New laptop doesn't have word -

[Squiggly 10]

Hi everyone,

 

I hate for my first post to be a request for help but here goes! I've just started my own business so after years of having a laptop provided for me by an employer, I've had to purchase my own. It doesn't have word on it though, just something called wordpad. Is there anything I can do to open word documents? As it is a very new venture, I am reluctant at this stage to fork out the extra £100 or so for the microsoft word software.

 

Thought there could possibly be a way round it?

 

Many thanks.

[JoeP 11]

Take a look at Open Office.

 

http://www.openoffice.org.

 

Quite impressive, and free.

 

There are some differences between the Word Processor in OO and MS-Word but unless you're writing VBscript you won't really find them.

[sccsux 10]

Hi everyone,

 

I hate for my first post to be a request for help but here goes! I've just started my own business so after years of having a laptop provided for me by an employer, I've had to purchase my own. It doesn't have word on it though, just something called wordpad. Is there anything I can do to open word documents? As it is a very new venture, I am reluctant at this stage to fork out the extra £100 or so for the microsoft word software.

 

Thought there could possibly be a way round it?

 

Many thanks.

 

OpenOffice is a free office suite that is capable of opening/creatin M$ office compatible documents:thumbsup:

[SleepyHead 10]

If you're not bothered about it having a Microsoft badge on you could use Open Office. This is free and will open Word documents just fine.

 

We've used this as a cheapo alternative to Microsoft sometimes, and user comments so far as that it's mostly OK, but perhaps not quite as 'nice' as the Microsoft products - some features are a bit fiddly to use and there are occasional silly glitches - but on the plus side you won't have to shell out £100+ for Office Basic.

 

Another alternative would be to look on eBay.

[Squiggly 10]

Wow - impressed with the response times here!

 

Thanks for all your help, I'll give it a go (and I'm not even going to ask what VBScript might be!)

[JoeP 11]

The only major issue I found recently moving 'Word' documents between Office 2003 and Open Office was that after editing in OO and reloading in to Microsoft Word, a couple of page numbers in the footers had become corrupt.

 

This was the only issue I found - everything else, including soem quite complex formatting, came over fine.

 

Now, I have found it marginally slower than Word 97 on the same machine, but I guess it odes a little more than Word 97.

 

If you're on broadband it's not a humongous download; I'd get it and give it a try. If you don't liek it, just uninstall it and buy Word.

[xircon 10]

Now, I have found it marginally slower than Word 97 on the same machine, but I guess it odes a little more than Word 97.

 

Joe,

 

Did you see my post about increasing the memory buffers? Tools->options->memory

 

Increase to 64mb+ / 6mb+ per object

 

Also disable java. Speeds it up no end.

 

Steve

[Cynic 10]

As you mentioned wanting to simply open word documents you can do this with Word viewer as found here - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=95E24C87-8732-48D5-8689-AB826E7B8FDF&displaylang=en

 

Open Office is a good alternative to MS Office though for creating documents.

[Squiggly 10]

I've downloaded it, and opened word documents successfully!

 

Thanks again!

[stuchyg 10]

why not buy the full office 2007 and then put it through the tax man???

[JoeP 11]

Joe,

 

Did you see my post about increasing the memory buffers? Tools->options->memory

 

Increase to 64mb+ / 6mb+ per object

 

Also disable java. Speeds it up no end.

 

Steve

 

Oooh....I'll try that.

 

I was quite impressed even with it being a wee bit slower - the only grumble I had was with the corrupted page numbering in the footers. I reformatted but had a few 'tense' moments.

[Grahame 10]

Oooh....I'll try that.

 

I was quite impressed even with it being a wee bit slower - the only grumble I had was with the corrupted page numbering in the footers. I reformatted but had a few 'tense' moments.

 

I had problems with oo getting it not to print the page number on the first page. I never did sort it.