Free Alternatives to Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word has lot of features, but its also costly and not all people can afford MS Office. For those who cannot shell out that much money there are lot of alternatives, which does the basic functionalities of Word processing and are free to use. Here is a list of free alternatives to MS Word.
    * OpenOffice.org: OpenOffice need no introduction, its one of the popular free word processing softwares. OpenOffice.org is a multi platform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. OpenOffice latest version is 2.3 and it incorporates an array of new features and enhancements to all its core components. OpenOffice also supports variety of extensions.
    * AbiWord: AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks. It supports Microsoft Word documents, OpenOffice documents, WordPerfect documents, Rich Text Format documents, HTML web pages, etc.
    * EasyOffice: EasyOffice+PDF Filter is an office suite compatible with Microsoft Word and Excel and Adobe PDF files. It is a software from e-press.com and has good features.
    * IBM Lotus Symphony: IBM Lotus Symphony is a free office suite, based on OpenOffice.org, that includes a word processor, presentation software and spreadsheet. It supports Open Document Format (ODF), Microsoft file formats (.doc, .ppt, .xls, .dot, etc) and Lotus Smart Suite formats.
    * Jarte: Jarte is a word processor which handles Microsoft Word 95, 97, 2000 documents, rich text format (RTF) documents and plain text (ASCII) documents. It boasts of a good user interface which is easy to use as well. Jarte also has a plus version which has more features, but not a freeware.
    * Ultrapad: Ultra-Pad is a freeware advanced Word Processor Application for Windows 95 and later. It features some of the most advanced features you would ever want in a Word Processor. Ultra-pad is skinnable software and there are themes available for download to change the looks.
These softwares listed are for Windows OS and if you are looking for a Word Processor for Linux, then try out KOffice and Gnome Office. For Mac OSX users there is Neo Office based on Open Office.