Is there a viable option to MS Office? I have had the home version for years but MS keeps upping their subscription prices and we definitely underuse it.

I'm not a complete novice, but not a computer wiz either. My wife uses it the most for PTA type of functions and is not very computer saavy. The kids use Word occasionally.

Is there a cheaper option available for light word processing and spreadsheet work on Windows machines that would not be too difficult for us to learn how to use?

Yep Google Docs/Sheets

First you need to figure out if you need something you can use without being connected to the internet. Things like google docs work well but require being connected. If you are okay with being connected you can use the web versions of Word/Excel/PowerPoint for free.
If you need access without being connected things like Libre & Open office have been available for many years and can read/write existing office files but all have their own twist of the user interface so there will be some learning curve. You have to decide if the savings will pay to learn it.
I do pay the Microsoft tax for one seat of the business tier since it comes with 1TB of cloud storage for $100 which is about what people like Dropbox as others charge for the storage without office access. I know you can pay less elsewhere but it is useful in my case. But you can buy Microsoft office perpetual licenses from places like StackSocial for $30 at most times. They are typically from someones enterprise bundles, not designed for resale, but do work. No upgrades, subject to quit but you can spend the $30 a bunch of times for what direct to microsoft costs.

LibreOffice

I tried OpenOffice (don't know if its still around), a free, Java based program in Windows for a couple of years when I opened my law practice way back when. We got a legit copy of Excel because, well, there's Excel and there's everything else. I thought OOo was OK for a while then the lack of features and bugs (I can't recall specific examples and it doesn't matter anyway now) hit us hard. Went to MS Office, first for PC then for Mac when I switched to Macs, and frankly haven't looked back. I used Access, as well, while still on the PC.

Is MSOffice perfect? By no means. Try long docs in Word and it will make you cry (don't go over 100 pages by ANY means except for Master docs). But about the only things I could get the freeware/Java based stuff to run without too many problems were letters/letterhead and very short motions/orders. I did a 40 page Motion to Compel one time that I had to redo part of. While my backup system wasn't as good as it is now, I'm not sure it would have made a difference. The file got corrupted and became unrecoverable.

I haven't found anything else, overall, that is as functional. I wouldn't trust anything north of maybe a one page recipe doc to Google, and I don't want to use Google anything anyway.

Thanks for the comments!

Don't know if this is still going on but I bought one (MS Office) for laptop and one for desktop and, they work.

https://texags.com/forums/30/topics/3556454

Bob Knights Liver said:

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Is there a viable option to MS Office? I have had the home version for years but MS keeps upping their subscription prices and we definitely underuse it.

I'm not a complete novice, but not a computer wiz either. My wife uses it the most for PTA type of functions and is not very computer saavy. The kids use Word occasionally.

Is there a cheaper option available for light word processing and spreadsheet work on Windows machines that would not be too difficult for us to learn how to use?

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Office is available without a subscription. I recently purchased a license off Groupon for about $20.