Microsoft Office?

My school expects all students to type their papers in MLA format, using Microsoft Word. It has to be double-spaced, be indented 1 inch on all sides, have a header with my last name and page number and a bunch of other things that you need Microsoft word to do. What the school doesn't realize, is that not all computers come with Microsoft word preinstalled, and Microsoft Office is a $150 program. (Also that not everyone has a computer) I tried writing a paper with open office word, but when I got to school and tried to open the .doc file so I could print it, microsoft word wouldn't let me open it. It said it was either in an unrecognized format or currupted. So lately I've been writing my papers in word pad, but word pad can't do a lot of the MLA formatting, so I've been only getting half credit. It's pretty stupid that my teachers won't let me write my papers by hand. I don't want to resort to piracy, so is there any free solution?

@ teachr
That's what I did
screw this, I'll just be a pirate argh

Provided that:

1.) You have a USB Flash drive, and
2.) Your school allows you to use them on their computers

You can download a portable version of OpenOffice at:

http://portableapps.com/apps/office/open...

If you don't want such a large download (70 MB), you can try AbiWord:

http://portableapps.com/apps/office/abiw...

which is only 6 MB.

Hope this helps!

You can also use your school id to get Office Student Edition at a greatly reduced price offered only to students and faculty.

It's very presumptuous for a school to think that every student has a computer, let alone professional software such as Word. And I don't care that there are reduced rates for students; it's still a cost that obviously is justified only by the school, not the student's parents.

But... you do have a computer at home that you can use Wordpad. And there are computers accessible at school that have Word on them. While you would like to just print out the paper, you should be able to reserve some computer time to redo the formatting.

If not, get your parents involved. I mean, exactly how excruciatingly detailed does each paper HAVE to be? (As a parent, I've never encountered this kind of problem with my kids and they're out of high school now. But I do buy into your problem because I've met a lot of assinine teachers.)

After you have used OpenOffice then you save it look under the "name" there is a drop down-"save it as type" choose Word.doc. It defaults as OpenOffice so you need to do this one extra step.

OpenOffice will work fine for everything you explained, you just need to save it correctly.

Good luck.

Teachr is right, make sure you save your file as .doc, since that's not the native OpenOffice format. Also, check with the school's computer lab or IT department - most schools offer MS products and other software at a huge discount to students. I believe MS Office costs $25 at my university.