Stupidly bought iWork w/new iMac. It's awful. Where's cheapest place to buy Microsoft

[stever500]

Suite of Word, Excel and Powerpoint?

Many people online at 1-800-My-Apple and at the Apple store strongly suggested trying iWork with Pages and Numbers for $41 and then getting the $99 1-1 membership too INSTEAD of buying Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint for the $146 they were selling it for, all student discounts.

Numbers and Pages are AWFUL for me. None of my tons of PC word docs (I'm a 15 year PC user before last month when I got a 27" iMac 3.06 base model which I adore, for the most part) look right in pages. There are logos in Word for our company that won't move to the center of the pages document. The guy on the phone from Apple said there's nothing I can do after we spend a lot of time with Footer and Header changes.

He thought the store would refund me the $41 I spent on it and then sell me the $146 Microsoft suite instead. He also said I should have done this to begin with because so many of my docs and spreadsheets were on Microsoft. Arghhhhh. I have spent countless frustrating hours this past month trying to get stuff to work. I can't wait to get rid of Pages.

Is there a cheaper, yet safe place to get Word, Excel and Powerpoint than the Apple Store discount? I don't want to buy anything on Ebay. I just don't trust that place, mostly. You never really know if you're going to get what you are trying to get and it's a pain if the product is a scam, to get your money back. I don't have time or patience for that. Is there another trusted seller though? Or, just get it from the Apple store and call it a day? $146 seems like a LOT of money just to have Word again, and Excel. I don't really use Powerpoint much at all but it would be nice to have if I need it.

A friend had mentioned openoffice but I'm not really familiar with it. The one that's free on the internet? Is that really comparable to the actual "Word" product? If it is, why would so many people... buy Word for so much money?

Thanks,
Steve R

[jessica.]

Student discounts are good. Otherwise the software is usually the same price within a few bucks everywhere. Also, there's no real need for the pics. You can likely post them in the setup thread.

[djc6]

Its $90 on amazon right now, I think this is a "black friday" weekend type offer though, so might not last:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000X86ZAS/ref=nosim/linkcode-20

I found the link on the main http://www.macrumors.com page in the list of black friday offers.

[robby818]

If you work for a company, check with your IT dept. Mine sells Office for $10.
Otherwise, the education discounts are the way to go.

Microsoft Office for the Mac will format documents in a similar manner to Office for the PC (better than iworks of course) but there are likely to be small differences....I would say that if it is really important to view the documents as they were on the PC then consider using VMWare fusion and a PC version of office (which you may already own).

[Gaijin de Moscu]

If you work for a company, check with your IT dept. Mine sells Office for $10.
Otherwise, the education discounts are the way to go.

Microsoft Office for the Mac will format documents in a similar manner to Office for the PC (better than iworks of course) but there are likely to be small differences....I would say that if it is really important to view the documents as they were on the PC then consider using VMWare fusion and a PC version of office (which you may already own).

Great advice. Mine does the same.

That's the only really "cheap yet safe" place to buy MS products that I know of.

[stever500]

If you work for a company, check with your IT dept. Mine sells Office for $10.
Otherwise, the education discounts are the way to go.

Microsoft Office for the Mac will format documents in a similar manner to Office for the PC (better than iworks of course) but there are likely to be small differences....I would say that if it is really important to view the documents as they were on the PC then consider using VMWare fusion and a PC version of office (which you may already own).

Thanks for the great tips and advice. I'll remove the pics from my original post then as well... I was just so happy that I actually figured out a way to post them where they didn't turn into red X's, I was compelled to do it. Photobucket has been a bad choice for me due to it's slight bandwidth. They wanted me upgrade to "Pro" (which costs money) due to all the people that clicked on my original iMac post here. I didn't want to pay for a hosting service if I didn't have to.

Back to topic, I didn't realize that Office for Mac would be different than Office for Windows. I wonder if the logo that is indented all the way on the left when I use Pages would still be indented and immoveable all the way to the left on Word for Mac? That would stink. On my original PC version it's centered where it needs to be.

I'll check into whether my company has Office available somehow for such a cheap price. I doubt it but I'll check. I don't think our IT dept sells anything at all come to think about it so I'm sure I'll be stuck just buying it online from Amazon or Apple.

Again, I appreciate the quick responses. I don't know what VMware fusion is and it sounds more complicated than I need to get right now. I hope the basic Office for Mac will work... I should find out soon.

Cheers,
Steve R

[ziggyonice]

Back to topic, I didn't realize that Office for Mac would be different than Office for Windows.

It's not really that different — the layout and placement of the interface is slightly different — but aside from that, files you open from a PC version of Office will look *exactly* the same on the Mac version.

You also mentioned VMware Fusion (or Parallels Desktop) — either of these two programs are applications that allow you to run Windows applications on your Mac. So if for some reason you really didn’t want to use Office for Mac, you could install Fusion or Parallels and run Office for Windows instead, and it'd be the same familiar interface you're used to.

Note that in doing that, you need to purchase not only the VMware or Parallels software, but a copy of Windows (XP, Vista, or 7), and you'd need a copy of Office for Windows. Office starts at around $150 for PC versions or Mac versions.

[MacHamster68]

i personally have not experienced any problem with using iWork
i think its a good alternative to the well overpriced microsoft office
and it opens all my word doc`s without any problems

but it may be as i use at work open office and therfore allways safe microsoft document in a format that can be opened easy by everyone , even people who might use office 97

[ziggyonice]

i personally have not experienced any problem with using iWork
i think its a good alternative to the well overpriced microsoft office
and it opens all my word doc`s without any problems

I agree, although some complex Word docs don't like Pages, and some complex Pages docs aren't liked by Word. I guess iWork is just too advanced ;)

Sometimes it's easier for people to just use Office sometimes, especially if that's what they're used to, despite it being a terrible product.

