if one buys it as part of the MS Office suite
(which includes Excel, etc.). However, there are discounts -
especially for students and teachers. even with those, it's pricey.
MS Works isn't free, either. Of course, Works is lot less expensive
than Word; Amazon lists MS Works (version 8) for $42.99 (and throws
in free shipping). Of course, the more powerful Works "Suite 2006" is
more costly at $89.99. I saw Works v8 on Amazon at
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-070-02440-Works-8-0/dp/B0002D152W
Take a look.
A completely free alternative to MS Word (in fact to the entire
MS-Office suite) is "Open Office" (the place I work at has decided to
switch from MS-Word to Open Office - the licenses for the Microsoft
product were becoming too expensive and eating into our limited IT
budget). People recommend Open Office strongly. I would, too - after
all, I'm about to become a user! - but keep in mind that it's a big,
powerful and therefore complex suite. If you're already familiar with
Works and it does what you need done, you may wish to consider the
Amazon option (and there may be even cheaper ones out there!). You
may have less effort in learning.
Open Office can be downloaded from
http://download.openoffice.org/2.2.0/
You can read what they (the Open Office people) have to say about it
by starting with their main page
http://www.openoffice.org/
For information about the package and its history probably the most
useful summation is in Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org
There must be a great many reviews and recommendations out there, but
a comprehensive report on a thorough test and comparison of "Open
Office" vs. Microsoft's Office 2003 was undertaken by Ziff-Davis's
e-Week, and you'll find it at
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1571626,00.asp
Hope this helps. Regards and good wishes -
= Cheeta
[log in to unmask]
At 02:25 AM 8/6/2007, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>Folks,
>I bought my wife an Acer laptop, but it came without the Microsoft
>"Works" package with which I'm pretty familiar. I need a word
>processor in the worst way.
>Is "works", or Microsoft Word" a freebie, or do I have to buy a
>copy? Can do, but if not necessary, it'd be better than
>"nice". I've got horrendous medical expenses from my dear wife's
>(of 59 years) terminal illness yesterday and the hospitals and Drs.
>could use the money saved.
>I'm not looking for sympathy here - just a bargain. [I can't help
>but unload my grief (somewhere) as it just happened yesterday and
>I'm in absolute shock. Getting busy is what I'm told is the best medicine.]
>Many thanks - from Lewis E.
>
> "Hold No Punches.." Rode brings you great shareware/freeware
> programs with his honest opinions in this weekly column.
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