The school doesn’t pay for a Microsoft license, and some students have expressed feeling unsafe and uncomfortable supporting google.
I can relate to their feeling. The same with with MS Word.
have suggested Libreoffice as its what I use but some of the students are really struggling with formatting their papers to academic standards in this software. Admittedly, I agree, Libre takes 7-14 steps to do some things google can do in two clicks. I would like to look into alternatives.
I see mention of LaTeX, imho forget about it. It's great but if your students already are complaining about clicking a few buttons and menus in LO Writer, I doubt they will enjoy configuring LaTeX at all as it's really complex to setup and it's also very, very technical. (It is also very much English focused by default, which means there will be a few more tweaks required to make it support other languages and where that turns out to be real fun is that said tweaks may vary depending the libraries you're relying on since you install various ones and, of course, the doc will not always be reflecting that exactly.)
Most of the writing applications I’m seeing both free and paid tend to be for creative writers or note taking and I am not seeing tools to make running titles or easily format your sources.
Have you considered using templates (and Styles) with LibreOffice Writer?
You could have all your formatting be exactly like you need it to be and you (or anyone else) would only need to prepare it once and make it available to all your students. So, the template being 7 or 14 steps would not mean much since they would not need to do it at all and the one person doing it would doi it only once.
What they would need to (learn to) do is to use Styles, in Writer. Like they are supposed to (learn to) use them in Word, and like in a very limited way they can do in Google Docs too. Imho between the three word processors, Writer is the best at managing Styles but it wills till require some basic learning like showing them what styles are and why they're so useful, where they are and how to apply them in Writer.
Without using Styles in a word processor, you will need to rely on LaTeX or some lighter markup language (like Markdown combined with say Pandoc, which are way simpler than LaTeX but also much more limited in terms of page layout and notes management).
Also, there is no ready-made tool available that you 'simply use'. They all need to be tweaked in some way to meet expectations and the simplest way I can think of is by using Styles. What are Styles you may ask? Think one type of content (title, simple paragraph, notes, illustrations, ...) being associated to a set of formatting rules that are automatically applied to it whenever it is used).
It could help to share some real example of the type of setings you're looking for (what do you want to do?) so others may be able to tell you if and with what app it's doable ;)
In summary, Libre Office:
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Is Libre software.
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It use an open format, ODT, that is documented.
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Can be used to write in many languages.
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Works great with Styles, allowing documents to be (easily) precisely (or loosely) formatted.
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Doesn't push AI crap, or any other type of connected crap.
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Doesn't spy on anyone (you can even deactivate the little banner that pops up once in a while asking for a donation)
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Can do Styles and use templates to create very neatly formatted documents.
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Is preinstalled with most Linux distributions out of the box, and is easy to install on Mac and on Windows.
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is NOT as precises as LaTeX, but is also much simpler to learn and use.
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is NOT available for mobile, but I have yet to see anyone writing a full book or even an article on a phone screen ;)
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is NOT as simple as using Markdown and Pandoc but offers all formating control 99% of users wil ever need AND offers a much easier way to work collaboratively between non-geek users.
Styles (Paragraph, characters and pages styles) should be able to deal with most of that.
In a program like a word processor, any added image will more or less dramatically screw up the existing layout. There is no workaround that as things on the page need to move around to make room for the new one, or to fill the space left by the one that you just removed.
Also it’s important to keep in mind that apps like Word, Writer, Google Docs or Apple Pages do rely on the availability of the fonts used in the original document to correctly display the document on the viewer’s computer. So, if you open a document on a second computer n which there is not the same fonts, another font will be used which may not share the exact same properties as the original one and may screw up the layout more or less completely. Or you need to create a PDF file that anyone on any computer will be able to opne and display exactly as it was created but not to edit or certainly not as easily and in a much more limited manner that just opening the wordprocessor file itself. Here again, there is no perfect solution.
The good news is that LibreOffice comes with its own preinstalled fonts and they are the same on Linux, Mac and Windows so it would be safer to stick whit those fonts and not use anything fancy. It can also easily create PDF.
But, imho, the real good advice would be encourage your students (and maybe their teachers too) to not worry about page layout while they’re writing the paper. And to only work on the layout after they have finished writing it. Just don’t care about margin or look, colors, anything. It’s wasted time and energy while one is writing.
They should only use a few Styles to format Headings and paragraphs of text, things like that’s it. Doing that, it will be much simpler when they start working on the layout to format everything at once exactly like they want or need it. And it should be much faster too because they will only have to do it once, and won’t have to constantly be adjusting things here and there every time they add or remove a picture, or change some text.
That being said, Styles in LO Writer are not a magic wand that will do stuff automatically. They help a lot but one still need to learn to use them properly—never, ever use direct or manual formatting, never use the Enter key to add space between two lines or to create a page break, and so on. So, I insiste, but I don’t think there is a solution that will simply work out iof the box… beside hiring someone to do the layout for them (what many publishers do, btw: they have their own in-house design team or a freelance guy/team they hire to do exactly that).
More info on Styles and templates in Writer:
There is no need to be ;)
Indeed. I learned to mend clothes aged 40, I learned to solder electronics aged 45 and to write Linux scripts aged 50+.
You’re welcome.