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Berius

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 17, 2011
40
0
Im a student and i need a cheap copy of office for my mac.
 
Definitely check with your school. Microsoft often cuts deals with schools so that students can get Office for $10-30.

Otherwise, it's $110 (3 computers) or $100 (1 computer) on Amazon.
 
Im a student and i need a cheap copy of office for my mac.

Are you sure you need Office? LibreOffice is free and open source and can read and write MS Office file formats very reliably. Pages and Numbers are available in the app store and can also read and write Office files very reliably. I am able to get Office 2011 for ten bucks from the home use program at my job. To me that's 10 bucks too much.

Just don't make the mistake of turning in a paper in pages or open office format. Make sure you save it as doc or docx and you should be able to get through school fine without Office. There is one caveat. Some instructors produce material that is unreadable or partially readable outside of office. Hopefully you don't have one of those instructors but even if you do you can always ask them to re-send it as a pdf.

Office sometimes exports pdfs that are unreadable on OS X and iOS but fortunately adobe reader is free and can read those pdf files produced by Office that can't be opened in Preview.
 
School is your best bet

Def check with your school, I recall being able to get a downloadable copy for like $40, but I think that price depends upon the size (number of volume licenses) of your college. For a student's use this is a no-brainer, other folks will hate you if you try to use open office for a group project, particularly with document covering multiple versions and tracked changes. It simply does not work well, and you can never trust that the versions are completely accuracy. The headache inducing compatibility issues are not worth it.
 
Def check with your school, I recall being able to get a downloadable copy for like $40, but I think that price depends upon the size (number of volume licenses) of your college. For a student's use this is a no-brainer, other folks will hate you if you try to use open office for a group project, particularly with document covering multiple versions and tracked changes. It simply does not work well, and you can never trust that the versions are completely accuracy. The headache inducing compatibility issues are not worth it.

I must admit this can be an issue. I've done alright in grad school using a Mac without Office, but I also have access to my work-issued windows pc so perhaps I've been able to "cheat" a bit.
 
I recommend that you try to get the Mac Home & Student version; the educational discount is pretty good, and your own school might offer an even better value discount.
 
Amazon, Apple Education Store or through school/college is normally the best pricing.
 
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