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A little help please!

Z

Z26

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 13, 2014
3
0
Hi All,

I'm new to this forum, so please forgive me if this is posted in the wrong section! I would like some advice on whether a MacBook Pro would be a wise option for myself. I am a Ph.D who is looking to invest in a new laptop, after using windows for many years am seriously contemplating moving to macintosh. My field of study is in law, so I will be using Microsoft Word and PowerPoint religiously, obv I'll be writing my thesis too; perhaps this is misinformed but I've heard that word for mac is not stable with large word docs is this true?

I really don't want this as I'll be writing 100,000 words plus. Also for referencing law folk use footnotes, is this available on mac, I'm assuming there is a footnote icon?

I was thinking of going with the 15 inch 512gb ssd as I want storage internally aswell as also using an external drive. If you could answer or she'd light on any of these concerns I would be grateful.

Many thanks.

Mr. Z26
 
Z26 said:
Hi All,

I'm new to this forum, so please forgive me if this is posted in the wrong section! I would like some advice on whether a MacBook Pro would be a wise option for myself. I am a Ph.D who is looking to invest in a new laptop, after using windows for many years am seriously contemplating moving to macintosh. My field of study is in law, so I will be using Microsoft Word and PowerPoint religiously, obv I'll be writing my thesis too; perhaps this is misinformed but I've heard that word for mac is not stable with large word docs is this true?

I really don't want this as I'll be writing 100,000 words plus. Also for referencing law folk use footnotes, is this available on mac, I'm assuming there is a footnote icon?

I was thinking of going with the 15 inch 512gb ssd as I want storage internally aswell as also using an external drive. If you could answer or she'd light on any of these concerns I would be grateful.

Many thanks.

Mr. Z26
Click to expand...

I can't speak for most of what you ask, but I vaguely remember reading a blog post somewhere about ways to prevent corruption of very large documents in Word for Mac. I had to do some Googling for a few seconds, but I finally found it here:

http://www.officeformachelp.com/201...ment-corruption-with-a-few-simple-techniques/

If you feel that describes your Word usage quite well, then I don't think you will have many problems.

I agree with your storage choice, BTW. That's what I would go with, but of course, that's just mere coincidence as my needs are somewhat different than what you have.
 
I have office 365 and all its mac apps on my rmbp.
They are all stable, except for outlook. That is simply useless.

Be aware that the mac versions are the 2011 ones.
I recommend using native :apple: writing apps, like pages.
 
Most law offices still use windows and office for PC. Documents and supporting applications are also PC based. So a Mac might not be the best thing for you.
 
Microsoft Office 2011 is fairly stable on the Mac. I've had no issues whatsoever and have used referencing/footnotes quite frequently as a former Law student. However, I've never dealt with very large documents, so I can't comment on that particular aspect. I would assume though that Word for Mac handles very large documents just as well as the Windows version and have never heard of it having any problems.

As a general rule, whether you're using Office on Mac or Windows, frequently back up your document on an external drive or location just in case something goes wrong or your document becomes corrupted.

Honestly, you've got nothing to worry about. There's also rumours of a new version of the Office suite to arrive in 2014.

----------
Sirmausalot said:
Most law offices still use windows and office for PC. Documents and supporting applications are also PC based. So a Mac might not be the best thing for you.
Click to expand...

Office for Mac is fully cross-compatible with Office for Windows, there's no issues here. It doesn't matter if most Law offices still use Windows and Office for PC, not sure what you're getting at.
 
Windows Office is a much better product then what we have for OS X. Its more feature rich and performance is better. I boot into windows when wanting to use office.

With that said, I've not had any instability with the Office for Mac, it just lack features and I think the windows version is a more polished product.
 
Thankyou all for your replies. I think with all being said I'm opting for the MacBook Pro.

On a side note, does anyone have an idea of when office 2014 will be available ?

Thanks once again.

Mr. Z26
 
First off, it helps you and others when the title is descriptive. If you scroll down the page you will find others with similar posts asking pretty much the same thing.

Not sure if there is any reason to get the 512 unless you just have lots of extra cash available.
 
Your point is noted, I just wanted to garner some interest, in relation to my question.

Th reason for the hard-drive is that I store a lot of information, this is in addition to using backups if various kinds.

The money has all been earned, the purchase is for work, so it's not a luxury item as much as it is a necessity.

Regards,

Mr Z26

----------
duervo said:
I can't speak for most of what you ask, but I vaguely remember reading a blog post somewhere about ways to prevent corruption of very large documents in Word for Mac. I had to do some Googling for a few seconds, but I finally found it here:

http://www.officeformachelp.com/201...ment-corruption-with-a-few-simple-techniques/

If you feel that describes your Word usage quite well, then I don't think you will have many problems.

I agree with your storage choice, BTW. That's what I would go with, but of course, that's just mere coincidence as my needs are somewhat different than what you have.
Click to expand...

Special thanks for the blog, it's put my worries at rest
 
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