[RexTraverse]

You will get better cross-compatibility with Office for Windows but it still won't be 100% with Office for Mac. Also, Office:mac doesn't have feature parity with the Windows version either, and performance on the Mac version is horrendous. It would help to know what you use Office for, so those of us who use both versions of Office can tell if Office:mac will be enough or if you should save your money and just get Office for Windows.

Virtualizers like VMware and Parallels are not complicated. They act essentially as applications in OSX that emulate the PC BIOS and allow you to run Windows inside OSX. You install the virtualization app like any other OSX app. Then, through the in-app wizard, you install Windows/Linux/whatever OS. It's essentially a little Windows world on your Mac. But it does require buying a copy of Windows (~$90 OEM licence) and the virtualization software (~$70).

I also second the notion of checking with your workplace. Because Office 2010 for Windows and Office:mac 2011 are coming out really soon, Microsoft is doing their HUP program with volume licence clients, which lets employees purchase an Office (either Win or Mac) licence for home use for $10. I was able to get Office 2007 just a month ago for use with my Windows XP Bootcamp.

I guess it all depends on what you need. I *need* 100% compatibility and feature parity for work, so installing Windows and Office for Windows on my Mac were no brainers (use Bootcamp and have Parallels using the partition for in OSX use). If you've found iWork to be unsatisfactory, you may be on that same boat.

[RexTraverse]

and some complex Pages docs aren't liked by Word. I guess iWork is just too advanced ;)

Sometimes it's easier for people to just use Office sometimes, especially if that's what they're used to, despite it being a terrible product.

Last I checked, no Pages docs are liked by Word. Pages isn't an industry standard. And, Office for Windows is gold. No other Office suite comes close. Only legit criticism against it is that it's overkill for what most consumers need.

[Jason Beck]

My email inbox has been flooded with Office discounts for Black Friday. I have seen it as low as 49 bucks. Amazon, Tigerdirect, Newegg, all have great deals going on. Just shop around.

As far as performance, it has been very good for me in the 3 months I have been using it in college. Rigorously I might add. I have been using Excel to figure interest rates and taxes in spreadsheets, as well as pivot tables, etc. Word, to do my APA formatted assignments, with citations. I also switched to Entourage for my email solution, and I like it. I am using PowerPoint to create a presentation this week too.

It is working for my needs, hasn't crashed yet on me, and I am using Snow Leopard (clean install). I switched from using Windows for over a decade, about 3 months ago. I am really liking Office on Mac. My current class, Computer Fundamentals 1010, is using a textbook that I found really informative. "Picture Yourself Learning Microsoft Office Mac", its on Amazon for like 30 bucks. I am a distance learner so my school shipped me it a few weeks ago, and I have even been reading it at the gym while cycling. Excellent read.

Also on a sidenote, the Myday planner is pretty cool. I just wish you could
customize its colors. Pukey purple sucks.

[fa8362]

Last I checked, no Pages docs are liked by Word. Pages isn't an industry standard. And, Office for Windows is gold. No other Office suite comes close. Only legit criticism against it is that it's overkill for what most consumers need.

That's not true. There are millions of people who think it sucks and hate it. That's a pretty legit criticism.

[musukosan]

I can't vouch for the compatibility with MS Word, but I would look into OpenOffice. It's free, and I hear it's very close to Word.

http://download.openoffice.org/other.html#en-US

Also, Google has free Word, Excel, and PowerPoint online. You can make a document online and export into it's corresponding Office version. Plus, the documents you make are online, thus you can access them anywhere.

http://docs.google.com

[fobfob]

I can't vouch for the compatibility with MS Word, but I would look into OpenOffice. It's free, and I hear it's very close to Word.

OpenOffice is well behind even Pages for Word compatibility and general feature. If the OP is complaining about Pages, and I don't blame him, then Word is the only option.

I find Mac Office to be pretty good, all things considered. Unfortunately there are some bugs still, and some of those are pretty basic. Also its quite slow in general, but on a reasonably fast/newish Mac that becomes an observation rather than a problem.

When moving documents from Mac Word to PC Word or vice versa, there can be some problems, they are not exact. Sometimes it comes down to bugs in the Mac version, but other times they are just simply different unfortunately. Most of the time it is fine, but if you regularly exchange complex Word documents with colleagues running PC Word, the cracks will show up, and you'll probably want to go the virtual route.

[dave92029]

i personally have not experienced any problem with using iWork
i think its a good alternative to the well overpriced microsoft office
and it opens all my word doc`s without any problems

but it may be as i use at work open office and therfore allways safe microsoft document in a format that can be opened easy by everyone , even people who might use office 97

+1 I have BOTH iWork '09 and Office 2008. I like iwork and generally use it more than Office 2008. I am able to open all the Office files originally created on my PC in iWorks and they look the same. :cool:

I recently bought my iMac and i love it and All the Apple software, actually the software is the reason I purchased the iMac. :D

[synth3tik]

I use Neo-Office. It is a port of the open sourced Open Office.org.

It may not be MS Office, but it's damn good, and free.

[robby818]

Back to topic, I didn't realize that Office for Mac would be different than Office for Windows. I wonder if the logo that is indented all the way on the left when I use Pages would still be indented and immoveable all the way to the left on Word for Mac? That would stink. On my original PC version it's centered where it needs to be.



That logo should appear properly in the Mac Office 2008 edition. I start to encounter problems when it comes to things like fonts and more advanced functions like comments in word or macros in excel. But stuff like tabs, margins and spacing should be the same in either the Mac or PC version.

