Works...in a word (no pun intended) is
(one of the few things I don't like about Dell, they'd be better off saving the hard-disk space and charging less).
Actually, it's ok if you just want to do the basics, and you can save it in RTF format to make it compatible with Word etc.
Having said that I have seen Works make mince-meat of non-Works created documents, especially word-perfect.
If you need Word-type docs on a regular basis (and Excel, Powerpoint etc) I'd suggest downloading
Open Office - it does most of what Microsoft Office pro does, but for zero AUD/USD/GBP/EUR etc.
My two cents anyway,
Charles