Reply #5: first of all...

[displacedtexan]

excel and access are spreadsheet programs... not word processing.
power point is just a fancy name for a word-based slide show.
i like xp and me much better than windows 98.
much faster (depending on your system).

i don't know anything about linux, but i advise you to stay away from apple (my opinion) because my friends with apple can't send email attachment files to anyone except other apple users.

i have coreldraw, acrobat and mozilla.
frankly, there are very few things that coreldraw does that word for windows doesn't do. the only thing i can't do is reverse print (like for t-shirt lettering, etc.). for that i use publisher.
i do entire newsletters with text boxes, graphics and photos using nothing but word. the drawing toolbar has almost everything you'd ever need.

of course, those in the know probably have much better advice for you.