there is a free download for a program called Open Office. you can open and save Word files, Excel. etc. it works with most of the common wordprocessing and spreadsheet files. it will open them all, let you create them and save them as whatever file you need. my new laptop came with microsoft office, but i have used open office for a coupla of years before this laptop. it is still on my netbook that i use for work and the open office lets me save as a word file to send back to my company office. works great.