I am not one of those people who hates Microsoft. I own an XBox 360 and am quite satisfied with it. What I hate, though, is stuff that doesn't work the way it's supposed to.
I don't know anybody who loves Microsoft Word. And I know a lot of people who hate it. It's expensive, it takes up way too much hard drive space, it's needlessly complicated by functions you're never going to use, and when you need it to do something slightly complicated, it screws it up. (For example, could I use a tab stop without changing the margins on my entire paragraph? Is that really too much to ask? Apparently it is.)
But Microsoft Word is the thing that everybody uses, so you've got to be able to save things in .doc format. Fortunately, almost any word processing program will now allow you to do that, so there's really no reason to keep suffering with Microsoft Word. Here are some of the options I've investigated:
Open Office I haven't really used this one, though I did download it onto an old computer. Someone else said it's not really any better than Word. But it also isn't any worse. And it's free, which automatically makes it better.
Scrivener This one's for Mac only. I tried it out for one project (that was requested, and subsequently rejected, by an editor. wtf.) and found it wasn't really for me. It's got a lot of cool features-- you can make notes on virtual note cards and rearrange them, move scenes around, work in a two-pane window with your research on one side and your writing on the other. Overall it's incredibly cool. It's free to try for 30 days and 40 bucks to buy the full version.
Having said all this, I didn't really like it much. I am not an outliner or a note taker, and while I do some research, it's not enough to warrant using something like this. I also don't tend to think of my books in terms of discrete scenes, which is the way Scrivener forces you to organize things. It's also cumbersome to export your individual scenes into one big file. I think it would be very useful for academic writing, and for some creative writers, it's a godsend. It doesn't fit with my style, though.
Google Docs A barebones online word processor. Certain things about it are very handy--your work is accessible anywhere which means you can work on your projects from different computers without toting a flash drive around. Your work is automatically backed up to the Google servers. I suppose it would be wise to keep your own backup as well, but if the Google servers go down, the entire US economy is probably going with them, and your lost manuscript will probably be the least of your problems. I like the fact that if you use gmail you can automatically convert any attached document to google docs with one click. Downside--when I tried to upload an entire YA book to share with a collaborator, google docs balked at the size of the document (about 200 pages.) That's an annoyance. Also, there are certain features I do want to be able to keep--for example, if one of my editors puts marginal comments in one of my manuscripts (typescripts, whatever) I want to be able to see them. As of this writing, google docs won't allow that. Still, this is almost always a good and convenient and free choice.
Zoho My personal favorite of the bunch. Another online word processor like google docs--also free, but with a little better design and more features--so the marginal comments still show up. I was able to upload the same book to zoho without any difficulty. Overall I feel that the design and use is really intuitive. It's a matter of personal preference, but I like this one a lot--better design, better features, same price. (free!) Downsides include the fact that it's a competitor to google, which means there's always a chance they'll be crushed like a bug and all the work you have on their servers will disappear. You can't do the one-click conversion from gmail (though they do give you a zoho.com email address when you sign up, so maybe you could convert instantly from that.) Also, the difficulty I face with online word processors is that my computer doesn't play nice with the free coffee shop wifi 100% of the time. It's probably 90%, but still--I'd hate to get out and be unable to work on the project I wanted to for that reason. Still, for now, I think this is my go-to word processor.
Tofu Not a word processor, but a reader program that allows you to read documents scrolling side to side instead of up and down. Doesn't seem like it would make a big difference, but when I had to read some longish documents on my computer, it made a huge difference in how long I was able to read on the screen and how sick I got of doing it. (free, and Mac only.)
