Best way to install Office 2013 on Mac?

[Katamari12]

Hi everyone, I'm about to receive my Retina iMac next week and I want to use Office 2013 on it (it's my first Mac). Office 2011 for Mac is not an option for me (I've been using it at work and personally I think it's inferior to the Windows version) so I've been looking for other options.

So far I came across
- Bootcamp
- Winebottler
- Paralles
(I own a copy of Windows 8.1)

Since Bootcamp would require a restart everytime I'd use Office and a seperate partition (my SSD is only 256 GB) I tend towards Parallels or Winebottler.

Does someone have experience with these two in combination with Office? Which one works better? How is the performance? And will Office 2013 support Retina resolution?

Thanks!

 

[Roller]

I use VMware Fusion (another VM like Parallels) to run Windows versions of Office. But the the only time I have to use it is when I want to make sure that PowerPoint presentations run after I've created them in Mac Office. I routinely work on Word and Excel docs on the Mac side w/o problems.

 

[rkaufmann87]

To be honest it is not inferior however the UI is slightly different. You will find the same features, you just need to learn it.

Installing MS Windows on a new Mac for only running Office is actually kind of foolish and a waste of money and resources. Most people that do so eventually come to the same conclusion. IMHO, take the time to learn Office for Mac and you should be rewarded.

 

[Katamari12]

I use VMware Fusion (another VM like Parallels) to run Windows versions of Office. But the the only time I have to use it is when I want to make sure that PowerPoint presentations run after I've created them in Mac Office. I routinely work on Word and Excel docs on the Mac side w/o problems.

Thanks for the info. Are there huge performance differences between PowerPoint for Mac and running PowerPoint for Windows in a VM?

To be honest it is not inferior however the UI is slightly different. You will find the same features, you just need to learn it.

Installing MS Windows on a new Mac for only running Office is actually kind of foolish and a waste of money and resources. Most people that do so eventually come to the same conclusion. IMHO, take the time to learn Office for Mac and you should be rewarded.

The main issues I'm having with Office for Mac is the lack of *.pdf and *.odt support (open + edit) in Word, the fact that *.ppt-presentations and *.docx-documents sometimes look a bit different when opened on a Windows PC and the design/UI in general.

 

[yjchua95]

Thanks for the info. Are there huge performance differences between PowerPoint for Mac and running PowerPoint for Windows in a VM?

Office 2011 for OS X is pretty half-baked in my opinion.

Running Office 2013 in VMware feels smoother actually.

Parallels wil offer better graphics support, but since I use vSphere and other VMware services, I purchased Fusion to stay within the VMware ecosystem. Besides, it still gets the job done.

 

[jdphoto]

If you have a copy of Windows, I'd use Virtualbox. It is what I use at work to virtualize Windows and it has worked out very well. You can set up a shared folder that both the Windows and Mac machines can see so you have them available for both systems.

https://www.virtualbox.org

 

[Frozone9]

I am using Office for Mac. And apart thats not as fast as real MacOS Programs it works fine.
I have a VM with office as well, but always use Mac Office.

If You do some more stuff in windows then you can install bootcamp and use this installation as well with VMWare Fusion in Mac OS. (I don't know parallels but for sure can do this as well)

 

[Roller]

Thanks for the info. Are there huge performance differences between PowerPoint for Mac and running PowerPoint for Windows in a VM?

The user interfaces are different, but either will let you create decent presentations. As I said, I only use the Windows version running in Fusion to test slideshows that will be run on a Windows machine. The downside of routinely using Windows on a Mac is that you have to keep up with housekeeping (anti-malware, etc.) on a second OS.

 

[jji7skyline]

Use Virtualbox. It is free and works perfectly. It even has a 'Seamless' mode that makes the windows in Windows float around the desktop just like a regular Mac window by making the desktop background transparent.

 

[funmugs]

Use Virtualbox. It is free and works perfectly. It even has a 'Seamless' mode that makes the windows in Windows float around the desktop just like a regular Mac window by making the desktop background transparent.

Another vote for Virtualbox....enjoy it's low overhead. I deleted Parallels a few months back once I found it.

 

[Katamari12]

Thanks for the tips everyone. I've looked for some Virtualbox tests and apparently it's 40% slower than Parallels when used for Office Applications (http://www.tekrevue.com/parallels-10-fusion-7-virtualbox-benchmark/6/) but since it's free I think I'll try that first and perhaps the performance differences aren't that large in my personal use.