Eenie Meenie...Which "Office" Do I Use??

When my computer crashed a couple weeks ago, I was right in the midst of working on a book manuscript, using the Microsoft Word something-something that went with the computer (the free stuff, not the Microsoft Office that I would of had to pay for-- who are they kidding :) So comes the new computer, courtesy of my ever-generous kids, and with it came Microsoft 8.  Wow.  I'm still in the midst of adjustment.  It's prettier and more pleasing to the eye, but it doesn't work just like the other one-- emphasis on "just like".  Not only am I in the midst of the realization that I have to re-figure everything out, but I got a chilling revelation the first time I brought up my book manuscript from my handy-dandy USB device...Windows 8 was not compatible with Windows 7.  (Wouldn't you have thought that the creators of this would have taken this into consideration??)

I 'bout keeled off my chair with a stroke when I brought up my next (and future) book, and was greeted with what looked like Egyptian hieroglyphics with some English words dispersed here and there...mind you, this is a book manuscript of almost 25 thousand words, at least a third of the way done.  It was a moment of sheer panic.  To make a long(er) story short, I wound up being so frazzled that I 'moved' the manuscript from my USB device instead of 'copying' it; but we finely did get it figured out, and I didn't lose anything in the end (that's the short version).

I have tried to use the cheap (aka free) version of Microsoft Word (or whatever they call it in Windows 8), only to realize that there are lots of things I don't like about it-- most of all the fact that I could not automatically add page numbers to a 200 page manuscript (which is only a third of the way done *she repeats*), but I would have manually had to add the page number to each page. (No way).  So I took the advice of two people and have downloaded (free-- they told me) two programs that I'm playing around with:  LibreOffice and OpenOffice...I managed to number all those pages simultaneously using the option of a "header" (don't ask, I can't re-explain it, I just know it worked).  And I've managed to re-save this new version to my handy-dandy USB device. :)

If anyone out there more computer savvy than I has any input, I would be more than happy to hear it-- I will also accept pats on the back, sympathy hugz, and personal computer horror stories. :)