*tip- after you install Office, change those default file formats. ..The newer file extensions give people with older versions of Office trouble so better to use the more common office formats until more people update office....
http://it.rockefeller.edu/pdf/documentation/Change_Default_Setting_Office_2007_2008.pdf
Enjoy your new imac! :)

[Jason Beck]

Also on a side note, you canchoose what format to save your chosen file
in using Mac Office. You can also use "compatibility report" in your toolbox,
for a report of known issues when cross-platforming your document. I have found these 2 solutions to be invaluable.

Office is not without its problems. But these 2 features make it more comfortable to use. You can save in many formats in all the different software of Office. Excel for instance, you can save in the old format, etc.

[meirvin]

i save everything as beautiful PDFs so it doesnt matter to me, personally I am happy to not have any microsoft products on my machine

[MacHamster68]

its all down how you save a document and not down to what office you use,so in the end it is down to the chap in front of the keyboard and mouse , if he does his job right , and its not rocket science
its possible to open the document with any office product

[MrCheeto]

Yeah I know it's hard, doesn't it suck that you can open almost ANY file in iWork yet you can't open iWork files in Office? Shame. Oh not to mention iWork can press out PDF's, a pure travesty. I'd never spend money on something that integrates itself into a work environment as well as iWork, which can read and make Office documents and create UNIVERSAL PDF's and a superior final product all at a third of the cost.

Dammit Apple! Stop being so awesome!

[Eidorian]

I picked it up locally for $99.99 at Staples. My client needed 3 licenses for their family too so it worked out.

[sushi]

Suite of Word, Excel and Powerpoint?
Here's my two cents after reading this thread.

If you need guaranteed 100% compatibility with your current Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) files that you created on the PC, then the best way is to get WMWare Fusion or Parallels, install indows (XP for example) and install Office 2007.

This will provide you the exact same operating environment that you have been used to and your documents will be exactly the same. There will be no issues with formating, embedded file types and VBA for example.

The next level down would be Office 2004/8 for the Mac. While not 100% compatible with the Windows version of Office, it's pretty close if you will. You may have some issues with complex documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and we'll need to tweak them. But this should be minimal.

For your needs Microsoft Office for the Mac may be enough. You can test a trial version and see.

I won't go any farther down the pecking order with iWork, OpenOffice, NeoOffice and others. Just to say for simple word processing, spreadsheet and presentations they are fine. Many individuals find them to meet their needs. And they are decent products.

However, you will have issues if you work in a Microsoft Office operating environment. Many of us who have tried them as alternatives have found too many issues and it's not worth the time, effort and hassle. YMMV.

Good luck in your decision.

[stever500]

Disregard...double post

[stever500]

I can't vouch for the compatibility with MS Word, but I would look into OpenOffice. It's free, and I hear it's very close to Word.

http://download.openoffice.org/other.html#en-US

Also, Google has free Word, Excel, and PowerPoint online. You can make a document online and export into it's corresponding Office version. Plus, the documents you make are online, thus you can access them anywhere.

http://docs.google.com

Hey thanks. This is a great idea, to try this BEFORE I plunk down $100+ on the Microsoft stuff. I downloaded it today and I'll see how that goes. Strangely enough, Pages is now gone from my computer. How does that happen so ...easily? I don't remember doing anything to delete it from my computer. I have the disc of course so I reinstalled it, but it is annoying to have to do this. Macs are very unusual sometimes. This learning curve is much more than I thought it would be. Oh well.

I have thought about installing Windows and Word for a PC as some of you have suggested, but due to the cost and hassle, I'm going to retain that as my very, very last resort.

Here's my two cents after reading this thread.

If you need guaranteed 100% compatibility with your current Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) files that you created on the PC, then the best way is to get WMWare Fusion or Parallels, install indows (XP for example) and install Office 2007.

This will provide you the exact same operating environment that you have been used to and your documents will be exactly the same. There will be no issues with formating, embedded file types and VBA for example.

The next level down would be Office 2004/8 for the Mac. While not 100% compatible with the Windows version of Office, it's pretty close if you will. You may have some issues with complex documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and we'll need to tweak them. But this should be minimal.

For your needs Microsoft Office for the Mac may be enough. You can test a trial version and see.

I won't go any farther down the pecking order with iWork, OpenOffice, NeoOffice and others. Just to say for simple word processing, spreadsheet and presentations they are fine. Many individuals find them to meet their needs. And they are decent products.

However, you will have issues if you work in a Microsoft Office operating environment. Many of us who have tried them as alternatives have found too many issues and it's not worth the time, effort and hassle. YMMV.

Good luck in your decision.

Whoops, after reading your reply, I guess openoffice may not work for me either. I don't want to deal with ANY more hassle, time or effort as you suggested. For me, I'm thinking that Office for a Mac may be a great option for the $90 or so that Amazon is charging.

[CeeZee]

*tip- after you install Office, change those default file formats. ..The newer file extensions give people with older versions of Office trouble so better to use the more common office formats until more people update office....
http://it.rockefeller.edu/pdf/documentation/Change_Default_Setting_Office_2007_2008.pdf
Thank you so much for the tip. I was able to install Office 2008 for Mac on my new iMac through Microsoft HUP and I know that leaving the extensions the way they defaulted would have certainly caused some problems.

[xlii]

I can't vouch for the compatibility with MS Word, but I would look into OpenOffice. It's free, and I hear it's very close to Word.

http://download.openoffice.org/other.html#en-US

Also, Google has free Word, Excel, and PowerPoint online. You can make a document online and export into it's corresponding Office version. Plus, the documents you make are online, thus you can access them anywhere.

http://docs.google.com

I have openoffice on my mac and I love it. Give it a try. It's free, it works, and it looks good. Why let MS rip you off every couple of years when their old office suite no longer can read their new office suite output files.

