Of course, MS Office (www.office365.com) is the de-facto standard in Office Productivity software. However, there are some solid FREE replacements out there.
Yes – Pages / Numbers on the Mac work fine too – but the truth is that MS Office on the Mac has been upgraded so that it is nearly identical to the Windows version now.
Just remember, that when emailing documents to others you always want to save in either .doc, .docx, or .pdf format (or .xls or .xlsx for spreadsheets). That way the recipient will be able to open the files in MS Office if that is what the recipient uses.
Here is the list:
(1) Libre Office
The “gold standard” in open source office suites, it is an actively maintained offshoot of the original openoffice.org project. Works on Windows, Linux, and OSX (Mac).
(2) WPS Office
Excellent replacement MS Office replacement for Windows and Android. Premium version is very inexpensive and offers additional features. However, the 2016 Free version does automatically insert a watermark on each new document – but you can remove it easily enough.
You can get the 2013 FREE version (no watermarking) from this link. Same company that created WPS Office.
http://www.ksosoft.com/download/office_free_2013.exe
(3) Free Office
Great office replacement for Windows and Linux plus you can download their PDF creation software too.
(4) Google Docs
Requires a FREE gmail / google account, but is hands-down the BEST for real-time online collaboration. Your documents stay online with Google – and allow you to edit them with others via sharing.
(5) MS Office Online
https://products.office.com/en-us/office-online/documents-spreadsheets-presentations-office-online
Requires a FREE MSFT Office account, but works pretty well.