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Word for Mac.... What to get ?????

EarthDawn

EarthDawn

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 18, 2008
883
10
Long-eye Land, NY
I need Word for my iMac but i don not need the whole package like MS Office 08'

$149.00 for something that i only need 1 or the 5 products in it is a waste... I searched and cant find just word. It does not even need to be the newest version etc...

confused and need some direction

THANKS !!!:confused:
 
Does it have to be word?

Why not open source software, like NeoOffice/OpenOffice? It's free (though donations are appreciated), can handle MS Word files, and integrates nicely with OS X.
Online at: http://www.neooffice.org/

Otherwise, consider Apple's Pages software.

MS is notorious for bundling. The MS Office set is called a software suite for a reason -- it's intended to provide a set of programs to assist productivity, and assumes the user will need more than just word processing. A text editor can do that (albeit not too well).
 
Nisus Writer Pro is another excellent alternative (nisus.com).

No help if you really NEED Word, I know, but I thought I'd chip in ...
 
Now that they have a "Home and Student" Edition of Office, I don't think they sell the applications separately any more.

You might be able to find a deal on Office 2004 now that Office 2008 is out. Check online and see if you can find someone who is selling their old version.
 
aross99 said:
Now that they have a "Home and Student" Edition of Office, I don't think they sell the applications separately any more.

You might be able to find a deal on Office 2004 now that Office 2008 is out. Check online and see if you can find someone who is selling their old version.
Click to expand...

if you want word by itself they do not offer it in student form as a stand alone.

just word will cost you $349.99 (word 2004 was anyway)

get the student teach with all apps, it's a much better deal as had three license so you can split it $50 three ways with friends if you need to
 
If you need support for macros generated on a Windows version of Word buy MS Office 2004, because 2008 will not do this. And if you don't need the support then you probably don't need Word at all but one of the above mentioned programs such as neooffice. Don't worry about opening .docx files generated by Word 2008 - if the worst comes to the worst you can open these in the trial version of Apple's Pages (even after the trial period has ended) and cut and paste to the program you are using.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

It has been a while sine M$ offered individual Apps for Mac. They have since dropped the prices of Office to try to compete with iWork.

OpenOfice is a good alternative, but I find its compatibility with Word to be flakey.

TEG
 
It does not have to be word....

It us getting basic use.

Girlfriends resumes and my sons book reports etc.

other then that there is not much other use.


Would nisus.com or neo office be ok for this ???

they both look to be layed out well...

APPRECIATE the help !!! as always its fast and useful answers here !
 
scienide09 said:
For what you've described, the non-MS Word options can do what you need just fine.
Click to expand...

OK...


Now.... will the resumes she writes open up ok for businesses that she emails it to ???

She was using Word to send it out as... since i upgraded to Leopard I lost my old copy of MS Word ....

Sooooo.... she needs to redo her resume and send it out again.... just need to be sure I am not gonna get screamed at when companies cant open it up.

THANKS!
 
EarthDawn said:
It does not have to be word....

It us getting basic use.

Girlfriends resumes and my sons book reports etc.

other then that there is not much other use.


Would nisus.com or neo office be ok for this ???

they both look to be layed out well...

APPRECIATE the help !!! as always its fast and useful answers here !
Click to expand...

Why not just use Pages from iWork '08.

TEG
 
EarthDawn said:
OK...


Now.... will the resumes she writes open up ok for businesses that she emails it to ???

She was using Word to send it out as... since i upgraded to Leopard I lost my old copy of MS Word ....

Sooooo.... she needs to redo her resume and send it out again.... just need to be sure I am not gonna get screamed at when companies cant open it up.

THANKS!
Click to expand...

NeoOffice will be completely fine for this. Just make sure you save it as .doc rather than any other format. Exporting to pdf also works. NeoOffice is capable of this, so you should be fine.

Not sure about Nisus Writer, but I imagine it can do it, too.

Another good Word alternative is Abiword. It's free and it's just Word, rather than a whole Office suite.
 
EarthDawn said:
Thanks for all the help....


Trying NeoOffice ......

looks good so for.....


:D:D:D
Click to expand...

It is quite good.

If you feel the need to upgrade to something a little better, I highly recommend iWork. It's a great value for only $79 compared to MS Office, and if NeoOffice suits your needs, you shouldn't find anything lacking in iWork from MS Office. If you keep NeoOffice around afterward for compatibility, you really won't ever need to shell out the cash of MS Office.
 
EarthDawn said:
Thanks for all the help....


Trying NeoOffice ......

looks good so for.....


:D:D:D
Click to expand...

another freebies is already on your Mac......TextEdit is basic but still quite usable. A while ago there was a thread asking if anybody used it as their main word processor and I was impressed with the number of people who say it is


TEG said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

It has been a while sine M$ offered individual Apps for Mac.....
Click to expand...

actually, they do offer the individual components for Mac and have always done so.......as TJones points out above, you can buy Word as a stand-alone from the Apple store.....it just isn't cheap
 
Does it have to be Word for Mac or can we use a copy of the actual MS one? I am lost on how that works.
I can get about any MS program I need as I am an educator, but they don't have anything for Macs.
 
EarthDawn said:
will the resumes she writes open up ok for businesses that she emails it to ???

She was using Word to send it out... just need to be sure I am not gonna get screamed at when companies cant open it up.
Click to expand...

I don't know if things have changed, but a bunch of years ago emailing your resume in a word file was a big no-no that prospective employers supposedly did not appreciate.
 
motulist said:
I don't know if things have changed, but a bunch of years ago emailing your resume in a word file was a big no-no that prospective employers supposedly did not appreciate.
Click to expand...

It still is ... most companies filter all attachments from unknown emails.

She is sending them by request as some of the jobs are out of our area.
 
A little off topic, but I was curious if you could save Pages files so they can be opened with M$ Word? If so, then I would jump all over iWork, as a college student I need a suite for presentations, word processing and some spreadsheets. Thanks in advance.
 
I own 2004 Word for Mac complete but ...

I can't stand it. Too invasive.

Believe it or not, I use the earliest 2001 Word for Mac OSX.

Pick it up cheap off Craigslist.
 
TygerMac said:
A little off topic, but I was curious if you could save Pages files so they can be opened with M$ Word? If so, then I would jump all over iWork, as a college student I need a suite for presentations, word processing and some spreadsheets. Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

You can Export to Word, but I just tried it and opened the resulting file in NeoOffice and the formatting is all over the place.

Unless someone needs to edit the document you're better off hitting print and 'Save as pdf'
 
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