The tool you write your thesis in is usually decided for you, and most students discover that too late. If your faculty publishes a formatting template, it is almost certainly a Word file, and that single fact settles the question for the majority of Malaysian FYP and thesis students. This comparison is for the rest of the decision: what actually breaks at two hundred pages, which tool your reference manager plugs into, and what the free tiers really allow. All limits below were checked on the vendors’ own pages on 18 August 2026.
Comparison table
| Tool | Cost to a student | Faculty template fit | Reference manager plugin | Track changes for supervisor | Breaks down when… |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Word | Often provided free through the university account — check yours | Best; templates are usually .docx | Zotero, Mendeley, EndNote | Yes, native | Styles were never used, so nothing renumbers |
| Google Docs | Free with a Google account | Converting to and from .docx shifts layout | Zotero (Google Docs integration) | Yes, suggesting mode | Documents past roughly a million characters, and heavy figures |
| LibreOffice Writer | Free and open source | Reads .docx, but some template details drift | Zotero, and Mendeley in most versions | Yes | The faculty asks for the original .docx back and spacing has moved |
| LaTeX on Overleaf | Free tier available; a student plan exists for enrolled students | Only if your department publishes a LaTeX class file | BibTeX or BibLaTeX, exported from Zotero or Mendeley | Paid feature on Overleaf | The free tier’s compile timeout is hit by a full thesis |
Our criteria, declared up front
We are not judging these on features in general. We are judging them on five things that decide whether a thesis submission goes smoothly:
- Does it produce the faculty’s required layout without manual patching? Margins, line spacing, front-matter Roman numerals switching to Arabic at Chapter 1.
- Does the table of contents, list of tables and list of figures build and update themselves?
- Do table and figure numbers renumber when you insert one in the middle?
- Does your reference manager have a working plugin for it?
- Can you recover the version from three days ago after something goes wrong?
Notice that none of these is about writing. Every one of them is about a document that has grown past the point where you can fix things by hand.
1. Microsoft Word — the default, and usually the right answer
Word wins for one unglamorous reason: your faculty template is a .docx file, your supervisor marks up .docx files, and the submission portal expects one. Everything else is downstream of that.
Many Malaysian universities provide staff and students with a Microsoft account that includes the desktop apps. We could not extract a quotable eligibility statement from Microsoft’s Malaysian education page, so we are not going to state one — check your own university’s IT services page before paying for anything.
The failure mode is not Word; it is not using styles. If you make a heading look like a heading by selecting bold and size 14, Word does not know it is a heading. The contents page cannot be generated, cross-references cannot be made, and every renumbering has to be done by hand at 2am. Apply Heading 1, Heading 2 and Heading 3, use Insert Caption on tables and figures, and use Insert Cross-reference when you mention them in the text. That is roughly thirty minutes of setup that removes an entire category of last-week panic.
Zotero’s word processor plugins are bundled with Zotero and install automatically for supported processors, with Word, LibreOffice and Google Docs all covered; they can be reinstalled from the Cite pane if they disappear. Which manager to pair it with is compared in Mendeley vs Zotero vs EndNote for Malaysian postgraduates.
2. Google Docs — best for collaboration, weakest for final formatting
Google’s own limits page states that a Google Docs document can hold up to 1.02 million characters, and that a text document converted into Google Docs format can be up to 50 MB. A thesis of 200 pages sits comfortably inside the character limit; a thesis with dozens of high-resolution figures can push against the file limit.
What Docs is genuinely better at: two people editing at once, suggesting mode for supervisor comments, and version history that is on by default and cannot be forgotten. Zotero integrates with Google Docs directly.
What it is worse at: the round trip. Faculty templates are Word files, and converting Word to Docs and back tends to move spacing, break section-specific page numbering, and reflow tables. If you draft in Docs, plan to do the final formatting pass in Word on the faculty template — and budget a day for it, not an hour.
3. LibreOffice Writer — the genuine zero-cost desktop option
LibreOffice is free and open source, runs offline on Windows, macOS and Linux, and reads and writes .docx. It supports styles, automatic contents pages, captions and cross-references in the same way Word does, and Zotero ships a LibreOffice plugin alongside the Word one.
The honest caveat is fidelity. Opening a faculty .docx template in Writer and saving it back usually preserves the content perfectly and the layout almost perfectly — and “almost” is where a returned submission comes from. If your faculty checks formatting strictly, do a final open-and-inspect in Word on a campus machine before you submit.
4. LaTeX on Overleaf — excellent for equations, only if your department already uses it
LaTeX handles numbering, cross-references, bibliographies and mathematics better than anything else on this list, and it does not drift as a document grows. For an engineering, physics, mathematics or computer science thesis with heavy equations, that is a real advantage.
Overleaf’s plan page states the free tier includes unlimited projects but one collaborator per project and the basic compile timeout, while paid tiers list 24 times the basic compile timeout, more collaborators, and full document history with restore. There is a student plan for those currently enrolled at a degree-granting institution, advertised with a free introductory period; we could not read reliable ringgit pricing from the page, so we are not quoting a figure.