[stever500]

I have openoffice on my mac and I love it. Give it a try. It's free, it works, and it looks good. Why let MS rip you off every couple of years when their old office suite no longer can read their new office suite output files.

It's funny how one gent will say it doesn't work that well at all and another will say it's great. Since it's free, you're right, I'll try it I guess.

[300D]

Tpb. :)

[sushi]

Whoops, after reading your reply, I guess openoffice may not work for me either. I don't want to deal with ANY more hassle, time or effort as you suggested. For me, I'm thinking that Office for a Mac may be a great option for the $90 or so that Amazon is charging.
It all depends on the complexity of your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

It's funny how one gent will say it doesn't work that well at all and another will say it's great. Since it's free, you're right, I'll try it I guess.
Sure, give Neo-Office a try. It might be enough for your needs.

When you said that you had 15 plus years of documents, that's an indicator that you are somewhat of a PowerUser when it comes to Microsoft office and extensively use features such as Pivot Tables, VBA, complex formatting, etc. Additionally, you mentioned that Pages wouldn't work for you.

If your documents are simple 1-2 page jobs with simple headers and footers then Neo-Office may work fine for you.

Like I mentioned above, there is nothing wrong with iWork, Neo-Office, open Office, etc. if they meet your needs. However, when they don't it can become a pain.

So the no brainer way is to recreate the environment that you've been using for 100% compatibility. If however, you don't have complex documents, spreadsheets or presentations, then there are options.

[stever500]

It all depends on the complexity of your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.


Sure, give Neo-Office a try. It might be enough for your needs.

When you said that you had 15 plus years of documents, that's an indicator that you are somewhat of a PowerUser when it comes to Microsoft office and extensively use features such as Pivot Tables, VBA, complex formatting, etc. Additionally, you mentioned that Pages wouldn't work for you.

If your documents are simple 1-2 page jobs with simple headers and footers then Neo-Office may work fine for you.

Like I mentioned above, there is nothing wrong with iWork, Neo-Office, open Office, etc. if they meet your needs. However, when they don't it can become a pain.

So the no brainer way is to recreate the environment that you've been using for 100% compatibility. If however, you don't have complex documents, spreadsheets or presentations, then there are options.

Hmmm, my word docs can't be that complicated. They're basically resumes, lots of them in different incarnations, saved Excel spreadsheets with REALLY basic info on them like names, addresses, phone #'s and contact info - no computations at all, and approach letters to companies with our company logo at the top (the logo that won't center correct for some reason in Pages).

[sushi]

Hmmm, my word docs can't be that complicated. They're basically resumes, lots of them in different incarnations, saved Excel spreadsheets with REALLY basic info on them like names, addresses, phone #'s and contact info - no computations at all, and approach letters to companies with our company logo at the top (the logo that won't center correct for some reason in Pages).
Then maybe your needs are such that an alternative will be a good fit for you.

As for Pages not centering your company logo, maybe you can edit those documents if that is all that's wrong with them.

[jjprusk]

Suite of Word, Excel and Powerpoint?

Many people online at 1-800-My-Apple and at the Apple store strongly suggested trying iWork with Pages and Numbers for $41 and then getting the $99 1-1 membership too INSTEAD of buying Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint for the $146 they were selling it for, all student discounts.

Numbers and Pages are AWFUL for me. None of my tons of PC word docs (I'm a 15 year PC user before last month when I got a 27" iMac 3.06 base model which I adore, for the most part) look right in pages. There are logos in Word for our company that won't move to the center of the pages document. The guy on the phone from Apple said there's nothing I can do after we spend a lot of time with Footer and Header changes.

He thought the store would refund me the $41 I spent on it and then sell me the $146 Microsoft suite instead. He also said I should have done this to begin with because so many of my docs and spreadsheets were on Microsoft. Arghhhhh. I have spent countless frustrating hours this past month trying to get stuff to work. I can't wait to get rid of Pages.

Is there a cheaper, yet safe place to get Word, Excel and Powerpoint than the Apple Store discount? I don't want to buy anything on Ebay. I just don't trust that place, mostly. You never really know if you're going to get what you are trying to get and it's a pain if the product is a scam, to get your money back. I don't have time or patience for that. Is there another trusted seller though? Or, just get it from the Apple store and call it a day? $146 seems like a LOT of money just to have Word again, and Excel. I don't really use Powerpoint much at all but it would be nice to have if I need it.

A friend had mentioned openoffice but I'm not really familiar with it. The one that's free on the internet? Is that really comparable to the actual "Word" product? If it is, why would so many people... buy Word for so much money?

Thanks,
Steve R

Go to http://www.openoffice.org/ and simply download the suite for Mac OSX. It has all of the functionality of M$ Office, is a free download, and in many cases actually has better functionality. We've converted @ work from M$ stuff and this is a great alternative.

[panzer06]

snip

Back to topic, I didn't realize that Office for Mac would be different than Office for Windows. I wonder if the logo that is indented all the way on the left when I use Pages would still be indented and immoveable all the way to the left on Word for Mac? That would stink. On my original PC version it's centered where it needs to be.

I'll check into whether my company has Office available somehow for such a cheap price. I doubt it but I'll check. I don't think our IT dept sells anything at all come to think about it so I'm sure I'll be stuck just buying it online from Amazon or Apple.

Again, I appreciate the quick responses. I don't know what VMware fusion is and it sounds more complicated than I need to get right now. I hope the basic Office for Mac will work... I should find out soon.

