Microsoft Office Mac, Windows, or iWork?

Don't waste money on Office 2007. If you think that you HAVE to have Office, get 2004.

But just get iWork. Totally go for iWork.

There are some free version that rock...openOffice3, and Neooffice are great. you can save any document in native MS office format.

I've used all three. Office 2007 on school computers, the iWork trial, and Office 2008 for Mac. Honestly, I like Office 2008 for Mac the best. I mean, all of them have their pro's and cons, but mostly for compatibility (and thus, ironically, ease of use) I used Office 2008 for Mac the most. Sure, I liked iWork, and it is cheaper, but I was used to Office. And with school, I got the copy of Office for free. (It certainly beats OpenOffice or NeoOffice at that price point. Paying full price for it would be difficult.)

minijon said:

And with school, I got the copy of Office for free. (It certainly beats OpenOffice or NeoOffice at that price point. Paying full price for it would be difficult.)

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How did you get Office for free through school?

snafu4015 said:

How did you get Office for free through school?

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i got vista/xp and many office apps for free while i was in college

ususlaly your school will have a program if they offer it

iWork

I just bought the new MacBook Pro and iWork. Use MS Office at work. I like iWork and have used it with MS Word and Excel without any problems or compatibility issues. All I do is take a Word document or Excel spreadsheet and drag and drop the file on the iWork dock icon. It opens in iWork with out issue. Documents I created in iWork, I save as MS Word, or Excel and open them without issue at work. I like iWork and the ease of use compared with the MS Office products. My recommendation is to buy iWork for $70. You will save a lot of money and the apps are great. I have been a PC and Office users for 20 some years. I recently switch to Mac and LOVE it. Good luck!

dukebound85 said:

i got vista/xp and many office apps for free while i was in college

ususlaly your school will have a program if they offer it

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Ours is like $30 each =(

I just used Keynote for a presentation recently; I have to say—not bad. It has a lot to offer.

I don't like Pages though; still sticking to Word.

dukebound85 said:

i got vista/xp and many office apps for free while i was in college

ususlaly your school will have a program if they offer it

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Thanks for the info. My school's website (Rutgers) offers MS Office (login required) for a "discount" price of $124. You'd think that one of the biggest schools in the country would get a slightly better discount. It's cheaper than that on Amazon. I may call our computer services dept tomorrow and see if there is anything they can do.

alphaod said:

Ours is like $30 each =(

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Wow I'd take it for $30 too!

I am a fan off office 2007 for windows, which i run in VMWare how ever i do use I Work now and a again.

snafu4015 said:

Thanks for the info. My school's website (Rutgers) offers MS Office (login required) for a "discount" price of $124. You'd think that one of the biggest schools in the country would get a slightly better discount. It's cheaper than that on Amazon. I may call our computer services dept tomorrow and see if there is anything they can do.

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ok our school sold xp/vista and pretty much every other software for discounted prices...like yours


however, since i was in the college of engineering, the college had a deal with MSDN where I could get many software for free

Ask your college department (buisiness/engr/etc) is they have MSDN partnership set up

I have used all of them. I mainly use excel and word. I wanted to use Iwork. I wanted to keep everything "apple". but Office 08 for MAc is just a little easier to work with. IMO.

I use both. I use Keynote from iWork and Word and Excel from Office. Seems to be a pretty good combo, however, you have to buy 2 suites of software.

normally if you know someone in the school library helpdesk ... they will be able to hook you up with office 2008

I use Office 2008 and I think its the best office suite out there as far as ease and stability are concerned. Unless you are doing programming with excel, Office 2008 should work just fine, especially if you are a college student.

as Dukebound said, you can also get office software for free or cheap through MSDN ... any engineering student with a IEEE account will be able to download most of the Micro$oft software for free