Purchased Word. I only want Word, not microsoft 365 or any of the other stuff

Microsoft does sell the Office apps individually, but it isn't worth paying for only the one app.

You also don't need to purchase the 365 subscription version. You can get the 2024 perpetual release for $149. Word alone is $179. Try and make sense of that pricing structure.

Be aware the perpetual versions are only supported for three major OS releases. Which means you'll have to upgrade to Office 2027 (or whatever they call it) when it stops working in a future release of macOS. Or, never upgrade macOS from the last version Office 2024 will run on.

No.

You have 2 choices:

You either subscribe to Microsoft 365 to be able to edit documents in the Word app you can download from the App Store (which incidentally, its free to download, so not sure what exactly you purchased), or you buy a stand alone Microsoft Office package which includes word and all the other MS apps, but does not require the subscription.

The Subscription gives you access to other stuff, but you don't need to use the other stuff. You can keep just Word and nothing else installed on the Mac.

The stand alone Office package gives you all the other apps you may not need in addition to Word for a single one time payment.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/p/office-home-2024/cfq7ttc0pqvj

Alternatively, if you want something closer to Word than Pages, you can try out the Free LibreOffice.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

Any Office app is going to hound you with updates. MS has a monthly patch for all of those apps. Having Word alone won't stop that cycle. Those patches that come out more frequently are usually security updates that need to be (should be) applied immediately.

Look into Phil0124's suggestion of LibreOffice. It's free and does most everything MS Office does. I use the paid version of SoftMaker Office. It's a near clone of MS Office. They also have a free version. That version displays ads and has no spell check. But, it's a good way to test SoftMaker Office before committing to the paid version.

I've been using SoftMaker Office since 2018, and so far, they've been doing major releases every three years. I also received an email notice last week they were looking for beta testers. Read that as a 2027 major upgrade version is in the works.

Both LibreOffice and SoftMaker Office emulate Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Neither has an Outlook replacement. But since you're only interested in Word, you likely don't care about Outlook anyway.

And if you really want to stick with Word, that is also available for free. You use it in a web browser, and it's a more basic version (does not have all the features of the paid version).

FWIW, you’re still going to be getting both Microsoft Office (or Word, if you can still get just that) update notices, as well as those for Apple updates. And that whether you buy the Microsoft “perpetual” license, or the 365 subscription.

Chester_Sabino wrote:

1] Okay you are on point - & it is a relief - there is no automatic deduction on my card which I had attached to my account, so I did merely download the free app from the App Store.

2] Good points by all of you, Mr. Lang, MrHoffman & Phil0124. Thank you all.

3] I did use Word in the Web browser but I will forego that in the long run. Y’all have given me a lot to think about & I will check out LibreOffice & SoftMakerOffice. 

 BTW other than forums as to my trucks, I infrequently use forums. Thank you all for taking the time out of your day to assist.

You're welcome. Glad we could help to some degree.