My experience with Libreoffice is a bit dated (2 years), so take with a pinch of salt. If you don't need to work on the document with MS word (or do not need to

My experience with Libreoffice is a bit dated (2 years), so take with a pinch of salt. If you don't need to work on the document with MS word (or do not need to exchange it with somebody using MS word) then Libreoffice Writer is more than fine. It will do whatever MSW does, with equal quality (I found that formatting was getting screwed when passing documents between the two). Also, because I use MSW so often at work, I got used to the ribbon menu, and LO menu looks outdated (to me). Apple's Pages is all you need if you are on Mac (and I have found it to be more compatible than LO with MS Word). Conversely, if you need to edit the document with other people (e.g. some school group work) Google Docs is hard to beat. Edit: typos.