The compile timeout is the practical catch. Short chapters compile instantly on the free tier; a complete thesis with many figures can exceed it, and that usually arrives in the final fortnight when you can least afford it. Compiling locally is the free workaround, and it takes an afternoon to set up.
Do not choose LaTeX unless your department publishes a class file or your supervisor already uses it. Rebuilding a Word template as LaTeX by hand is a week of work that earns you no marks, and it makes your supervisor’s track-changes workflow impossible.
The setup that prevents most formatting disasters, in any tool
- Start from the faculty template, not a blank page. Download it before you write your first paragraph, and never rebuild its margins by hand.
- Use real heading styles from the first sentence. Retrofitting styles into a finished 200-page document takes hours; applying them as you write takes none.
- Insert captions with the caption tool, never by typing “Table 4.3”. Then reference them with cross-references, so inserting one table in the middle does not silently break twelve mentions in your text.
- Break the front matter from the body with a section break so Roman page numbering can switch to Arabic at Chapter 1. This is the single most common reason a submission is returned for formatting.
- Turn on cloud sync and never overwrite one file. Version history is what lets you recover the paragraph you deleted on Tuesday; it is also useful evidence that the work is yours if that is ever questioned.
- Insert citations through your reference manager, never as typed text. Typed citations do not renumber and do not build the reference list; the required output format is set out in what is APA 7th edition format.
Where these tools sit alongside the rest of your workflow
A word processor formats the document; it does not decide the content. Statistical output still comes from separate software — see the statistical software comparison and which statistical test should I use for my FYP data — and the writing tools that help you draft rather than format are ranked in the best AI writing tools for students. Similarity checking happens after the document is written, and how the checkers read your file is explained in Turnitin vs Grammarly.
If your chapters are drifting out of alignment with each other as the study changes — the abstract saying one thing, the methodology another — that is a structure problem rather than a software problem. Tesify keeps the chapters connected so a change in one is visible in the others, and you remain the author of every sentence.
Draft your thesis chapter by chapter in Tesify, then format the final document in whichever tool your faculty template requires.
Recommendation by student type
- Undergraduate FYP, faculty supplies a .docx template: Microsoft Word. No further consideration required.
- No Microsoft licence and no budget: LibreOffice Writer, with a final formatting check in Word on a campus machine.
- Group project or heavy supervisor commenting: Google Docs for drafting, Word for the final version.
- Engineering, mathematics or computer science with heavy equations, and a departmental class file already exists: LaTeX on Overleaf.
- Qualitative thesis with long interview extracts: Word, because your coding software exports into it cleanly — see designing the instrument for what comes before that.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best software to write a thesis in Malaysia?
Microsoft Word for the large majority of students, because faculty templates and submission portals are built around .docx. LaTeX is better only where your department already provides a class file and your work is equation-heavy.
Is Microsoft Word free for university students in Malaysia?
Many universities include it in the student account, but this is set per institution. We could not extract a quotable eligibility rule from Microsoft’s Malaysian education page, so check your own university’s IT services page rather than assuming either way.
Can I write my whole thesis in Google Docs?
Technically yes — Google states a document can hold up to 1.02 million characters. The problem is the final conversion into your faculty’s .docx template, which usually moves spacing and breaks section page numbering. Draft in Docs if you like; format in Word.
Is LaTeX worth learning for a final year project?
Usually not, unless your department publishes a LaTeX template or your supervisor works in it. The formatting advantages are real, but so is the cost of rebuilding a Word template and losing track changes with your supervisor.
Is Overleaf free?
There is a free tier with unlimited projects, one collaborator per project and the basic compile timeout. Paid tiers add far longer compile time, more collaborators and full version history, and a student plan exists for those enrolled at a degree-granting institution.
Why does my table of contents not update?
Almost always because the headings were formatted manually instead of with heading styles. A contents page is generated from styles; text that merely looks like a heading is invisible to it.
How do I make page numbers Roman then Arabic?
Insert a section break between the front matter and Chapter 1, unlink the second section’s footer from the first, then set the numbering format separately for each section. Word, LibreOffice Writer and LaTeX all support this; Google Docs is the awkward one.
Does Zotero work with all of these?
Zotero’s documentation lists word processor plugins for Word, LibreOffice and Google Docs, bundled with Zotero and installed automatically. For LaTeX, you export a BibTeX file from Zotero instead of using a plugin.
My file has become slow and keeps crashing. What should I do?
Usually the cause is embedded high-resolution images. Compress them, or link images rather than embedding them. Splitting the thesis into one file per chapter and merging at the end also works, provided you keep the styles identical across files.
Should I submit a PDF or the original file?
Follow your faculty handbook. Many require both: the .docx for the similarity check and the PDF for the archive copy. Generate the PDF from the final formatted document, never from a converted intermediate, because conversion is where fonts and spacing shift.
Can I switch tools halfway through?
You can, but each switch costs a formatting pass and risks losing citation fields, which turn into plain text when moved between tools. Decide in the first week, and let the faculty template make the decision for you.