Any decent free word processing software?

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Okay, I will admit I am stupid when it comes to computers, and just as brainwashed as everyone else in the US that Microsoft Word is the only way to go. But I just can't see spending big $$ on the program...when I already bought it for my other computer, right? There are numerous freeware word processing programs online. Can anyone tell me which ones are decent, won't be some virus, and can attach files to email easily? I would appreciate any help that could be offered- thanks!

Open Office EXCELLENT programme. Even better than microshaft word.

Muchas gracias!! ! Thanks for your quick response, kip.
One other question I thought of: a friend of mine tried to send an attached Word document, stating that I would likely not be able to open it because he has Windows Vista and I have the regular Windows. Would something like that be an issue with Open Office?

Star Office...but then, I think that's also called 'open office'...

Heard good things about Crimson editor, which isn't a full-fledged processor like Word, or a bare-bones thing like Wordpad or Notepad, but something in between.

I still can't find my copy of Wordstar...

Open Office will open Microsoft Word documents. It is the only non-MS program that will, to my knowledge. Certainly the only free one.

Yeah, definitely go with Openoffice (like two other people in this post recommended). It's true that it's even better than Microsoft Office.

I am an Open Office user and my University is not. In Open Office Writer (like Word) I can open and edit MS Word documents and then save them as Word documents. So even the backwards people I know that still pay money for Word are not kept in the dark of my brilliant contributions to the sum of human knowledge.

While I do recommend saving your OWN documents in the default Open Document Format (nicer tables (which I use a lot of) at the very least) the portability is unbelievable. I even managed (with a plugin) to convert some old Lotus Noted documents I had to word documents and then sent them on to Word users. While keeping them as ODF files on my own computer.

It's all very handy. I am a definite advocate of Open Office.

If you want a Notepad alternative you should try out Notepad++. It's also free and is superior to the default Notepad that comes with Windows. For a Word processing alternative just use Openoffice (like I mentioned before).

AbiWord is another one of those open-source word processors.

As others have said, Open Office is good and it's free, and can open, edit, and save in Word format.

If you're doing anything involving lots of equations, figures, etc you might consider learning latex, which is also free.

OpenOffice Forever!! !

Open Office as other people have said is quite usable and free. If you're running Linux, there's also KOffice as well, which usually comes bundled with the K Desktop environment. The last time that I used it regularly (In 2001), it could open MS Word documents, but wouldn't reliably retain MS Word formatting.

IBM Lotus Symphony
http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.jspa

It all depends on your processing power and your requirements.

If you've got a "low powered PC", let us know and we'll suggest some smaller options.

OpenOffice is a good choice

Is there also Abiword for Windows? in case you do not have half a GiB of RAM...

open office I use it I think it is just as good as word 2007 never get the beta, nothing works the stable relaese is the way to go. i got the current release in a beta a while ago but it works fine now