Yes. Several.
LibreOffice
The leader of the pack these days is LibreOffice, which is installed by default with Ubuntu Linux, among other distributions. LibreOffice Writer is the word processing component of the office suite. It can process every kind of Microsoft format you can imagine, plus more. The default file format for documents created in LibreOffice Writer is ODT, which stands for OpenDocument Text. This format is compatible with modern versions of Microsoft Word.
The software has a familiar look and feel. A blank document with all default settings looks like this:
There isn’t a “ribbon” style menu, as Microsoft Word has (sadly) embraced. According to Microsoft:
While you might simply refactor a traditional menu bar and toolbar design of an existing program to a ribbon format, doing so misses most of the value of using a ribbon. Ribbons have the most value when used to present immediate, results-oriented commands, often in the form of galleries and live previews. Results-oriented commands make commands easier to understand and users much more efficient and productive. Instead of refactoring your existing commands, it’s better to redesign completely how commands are performed in your program.
If you can find a better example of bullshit business speak, leave it in the comments. “Results-oriented commands”. Hah! Efficiency! Productivity! Man this has got it all. Why hasn’t LibreOffice embraced this revolution? Well they have.
If you want to experience the incalculable productivity boost of the ribbon style user interface, just do this, from “View / User interface…”:
I think “Tabbed” is the Microsoft rubbish ribbon style. But look, if it’s efficiency you want, I recommend setting up keyboard shortcuts to do all the stuff you regularly do. Toolbar style doesn’t matter a whit; once you have to remove your fingers from the keyboard to perform an action, you’re wasting time. Surely someone has studied this, but it’s incompatible with the popularly asserted (by Microsoft) value of performing any and all actions in a Graphical User Interface, so. This is Linux people: the keyboard is your friend. Embrace your friend.
(I have digressed. Oops.)
Anyway, there are alternatives to LibreOffice Writer.
OpenOffice
OpenOffice is, essentially, an original version of LibreOffice. Long story short: there was a split between developers of OpenOffice after the rights were acquired by this and that billionaire multi-national leech (details irrelevant), and what we have now are two office suites developing side-by-side that are nearly identical. They are both robust and wonderful. But, given that Ubuntu chooses to bundle LibreOffice with their distribution, I choose inertia and go with that.
WPS
This is an interesting one. It’s proprietary, costs money, but by reputation is almost perfectly compatible with Microsoft Word. However, I’ve never run up against anything given to me in a Word format that LibreOffice couldn’t handle. Maybe I’m not the kind of user who runs into incompatability problems. I dunno.
I can tell you this: I installed WPS once — the free trial version — and it was bloody hard to uninstall. I wasn’t pleased with that. Maybe it looked more like Word, but I also don’t know about that; I don’t use Word.
If you’re looking for a free, open alternative to Word (obviously a good thing), this isn’t it. Proceed with the same caution your would exercise toward any non-open software.
Calligra
Here’s one that I know exists, but I’ve never used it. See, there’s this split in Linux environments between Gnome and KDE. I’ve always been more of a Gnome user. So, the stuff developed for the KDE environment hasn’t been on my radar.
Looks cool though. Give it a try and leave a comment about how you like it. (Hah. Comments.)
AbiWord
I’ll be honest here (am I ever dishonest here?) — I used to love AbiWord. But that was twenty years ago. Recently, for old times sake, I gave it a try again and. Sigh. What to say. Why wouldn’t I just use LibreOffice Writer? I don’t know.
In fact, I just tried to open one of my documents with it, and the damned thing crashed.
It has a small memory footprint, so if memory is a concern, this might be your answer.
TL;DR
LibreOffice Writer is good. Why are you still paying the richest people on the planet for the privilege to use an entirely replaceable and inferior product?
(Collaboration and Presentation)
OK, so some of you need to do collaborative work with “Teams” or whatever other bloated thing. The good news is that for the overwhelming majority of users, the web-based versions of whatever you need (Office 365?) work just fine.
If you’re worried about documents not looking the same if you open them on this computer with this version of this thing vs. that computer with that other version of that other thing, then you shouldn’t be using word processing software. Word processing software is not about consistent, professional-looking presentation. It’s about storing and editing words (content). For consistent, professional-looking presentation, you’re looking for desktop publishing software (things like Adobe InDesign, etc., or Scribus — the open source alternative) and you want a professional designer to make your content look amazing.
Summary
Liberate yourself.