Cheers,
Steve R

Steve,

Also remember Office 2008 for Mac does not support Windows macros that may be embedded in any Office for Windows files. Office 2004 does and the new Office 2010 will. Complex documents, some page lengths and headers and footer may require some adjustment between the Windows and Mac versions of Office.

One of the biggest difficulties we see are with Excel documents (and to a lesser extent Word) that were created years ago in long forgotten versions of Excel and updated for years in Windows versions before being opened on a Mac. Editing back and forth with embedded graphics and trying to embed PDFs in Word and have them open correctly in Windows have also caused problems.

This said, I work primarily in Office 2008 for Mac ,jumping into Fusion to access native Windows version only as needed for that truly difficult cases.

Cheers,

[stever500]

Then maybe your needs are such that an alternative will be a good fit for you.

As for Pages not centering your company logo, maybe you can edit those documents if that is all that's wrong with them.

This is a good point. Maybe I'm giving up on Pages too easily. Yeah, it won't get our company logo centered. The President of the company suggested just removing it from the letter - problem solved.

I will work with Pages a bit more and see if I can make it work for me before buying Microsoft for Mac. And, I might download and try openoffice again. I just deleted it the other day when someone on here posted that it was very inferior to Word.

[Jason Beck]

Or you can go to Microsoft.com and download a trial off office. Give it a shot, see if you like it. I've tried pretty much everything and I prefer Office 2008 Mac.. To each his / her own though. But a little shareware trial won't kill ya. Go try it out.

[Sparky9292]

I guess it all depends on what you need. I *need* 100% compatibility and feature parity for work, so installing Windows and Office for Windows on my Mac were no brainers (use Bootcamp and have Parallels using the partition for in OSX use). If you've found iWork to be unsatisfactory, you may be on that same boat.

You don't need Bootcamp to run MSWord/Windows. That's an overkill. The only time Bootcamp is required over Parallels is for things that use the 3D video card like Video gaming or CAD.

[Gov98]

I know this probably is better discussed on the windows on the mac thread, but can you just run windows 7 on the Mac? I know this is heresy, but I prefer windows, but appreciate the form of the mac.

[RexTraverse]

You don't need Bootcamp to run MSWord/Windows. That's an overkill. The only time Bootcamp is required over Parallels is for things that use the 3D video card like Video gaming or CAD.

Well I do Bootcamp Windows for other things besides Office. :rolleyes:

[knewsom]

Just try it. I'll never EVER buy Office ever again. BIG fan. My wife's GOVERNMENT OFFICE even switched. It's that good.

[Wotan31]

Microsoft Office is a fairly decent piece of software. Don't get me wrong, I hate Microsoft as much as the next person and refuse to use a Windows PC at home, but Office is one of their products that generally does work pretty well. That said, I've heard lots of bad things about Office 2008 for Mac.

Office Home & Student 2007 edition for Windows was only $59 on Amazon today. I use that inside of VMware Fusion 3 when I absolutely have to have Microsoft Office.

But for most casual document viewing or basic editing tasks, OpenOffice for OSX works great.

[mindquest]

This said, I work primarily in Office 2008 for Mac ,jumping into Fusion to access native Windows version only as needed for that truly difficult cases.

Cheers,

I will be getting an Imac soon and will have Windows 7 on it via Fusion. Given that would you put office on native or on Windows 7? I am going back and forth on this. I have lots of .xls & .doc from 2003 version to bring over.

[sishaw]

A friend had mentioned openoffice but I'm not really familiar with it. The one that's free on the internet? Is that really comparable to the actual "Word" product? If it is, why would so many people... buy Word for so much money?

Thanks,
Steve R

Open Office is comparable, and the newest version reads .docx files. It is slow to start up compared to Microsoft office. There are a few different locations for some menu items, but otherwise it is similar to Office 2003. You could try it out and see if you like it.

People buy Word because it's a standard, but one can use Open Office.

[thegoldenmackid]

I bought mine new from the Amazon Marketplace for $107 - I got the Special Media Edition.

[Jason Beck]

LOL. I can't wait to move out of America.

[knewsom]

LOL. I can't wait to move out of America.

Guess the political debate got edited out - this looks really nonsequiter now, kinda funny. :p

[Cave Man]

(the logo that won't center correct for some reason in Pages).

In the Inspector, choose the Wrap Inspector, highlight the graphic and then choose Floating. That should allow the free placement of any graphic.

Now, about iWork 09. I am truly happy with it. This is a function of both better features in the 09 edition and the fact that Office 2008, in particular Word, is a major step backwards. I have been using Keynote since its inception, and Numbers for most of my spreadsheet work since 07 (although Excel is still far superior for complex tasks). But Pages really trumps Word. The biggest thing for me was the integration with EndNote. I only use Word when I have to interact a document with Windows folks (which isn't too often, fortunately).

[Jason Beck]

Guess the political debate got edited out - this looks really nonsequiter now, kinda funny. :p

I just noticed that.
bahaahhaah!

[stever500]

In the Inspector, choose the Wrap Inspector, highlight the graphic and then choose Floating. That should allow the free placement of any graphic.

Now, about iWork 09. I am truly happy with it. This is a function of both better features in the 09 edition and the fact that Office 2008, in particular Word, is a major step backwards. I have been using Keynote since its inception, and Numbers for most of my spreadsheet work since 07 (although Excel is still far superior for complex tasks). But Pages really trumps Word. The biggest thing for me was the integration with EndNote. I only use Word when I have to interact a document with Windows folks (which isn't too often, fortunately).

