Questions about this os
Can l download this OS and run it side by side w/Windows? Can l download and use Chrome? Will my Word docs transfer?
Yes, you can dual-boot Trisquel and Windows.
Chrome is non-free software, so we do not recommend that you use it.
You should be able to view and edit Word documents using LibreOffice, which comes as part of the default installation.
ex-Windows user here:
Except for the occasional font issue, I find that LibreOffice has almost perfect support for Microsoft formats.
Of course I recommend that you eventually move to the OpenDocument formats (.odt, .ods, .odp, .odg, etc.) but nobody's forcing you. :)
As for Chrome, Abrowser (rebranded Firefox) should probably be a good enough free replacement.
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While I'm not recommending people install patent/copyright encumbered fonts LibreOffice/OpenOffice does support it. They don't come bundled and need to be installed separately. I don't know what if anything is available in Trisquel's repository. I believe there are also replacement fonts which should solve the same problem.
Agreed on the replacement fonts. The only issues I've ever had were to do with documents that used tables for layout, and used Calibri as a font. When I opened it with LibreOffice the table looked very messed up, but I soon realised that changing the font size would fix it.
In general it's bad to have layouts that rely on a font size anyway. But besides one or two minor issues I've had no problems with LibreOffice! :)
Some of my favourite free fonts:
FreeSans and Liberation Sans: can replace Arial and Helvetica
DejaVu Sans: can replace Verdana
FreeSerif and Liberation Serif: can replace Times
Droid Sans: can replace Segoe and Calibri
DejaVu Serif: can replace Georgia and Cambria
Century Schoolbook L and URW Bookman L are also nice fonts.
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The issue isn't really with GNU/Linux or LibreOffice / OpenOffice. Even within the Microsoft Windows realm there are different fonts on different systems and different versions of the Microsoft Word processor which will all cause issues. Word processing was never meant to be used the way it is. That is what desktop publishing applications are for and why formats like PDF exist. If you need consistency for a word processing document format export it as a PDF. There are also other no-cost online collaboration tools available. I don't use any and won't make any recommendations for the ones I'm aware of (handing everything over to one or two large companies isn't a great idea).