Ok. First of all, Microsoft Word is not free, it comes with a package that you buy called Microsoft Office. However, OpenOffice is free, and it is totally compatible with Microsoft Office. It has a program that is basically the same as word, and it also has all the other goodies like Excel and Powerpoint. Go to
www.openoffice.org to download it. It's spyware-free. Anything you save can be saved as a Microsoft word file and it will open with microsoft word anywhere else. You can also read word files with it. It's completely the same thing with a different name.