Ancient Hippy answered Open Office is a great replacement for Word and it's free. I've been using it for years.
Nancy Hammonds answered Each WINDOWS OS has a free word processing program "WORD PAD". It's similar to the OFFICE version of WORD W7 → Start → Search → WORD PAD W8 - 8.1 → Windows Key → start typing WORD PAD. The SEARCH pane will open with the results