A lot of students do not want to have to pay for Microsoft Office in order to complete their homework, work on some business plans, etc. So what tools are out there that are comparable, but free? Well in this article I will tell you about my top three favorite alternatives.

Microsoft Wordpad

Microsoft has become a pretty full featured document writing tool. Personally it is my go to application to write a short paper or work on a simple assignment. You can add photos, drawings, dates, objects, etc. and you have all the other normally featured options in most word processing applications. The only thing that Wordpad is missing is a spell and/or grammar checker. But besides that its a very nice program to use. Another bonus is that it comes pre-installed on all Windows computers, so as long as you stick to Windows you do not have to reinstall it on multiple machines. Formatting documents is more limited compared to some of the options listed below, but like I said its more for just short quick papers.

Open Office Suite

If you are looking for a more fully featured word processing application or you need work on things other then just documents. You may need to work on a spreadsheet or make a powerpoint presentation for your next business class. Open Office is an open source free alternative to the entire Microsoft office suite. It will give you a spreadsheet program, word processing, powerpoint, math, etc. It is quite easy to find the latest version of the software, just do a quick Google search for Open Office. And if you love the software think about donating to the project.

Google Docs

Google docs reminds me a lot of Open Office. But the awesome difference is that it automatically saves your documents for you, which is a very handy tool when you have to work on sketchy library computers or borrow your friends laptop. The next big difference is it is all online. So no matter what computer your using your documents are always there and available, and their is no need to install any kind of software. This means you no longer have to carry around a flash drive, or email yourself the documents. I find it very helpful when I need to type up a paper on my own computer but print it at the library. I don’t need to worry about formatting, losing, or forgetting the file.