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Jeremy Falcon wrote: but $200 for all the crap you can do with those two programs isn't that bad of a deal.
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Since you mentioned programming related, I assume you are doing VBA macro for your customers.
Your customers are most likely use MS office, and your programming work with Office alternates will not able to use in their environment. I believe Office 365 Home is the cheapest solution.
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Used OpenOffice for many years, actually still have it installed on my personal laptop. Works just great
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I used to use OpenOffice, but Oracle stuffed it up. I've since changed to LibreOffice for PC and Kingsoft WPS for tablet. Navigating tables within word documents has a few odd quirks within LibreOffice, but they are easily dealt with.
I deal with documents of a sensitive nature and have limited resources, so web-based and Office365 are off the table.
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Basically it all depends on how advanced a user you are, and what your requirements are.
Personally I find LibreOffice is more than up to the task for my needs. I prefer it to OpenOffice for personal reasons.
If your requirements are more basic, I recommend Google Docs. The collaboration and sharing features are excellent, and its always nice having cloud access to your stuff when you are out of home/office. On top of which you can access and use it on your phone if necessary.
I use GoogleDocs for most of my needs, and keep Libre around, just in case there is a new docx/xlsx from a client that I need to open, and docs is on the fritz.
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I know everyone has supplied an opinion so l thought l would join in. 
If just need the basics nothing fancy such as creating macros get either google docs or office online l use what's built into onedrive.com. Both do the basics and if your client has internet connection can easily collaborate with your client by sharing the document. Or download document and email.
Need a little more? then Librie Office is good can open and save microsoft formats. Ohh and its free you can get hold of a portable version at portableapps.com as well. Its not quite the same as MS Office however it can do 99% of the things you might want to do.
HTH
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I have used Open Office and Kingsoft Office and I would suggest Kingsoft Office as majority of the features available in MS Office is available in Kingsoft Office.
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You can purchase original MSOffice licences for a cheap as a few dozen dollars on ebay. (legally, if needed said !).
I for instance have a full professional install of MSOffice 2010 on my home computer, bought for $35 two years ago.
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus
Entropy isn't what it used to.
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My vote to LibreOffice. It's free, runs fantastic and handles every MS Office document type. It's pretty maintained.
Try it a little to familiarize yourself with it. As example, its writter is better than MS Word handling objects like tables and images
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I'd suggest LibreOffice too. I've used Impress for presentations, and the writer for everything from letters to writing a novella.
I don't have to hear complaints from my wife about the presence of "the ribbon" on her computers- a big plus. 
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My wife, who is a lawyer, turns to LibreOffice too because of the ease of use and the practical functionality
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Go with Kingsoft office, pretty small download. Simple to use. Works well with MS office documents
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While not perfect, MS office is the best and most common and you will find most your customers use it. I don't advocate piracy but ive *heard* of folks getting friendly students or kids to buy a copy that enables a multi pc licence. Myself, I bought it and claimed the full amount back in my accounts as a business expense rather than paying it in tax. GL
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Kingsoft office is very good! You can have a try. Made in china is the best.
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If the only reason you are wanting to avoid office is the cost, and if your freelance work could be considered a "startup" business, you definitely will want to take a look at the Microsoft Bizspark program -- an amazing (free) MS-sponsored organization that is dedicated to helping startups by providing free tools (both dev and Office tools). It really is quite incredible.
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If you need to exchange documents with other people using MS Office, you really have no choice but to use MS Office yourself, and you'll have to be using a version fairly close to theirs at that.
If you have a full time job someplace, they might be part of the home use program, and you might be able to get a license for MS Office through that for a very reasonable cost.
If you don't need to interoperate with MS office, I've used the OpenOffice suite for a number of years and it works very well.
We can program with only 1's, but if all you've got are zeros, you've got nothing.
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LibreOffice. Last I checked, OpenOffice was dead, development-wise.
I've used MSOffice 365, but wasn't impressed enough with it to continue using it once the project I was on that required it was done (It was an automated document generation thing). My daughter uses Google Docs for all her school work, and for the rare occasions when Google Docs isn't enough for me, LibreOffice is more than good enough, and also has a better UI, IMHO.
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Noone here in CP Lounge is going to believe this but ...
Adobe Acrobat Pro?
As a substitute for MS Word, that is. Problems like where to make personal data, charts, graphic extravaganzas in 3D (embedded and manipulatable, no less), front-end 2D illustration and image available to ... clients. Solved. Big editor capabilities, many save formats, integration with other members of Adobe Suite.
PDF is 'yer one-stop-shop.
Modestly priced too, in my estimation (go for a stand-alone, my friend).
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You may want to check Microsoft's BizSpark initiative. It gives 3 years of free licences of MS software, including Office, SQL Server and Visual Studio.
It's really great. I use it myself.
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OpenOffice or LibreOffice will be just fine. I use Writer, Calc and Impress (PowerPoint equivalent) all the time for the last 3 years now, with the added advantage that I can use the same programs, in the same way, on Windows, OS X and Linux...
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LibreOffice is best.
Google Docs is nasty in between the worlds needs online and offline.
MS Online is some way better than Google Docs. Though, both lack good offline support.
OpenOffice is not good. AbiWorder seemed better than OpenOffice.
Waste to spend on MS Office now.
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I do my private stuff since years with Open Office/Libre Office and it is most times fine. Some adavanced features are missing.
But I like it - at most "for free". 
Press F1 for help or google it.
Greetings from Germany
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