Thanks for this. I'm new to this so bear with me... I don't see an "inspector" logo on my Pages document, only on my Numbers document, so I can't make the changes you suggest. It's good to know though that Pages is a quality program so I'm going to try to make it work for me, warts and all. And, if I can't, I already re-downloaded Openoffice so I'll try that then too.

Man, so many helpful folks on here. My sister emailed me yesterday that when I come to visit her in Florida in 2 weeks, she's interested in buying a MacBook Pro. I'm so excited to help her get it. She has a POS PC desktop now that is world's old.

Cheers,
Steve

[panzer06]

I will be getting an Imac soon and will have Windows 7 on it via Fusion. Given that would you put office on native or on Windows 7? I am going back and forth on this. I have lots of .xls & .doc from 2003 version to bring over.

I prefer to work in OS X as much as possible so I really like having Office 2008 for Mac. I am able to handle 90-95% of tasks in OS X with Office 2008. I keep Office 2007 running in a VM for that 5-10% of the time. I'm hoping Office 2010's return to near Windows Office parity (with VBA support and Outlook client) will make Windows completely unnecessary (other than my many Windows games)!

Cheers,

[dontwalkhand]

I know it sounds expensive, but you do still save a little bit of money. I bought mine through my school for $70, and that is Office 2008 for Mac.

Make sure after you buy it, you do ALL of the software updates on it, and I mean ALL, even when it says the update is finished, run the update again, and again until it does say you have no more updates left. This would fix a lot of the speed issues Office has had with 2008.

[Cave Man]

Thanks for this. I'm new to this so bear with me... I don't see an "inspector" logo on my Pages document, only on my Numbers document, so I can't make the changes you suggest.

The Inspector button is on your Pages document bar, the blue circle with an 'i' in it. Click it to bring up the floating Inspector window, then choose the Wrap button to select the object as Floating. See attached.

[stever500]

The Inspector button is on your Pages document bar, the blue circle with an 'i' in it. Click it to bring up the floating Inspector window, then choose the Wrap button to select the object as Floating. See attached.

Thanks for the visuals! This has been a fascinating thread for me. I'm doing everything I can now to make Pages work for me 100%.

[jbg232]

I also have to say that using Fusion + Windows XP + Office 2007 is a beautiful thing. I have Fusion installed and running in the background just for this purpose as I make powerpoint slides (and don't even try converting keynote->powerpoint if you can't handle word formatting errors) that are broadcast to hundreds of people and I can't have a problem with formatting if I'm away doing a presentation, period. You don't even know you're running windows. Here's a screen shot to see what I'm talking about (with this screen in the background)

[mindquest]

I would love to hear form people who run both office for mac & windows. Getting first imac and still debating on which version. Does anyone know if you can share docs and spreadsheets between office in VM Fusion & the mac side? I would always be emailing out through the mac side but if I chose office for windows I have to have an easy way to access them.

[Cave Man]

Does anyone know if you can share docs and spreadsheets between office in VM Fusion & the mac side? I would always be emailing out through the mac side but if I chose office for windows I have to have an easy way to access them.

Your Mac shows up as a network volume in Windows using Fusion.

[stever500]

Apple Customer Service is amazing! I just spend over 2 hours on the phone with them over a resume formatting issue they can't solve. I had my resume professionally done this week so I can get a better job, but when I send it out in Word format or Pages it has text boxes over every bullet point. She tried everything on the phone to fix it but eventually said the only thing left for me to do is to get Microsoft Office for Mac. Duh, I thought... I would have guessed that 2 weeks again when all these formatting problems started.

I told her I was mad that they didn't recommend this when I bought my machine, because I mentioned that I had lots of word docs that would be transferred over. It's my fault in the end, as one lady at the store DID say she recommended it for my situation, but most of the other people didn't.

In any case, here's the amazing part, she offered to mail Office for Mac for free to me due to all the problems of incompatibility I was having and all the hours I spend on the phone with different people. I was blown away. That saves me $100 even though I lost all that time.

Good stuff. I'm happy right now. Hopefully Office for Mac will solve my issues.

[jbg232]

I would love to hear form people who run both office for mac & windows. Getting first imac and still debating on which version. Does anyone know if you can share docs and spreadsheets between office in VM Fusion & the mac side? I would always be emailing out through the mac side but if I chose office for windows I have to have an easy way to access them.

As a user of both I can say it is extremely easy. You Mac hard drive personal folder (the Home folder) will show up in windows either as a networked drive (to which you can make a shortcut to on your windows desktop) or a folder on the desktop (depending on which version of fusion you have) with which you can both read and write files on through the virtual machine. Either way, when I save files I just navigate to windows desktop->Home Folder->Documents and save there. That means that ALL my documents are saved on my Mac partition in the Mac Documents folder reducing any problems at all with windows. The only things that are actually saved on the windows drive are the actual programs of microsoft office so I don't have to worry if Windows gets corrupt or anything because I could just delete it or whatever (this has never happened though, but I love that all my files are stored in my home folder as it is very intuitive). When I email or manipulate the files in any way I just go to the Documents section of my home folder on mac. Easy as can be.

[MonkeyET]

This thread has left me confused. As a recent convert (4 months and counting), I vowed to run away from anything Microsoft. Then I remembered how I did the same thing with Apple when iPod came out. After getting over my thoughts on why the iPod was bad for the world of music, it hit me. It took several years, but once I actually looked at what Apple does I realized, Apple is fantastic. I don't want to run around saying I hate Microsoft because I will probably end up eating my words, but I choose Apple.

