How about trying Open Office ?

It a free and compatible version very much like MS Office -
info-
http://why.openoffice.org/

I have used it for years now.

[We understand that many people already have documents which they have created using other common office software packages. OpenOffice.org 3 can read these files with a very high degree of accuracy, making migration to OpenOffice.org 3 very straightforward. In fact, we have reports where OpenOffice.org 3 has been able to read files which the original software package had said were corrupted and unusable. If your friends or colleagues use different software, you can still swap files with them - but better still, give them a free copy of OpenOffice.org 3! ]
http://why.openoffice.org/why_easy.html