Mountain Lion, Microsoft Office question

I'm running mountain lion on my mid 2010 macbook pro. It's doing fine. But it's just released, so some early bugs are still in there. They'll be fixed in no time. And I don't see why you should update to Lion first and then to Mountain Lion. It's only going to cost more.

I have no advice on where you should get a copy of office 2011. But students can always get it with discount, so maybe you have a nephew? Just look around, there's always a store offering it with discount.

Palo Alto said:

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Also, I don't have Microsoft Office. Clearly I need that since I'm a writer. ...

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This is not true. If you share files with other Word users, then you need Word. Many writers collaborate on teams, either writer-editor teams, multiple writer teams, or some combination. If the team uses Word, then you need Word. However, many writers do not operate under such constraints. If you are one of these lucky souls, then there are writing solutions that are far superior to Word.

Try Ebay. Picked up the Home & Business edition of Mac Office 2011 for $80. Perfectly legit copy and registered. Just be careful of who you buy from and read the fine print as some sellers are tricky.

MisterMe said:

This is not true. If you share files with other Word users, then you need Word. Many writers collaborate on teams, either writer-editor teams, multiple writer teams, or some combination. If the team uses Word, then you need Word. However, many writers do not operate under such constraints. If you are one of these lucky souls, then there are writing solutions that are far superior to Word.

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I agree with MisterMe. It depends on your needs.

For exchanging files with MS Word users, I have LibreOffice (but we do nothing complicated, so tables, footnotes, etc. are not really a concern).

For my serious writing I use Mellel. Mellel may seem a little complicated at first, because it does operate in the usual “MS Office” way. But it is a real power house: multiple stream footnotes, auto title options, and style sheets that are superb. I use it for English, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Roman work. Output is to PDF if I have to send to anyone.

For editing a magazine I use Scrivener and output to .rtf for Nisus Writer Pro. I have not have MS Office since February 2008. Don’t miss it at all.

I have run Microsoft Office 2008 on Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion, and now Mountain Lion. So you can find cheap Office 2008 on Craigslist or eBay.