To the case in point, I have iWork and have had no issues as a former Office user. I will admit Numbers is quite a bit more simple than Excel, but I haven't had the need to work it too hard yet. So I have a full version Office:Mac 2008 Business Edition sitting on my desk and still feel hesitant about installing it. I have had nowhere near the problems with my Mac as I did with multiple PCs and have a connotation of problems with Microsoft (the occasional beach ball and one time the iMac wouldn't get past the startup grey screen but a safe boot and permissions repair cured all).

I read all the posts but cannot make a decision. Then again I have the Snow Leopard update disc sitting on my desk too, that I have not yet installed due to the fear of problems. With PCs I had a habit of trying to "fix" things and ended up messing things up with lots of drive formats and reinstallation.

Has there been any issues with Office in regards to security issues? I had a trojan on my PC laptop that attached itself to all my excel files and I had to delete them. I do not want to potentially introduce problems to my Mac files with the addition of Office. Anyone know anything about this?

[powerbook911]

I like iWork ok.

However, I use Office Mac 2008. Besides being a bit slow to launch, Office 2008 Mac is a great product. I love using it, and I think it's the only thing MS should do anymore.

[jbg232]

Because I only use my Windows side to use Microsoft office I have not had ANY problems with it.

[panzer06]

snip
I read all the posts but cannot make a decision. Then again I have the Snow Leopard update disc sitting on my desk too, that I have not yet installed due to the fear of problems. With PCs I had a habit of trying to "fix" things and ended up messing things up with lots of drive formats and reinstallation.

Has there been any issues with Office in regards to security issues? I had a trojan on my PC laptop that attached itself to all my excel files and I had to delete them. I do not want to potentially introduce problems to my Mac files with the addition of Office. Anyone know anything about this?

I too used to update when it was not needed, sometimes with less than optimal results. If you're working fine and don't need the features SL leave it alone. SL breaks some print drivers, and Acrobat Professional's print to PDF is gone. You must use Apple's built in save as (creates larger files most of the time for me) to pdf. Also some of our folks can't get the old Cisco VPN to work with SL. Had to switch to Cisco AnyConnect HTTP VPN. All this stuff can be fixed or worked around but why bother if you don't need SL. Perhaps in a few months drivers and software updates from vendors will fix this little bits.

As to Office 2008; it lacks Microsoft's VB script support so it is unlikely to be able to run into any excel script based malware. I prefer 2008 to most of the free or low cost alternatives but that is mainly a function of having 10s of thousands of legacy office files and sharing with Windows Offices users constantly. I also like Entourage since I keep every e-mail forever and it stores my mail DB locally, bypassing that pesky exchange-based archiving (this messages get archived on the Exchange server but the mac users retain the full messages locally because Exchange can't interact with Entourage like it does Outlook).

If you really don't have complex word, excel or PPT docs iWork will most likely be ok but for me I prefer Office 2008 for the most compatibility.

Cheers,

[bluebermuda]

Office 2010 beta is now available for free.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default.aspx
:)

[panzer06]

Office 2010 beta is now available for free.

http://www.microsoft.com/office/2010/en/default.aspx
:)

That's the Windows Version. I don't think the Mac Version is ready for Beta yet.

Cheers,

[Dustman]

I'd rather use iWork over Office 2008. Understandable though if you're having compatibility problems. I personally refuse to ever dump Office v.X until they release something as intuitive and speedy.

[stever500]

I'd rather use iWork over Office 2008. Understandable though if you're having compatibility problems. I personally refuse to ever dump Office v.X until they release something as intuitive and speedy.

Well, my free Microsoft Office for Mac came in the mail today courtesy of a very nice lady in Apple's customer support area. I'll try it out this weekend and see how it is, and report back here accordingly.

It's interesting that at the Apple store I went to today, Microsoft Office for Mac is preloaded on the laptops, there. I wonder why they bother to do this when they "push" people to get iWorks instead?

Steve

[lindsayanng]

I just read through this whole post becaise I recently went through the same thing and i just have to wonder.

how in the hell is this guy creating his word documents in such a way that they are always messed up on iwork for mac? It makes me think that the person creating them is using some weird methods to make certain things place a certain way. i know for SURE i have had to finagle things in microsoft word to get them to display properly and those are things that no other OS should have to account for.

Anyways.. I'm telling you that your OLD OLD files are there, but they proably need tweaking (but your data isn't gone) and creating NEW files should be simple as pie.. as well as importing stuff creating from an pretty recent version of any microsoft office program

I regularly have stuff sent to me created by PCs to iwork and never had an issue.. Well, i take that back. There were SOME issues when importing powerpoint to keynote, but the funny thing is.. its TOTALLY power point's fault because keynote can create a document that opens in powerpoint just fine.

[stever500]

I just read through this whole post becaise I recently went through the same thing and i just have to wonder.

how in the hell is this guy creating his word documents in such a way that they are always messed up on iwork for mac? It makes me think that the person creating them is using some weird methods to make certain things place a certain way. i know for SURE i have had to finagle things in microsoft word to get them to display properly and those are things that no other OS should have to account for.

Anyways.. I'm telling you that your OLD OLD files are there, but they proably need tweaking (but your data isn't gone) and creating NEW files should be simple as pie.. as well as importing stuff creating from an pretty recent version of any microsoft office program

I regularly have stuff sent to me created by PCs to iwork and never had an issue.. Well, i take that back. There were SOME issues when importing powerpoint to keynote, but the funny thing is.. its TOTALLY power point's fault because keynote can create a document that opens in powerpoint just fine.

Let me tell you, I've had huge issues. Now that I downloaded the Office for Mac, I can actually see docs the way they were supposed to be seen, with all the lines on my resume where they are supposed to be, the correct fonts on my new resume instead of incorrect ones in pages, and headers at the top of the page that sit correctly in the right place. Thank god I did this!!!! Pages may be great for some of you, but it sucked for me.

