How do I download documents from Word online to my desktop?

Hello,

I'm trying to get students to submit work as Word documents (I need to be able to cut/paste things from the documents because of an activity). Neither they nor I can download or upload their documents as Word documents. When they try to upload them to our LMS, they appear as pdfs. When they email me the link to their documents, I can view them online, but I can't save them to my computer with the rest of the class's documents. When I try to download them, it simply opens the file again in another browser tab. There is nothing in my browser's downloads, so it's not even attempting to download the file.

How can I either direct the student to upload their file as a workable Word document or download their documents as Word documents so I can manipulate them and save them?

I've seen a lot of questions about this but no actual answers. There was a mention of Onedrive in one response, but I don't use Onedrive at all because it interferes with my Dropbox. I just want to download the file, not save it to another online cloud like Onedrive.