I am thinking of getting Linux, but i'm not sure how compatible the programs will be between the two systems... I mean would i be able to read .doc and other MS documents?
Could also Linux produce files with .doc extension because my school demands the docs to be only with this extension

Use OpenOffice for reading and saving MSdocuments, but it's not 100% compatabile. For starting MS apps you can try Wine or XWine

OpenOffice.org (the standard office suite with most Linux distributions) can open pretty much all proprietary Microsoft Office formats except for Publisher's files. Publisher always was the odd one out and nothing in the world seems to be compatible with it For file formats other than those used in Office you will need to find a compatible application. There are loads out there to replace various Windows applications, and most can open the file formats of their counterparts.



OpenOffice and a vast array of other Linux applications can save and export to formats used by popular Windows applications. If all else fails, pretty much every application can export to PDF files, which you can open on any machine.



Perhaps you should talk to the IT staff at your school and ask why they feel they have to force people to use Microsoft products. Most people, when told about OpenOffice and open standards are happy to install the required software. The IT staff at my school aren't, which has caused a long running battle, but until they are willing to pay for Windows, Office and a computer to run it, I'm not backing down

And if they do not want to install Linux, give them a first-taste by installing Openoffice.org for Windows. They will like it and will be more willing to switch to Linux or trying other open source programs.

In fact you can do a step-by-step conversion, first let people use both MS Office and OOo for a year but let them know that MS Office will be gone next year.

Wow, the other day I installed open office on a freshly installed windows xp, and I was amazed!! I actually liked it more than office xp/2003. I would definitely recommmend open office, and I wouldnt doubt that in a near future it is going to be a whole lot better than microsofts word. .... we said the same thing about the gui in linux right? Isnt it better than vista's or even mac's gui now that compiz fusion is out?

Not windows system but the private format of MS office suite is the gold mine of MS.

when open office got some more compatible of MS format, the MS office suite will already upgraded, and more private format added to the new version.

Why not use direct LATAX format?