I'll never use it again. I just wish Office didn't have that weird crackling and pop noise when I use it. Very odd sound effect.

Steve R

[cluthz]

I find using Office 2008 a pain too!
Office 2008 is decent, but full of compatibility issues.

First:
VBA doesn't work!!!
If you need to do statistics you are much better off with Office 2004!!
Macroes are bust, there are no statistics package in the 2008 version!

Second:
Equations made on Office 2007 (PC version) doesn't work on Office 2008!

So basically, if you plan to do anything related to math or statistics, stay away form Office 2008!

I hope next version of Office for mac again will make it usable for mac users!
I'm really using a lot of time to be sure I get documents either converted to older formats so I can use them in Office 2004 or equations added with MathType instead of Office's built in Equation Editor.


There is also a huge issues with documents refusing to save because Office sometimes bugs equations. I'm making a new copy at least every hour when i work in Word!

I had to redo over 25 equations once because Word refused to save the document!

I really should have bought Office 2007 and ran it in vmware instead of buying Office 2008 for mac!

[knewsom]

...I hope next version of Office for mac again will make it usable for mac users!...

And people say I'M an eternal optimist.... There's no way Microsoft will make an equal version of Office for Mac unless they are essentially FORCED to, the reason being, if they offer a nerfed version, it'll boost their sales.

People will buy the nerfed Mac version, try to use it, fail to do everything they need, then buy a copy of Windows AND the Windows version of it.

This is one reason Open Office is so incredibly important. It's stable, powerful, and more than fast enough. More importantly, it's cross-platform.

[stever500]

And people say I'M an eternal optimist.... There's no way Microsoft will make an equal version of Office for Mac unless they are essentially FORCED to, the reason being, if they offer a nerfed version, it'll boost their sales.

People will buy the nerfed Mac version, try to use it, fail to do everything they need, then buy a copy of Windows AND the Windows version of it.

This is one reason Open Office is so incredibly important. It's stable, powerful, and more than fast enough. More importantly, it's cross-platform.

I wish Open Office worked for me. It turned my resume into 4 pages long (from it's 2 pages in Word) and totally screwed up the formatting.

[knewsom]

ugh, bummer. Kinda makes you wish there was a good universal document type that was translatable and entirely open source.

Lucky me I don't have anything with requisite formatting in MSWord. My Resume I redid in Pages, and I've been quite happy with it. Easy-peasy, drag, resize, etc. I dig.

[lindsayanng]

There will always be an issue with excel spread sheets because of the fact that macs and pcs processes these types of input differently.

Macs register every new line as a carriage return, and pcs register them as a carriage return and linefeed. When a mac tries to read that type of document, things get hairy.

The creator of the file should make sure that when they save, they save for mac and for pc depending on who they are sending the file to

[fa8362]

It's interesting that at the Apple store I went to today, Microsoft Office for Mac is preloaded on the laptops, there. I wonder why they bother to do this when they "push" people to get iWorks instead?

Steve

That's just a free trial. After the trial period is up, it stops working.

[YanniDepp]

Hmm, it wasn't on the Mac I bought in April.

I know that both iWork and Office 2008 are installed on the demo Macs on display in the Apple store.

[stever500]

That's just a free trial. After the trial period is up, it stops working.

Ahh, I see. Thanks for clearing that up. I can't believe how different my resume reads in Word vs Pages. It was made on Word by the original writer. Pages had the font all wrong after I tried to save it in Pages (as a Word OR Pages doc), it didn't have any of the nice lines that were originally on it, and the over look on Word blew Pages away. Also, Pages had the page layout incorrect - what was supposd to be on page 1 was on page 2 so everything was basically "off".

Word is much better for people like me.

[Cave Man]

Some of the font problems arise because Microsoft uses many non-standard fonts. This has been their history because it has allowed them to dictate the market. (They've sometimes failed with this strategy, e.g. HD-DVD.) Pages does not fully implement some of the formatting that Word has and if a Word document has some of those they will cause problems when opened within Pages.

However, if one makes a Pages document de novo, it can be easier to do than in Word. One thing I hate about Word is that you cannot easily place images (as you have noted earlier in this thread). In Pages, it's pretty easy to put them where you want them once you unlock the image. I'm opposite of you - I used Word since 1993 until 2008. When iWork 09 was released I switched to it and use it exclusively (except when dealing with shared documents with some of my Windows friends).

[archipellago]

Some of the font problems arise because Microsoft uses many non-standard fonts. This has been their history because it has allowed them to dictate the market. (They've sometimes failed with this strategy, e.g. HD-DVD.) Pages does not fully implement some of the formatting that Word has and if a Word document has some of those they will cause problems when opened within Pages.

However, if one makes a Pages document de novo, it can be easier to do than in Word. One thing I hate about Word is that you cannot easily place images (as you have noted earlier in this thread). In Pages, it's pretty easy to put them where you want them once you unlock the image. I'm opposite of you - I used Word since 1993 until 2008. When iWork 09 was released I switched to it and use it exclusively (except when dealing with shared documents with some of my Windows friends).


HD DVD was Microsoft?

orly?:confused:

[Trek2100]

HD DVD was Microsoft?

orly?:confused:

Toshiba, not Microsoft. There was an HD forum group which included 10 companies (none of which was Microsoft) to come up with a format. Then Toshiba headed the HD DVD Promotion group which included NEC, Sanyo and Memory Tech.

[Cave Man]

MS wanted HD-DVD to win the war with Blu-ray. They did everything they could to win, but alas their power has shrunk quite a bit in recent years. Good riddance.