Using OpenOffice you can read/write Word docs. this works for most feature of word, but some don’t. Embedding objects I believe won’t. If you;re just writing docs or research papers you should be fine. Check out openoffice.org.
I’ve give up even using word docs now (.odt ftw!). There’s something about ms word I can’t stand, and OO is just about perfect for what I need to do. and it’s free (I laugh at those who spend lots of money on something that could be done in OO just as well- of course, there are some things word can do that OO can’t).
I would be using linux, but as a gamer I still heavily use windows (and when I’m not gaming, I’m making games). I did a dual boot for a while, but I’m not too linux-savvy (my ATI gfx card is some weird laptop custom thing, and I couldn’t get good drivers for the life of me) and my 50 gig hard drive just isn’t big enough for them to coincide with each other and all my files (I’m already using an external 120 GB HD for my movies and music, but that’s nearly full)
I plan on getting a new computer soon, and if I do, it’ll be Nvidia gfx for me (good linux support, I believe) and a bigger HD, so I’ll give linux another shot. Until then, I suppose I’ll be using windows, and waiting for HL2: ep2 to come out (try playing that on linux!).
yea!
open ofice even poops out shockwave Flash and .PDF files now. Verry nice stuff
mrunion: Ubuntu Studio has Open Office Writer 2.2. The database, spreadsheet, drawing and other part of the suite are easily accessible in the Ubuntu Repository. So far, it will open M$ Office documents (.doc, .ppt, etc…), but as read only. You can save it as .odt and work on it that way. Also, make sure you get the msttfontcore suite. This way you don’t have to worry about the fonts switching on you. One other thing I noticed is Open Office likes to darken the lines for tables from a .doc document, and Office templates are a pain as they require heavy modification (I tried it on 2.0, and haven’t tried it since). Other than that it fits my needs and is great for the kids to do their reports because of its simplicity.
But, off category again, with Capt. Oblivion comment in mind, does anybody think that with Dell selling computers preinstalled with Ubuntu, there will be more commercial games popping up for linux users? I, for one one hope so. I don’t game much, but I like an occasional fix on the PC. Wine is o.k., but you lose functionality and native would be so much better.
OpenOffice has been able to write MS Office documents from the beginning.