I'm moving from a G5 with CS2 and Office 2004 to a MBP with Lion and CS5. I'm balking at upgrading Office and wondering if there's another realistic option. I still need to read Office documents and create presentations every so often (Keynote?). Just don't want to spend the money on something I rarely use.
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Do I Really Need Word Anymore?
- Thread starter hikinedd
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I have not had MS Office since February 2008.
Try LibreOffice, which has same basic components as MS Office. A few things wont exchange identically, but it has worked for me. And it is free.
Try LibreOffice, which has same basic components as MS Office. A few things wont exchange identically, but it has worked for me. And it is free.
I have not had MS Office since February 2008.
Try LibreOffice, which has same basic components as MS Office. A few things wont exchange identically, but it has worked for me. And it is free.
I Agree completely. I love LibreOffice. Plus, it has a built in PDF editor/converter and a database application which neither iWork or MS Office comes with unless you want to spend a lot of money on it.
Thanks, all. Worst case, I pop for MS Office. I'll try LibreOffice first; nothing to lose. I've heard iWork documents don't always translate well.
It depends on what you are doing.
If the documents you create don't need to be shared with Word... that is they go straight to print, PDF, or for your own internal use then I would say you just need Pages. It will allow you to read Word documents, and occasionally to edit or create a Word document. It won't always look the same... but it will be close enough for most uses. Keep in mind that a Word document can change it's formatting when being shared among Word users, if the version of Word they are using is different. And printing word processing document (Pages, or Word) can change the formatting if the printers used by two different people handle printing codes differently enough.
For a bit more Word compatibility there are some Word Clones. I use NeoOffice, and others recommend OpenOffice (or whatever it's called now - LibreOffice?).
You could always start with Pages and Keynote, and see if your workflow can cope with the Word limitations. You can always upgrade later, especially if you find a sale on Office somewhere.
Luck.
If the documents you create don't need to be shared with Word... that is they go straight to print, PDF, or for your own internal use then I would say you just need Pages. It will allow you to read Word documents, and occasionally to edit or create a Word document. It won't always look the same... but it will be close enough for most uses. Keep in mind that a Word document can change it's formatting when being shared among Word users, if the version of Word they are using is different. And printing word processing document (Pages, or Word) can change the formatting if the printers used by two different people handle printing codes differently enough.
For a bit more Word compatibility there are some Word Clones. I use NeoOffice, and others recommend OpenOffice (or whatever it's called now - LibreOffice?).
You could always start with Pages and Keynote, and see if your workflow can cope with the Word limitations. You can always upgrade later, especially if you find a sale on Office somewhere.
Luck.
FYI, you may qualify for discounted microsoft products through their home use program. e.g. I can get Office 2011 for Mac for 11 bucks there.
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