Did you try printing he document after opening it in Open Office ? If you sent it straight to the printer, then I would exect a lot of gobbledegook as it will contain formatting stuff that the printer wouldn't know anything about as well as possibly compressed text if it is in .docx format.
As for free alternatives to OO, if it's just a word processor you need you could try Ableword which you can find out about at
http://www.ableword.net/
If you need a spreadsheet an/or presentation software as well you could try Softmaker Free Office 2018 from
https://www.freeoffice.com/en/
Softmaker do want an email adress to register it and they do send emails either offering extra fonts and occasional discounts on their full blown product, but the free version does include pretty much everything most people need in terms of day to day use.