For me it was always the absolute pits. I started hating Word when the current version ran on Macintosh System 4, booted from a floppy. (You PC users were staring at green or orange text and running WordPerfect 4.2 and most of you had never used a mouse). Word used nonstandard key commands for really common functions and the menus were bloated and full of all kinds of crap that made it hard to find whatever function you’d be looking for.
I’ve never found any reason to revise my opinion of it.
So what word processor do you use now?
And, of course, Google Docs is free. And that has value even if you already have a copy of Word that you’ve paid for (and that Micro$oft isn’t making you keep on paying for), because it means that you can share documents with anyone else, regardless of whether or not they’ve paid for it.
So since I don’t anticipate sharing documents with anyone, then probably I don’t need Google Docs.
I thought you opened the thread because you were looking for a replacement for Microsoft Word?
Well, yes, I drew the line at about Word 6.0. But that does not tell you anything about current versions. Also I am not in a position where I am required to produce or consume Word documents, so I can just use whatever I feel like. On the occasion I do have to try to open one of them, I try LibreOffice as mentioned or indeed docs.google.com to view a URL (for example, demo.docx)
Me? Nisus Writer Pro.
I use WordPad.
(No tables though.)
I am, but so many of you find Word workable that I wonder if I should just persist with it. After all, all my files are Word and it’s already paid for so if I could make it work that would be better, no?
No, nobody has this trouble. The problem is not Word. The problem is something in your settings.
There is a zoom feature that adjust how big things look on the screen which is different from how big they look on a printed page. I bet you (not microsoft) somehow reset that to a tiny value.
I think so. For one thing changing to anything else is going to require a learning curve, so how about changing focus of the thread to resolving your issues with Microsoft Word? To start with, which version of Microsoft Word are you using? (Upthread you said you’re running Windows 11, but that’s obviously not the same thing as identifying the version of the application.)
I agree. I think you have some messed up settings.
Nobody in the history of the world? 
Well, what “settings” do you think I should look to? Since in May when I had surgery, I didn’t have this problem. Now I do. Apparently Word has updated mightily since then, and I have NOT changed any settings. Probably I do need to change some settings, but…there are a lot of settings. Anyone have ideas where I might start?
You mentioned it was an old document that you opened. My hunch is that the doc is the problem. It must not have been one you opened in Word recently, as it would have updated it to the current file type/format when you opened it before. So just how old was that doc?
I laughed when I read this, because even Word has trouble opening Word docs, at least ones made in different versions. There’s just so many little things that can go wrong when opening a Word file today that was saved on a computer years ago. Sure, the text will be there somehow, but the formatting (font, paragraphs, figures, etc) is unlikely to survive unmolested.
I haven’t run into that yet. The latest version of Word opens up all of my work documents from back in the days of Windows 2000 and XP just fine.
YWMV (Your Word May Vary).
I have had font issues. I use a lot of custom fonts and I have had to make a folder of all of my fonts so that I can quickly and easily install them all on a new computer. Some of those fonts are downloads, some came from an old font CD (from back in the days when things came on CD) and some are just from older versions of Windows that weren’t kept in newer versions.
Yep. If you could handle Word 2003 on XP, you can handle present-day Word, provided nothing funky is going on with the settings.
Co-authoring in Office 365 versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint is the greatest feature in years. It just works.
My company, which has nearly empty office space they lease in Chicago, San Diego, Texas, and NY along with offices in London and India, decided to cut costs and eliminate Office licenses since we also used Google Suite. It is okay for internal document creation and collaboration. The challenge is the majority of the rest of the world still uses Office for business and the compatibility, as mentioned by others, is absolute garbage. Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint presentations - I’ve not had any of them convert cleanly to Docs, Sheets, or Slides. (Okay, simply basic spreadsheets usually do okay).
My workday now literally feels like it’s the mid-2000s when I was a poor college student and couldn’t afford licenses for Office so had to use Open Office instead. Except it is 2023 and Google Suite is as basic and shitty as 2005’s Open Office.