This applies in spades to files that use VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) and macros, and to Excel spreadsheets where errors can have career-ending financial consequences. The third reason is that we live in a world where Microsoft Office is the de facto standard for business documents, and you absolutely have to be able to read them accurately.

But I found I still needed Word to compare files, and to cope with the publishing industry’s use of styles, comments and “ track changes”. Being text based, it’s hopeless for storing images, but it’s perfect for texts with simple formatting. rtf (rich text) file format, which almost any word processor can read. I tried to avoid this problem by saving all my files in Microsoft’s. But if your documents are simple text files, then a lot of programs will load them.

If your documents include multiple columns, embedded images, custom fonts, footnotes and similar features, you can more or less forget about using anything else. This depends on the complexity of your files. The second reason is that you need it to read old files, which is one of your problems. That’s why I’ve used it for a couple of decades. The best is that you like using it, because of its power, rich feature list, ease of use or whatever. Word is powerful and flexible, but you pay for that utility. The main difference is that Microsoft’s programs are better, except for multiuser simultaneous editing. This is exactly the same as Google’s online suite. All you have to do is create a Microsoft Account using any working email address – it doesn’t have to be a Microsoft email address – and you can use online versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint with free online storage in OneDrive.

In fact, you can already use some Microsoft Office programs online, including Word, without paying Microsoft a penny.

Microsoft would prefer both Mac and Windows users of Office to move to the online version, Office 365, but it’s still entirely up to you. Is there is a cheaper way of carrying on with Word, or, failing that, an alternative word processor with which I’ll still be able to open and edit my existing Word documents? Ed As a writer, I have a very large number of Word files, but with Microsoft moving to an annual subscription model, the cost of remaining with Word is looking prohibitive. I chose Microsoft Word for Mac when I switched to a MacBook Pro some years ago.

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