so going to college where it's required to have microsoft office 2007 pro installed and functioning on your also required laptop. the perk is through the school the download and installation is free, the drawback it's a pc download. when i asked the techy who does the installation how well he likes macs he drew a blank face and changed his story from not knowing if he could download it to he can. i personally am mac illiterate still but am terrified of handing over my baby to a man who seemingly has never worked with them before. luckily for me there is the option to install it yourself! not so lucky it's still a pc download only that i can access. do i dare hand over my laptop and let the man install it for me? or is there something i can do to download the program from the college's website and run it? please help! classes start june 1st and i can't get around the requirements!
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Microsoft Office 2007 Professional as a school requirement. is it possible on my mac?
- Thread starter mmblarg
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Well.. you can download VirtualBox and run some flavor of Windows in a virtual machine.
Short of that, you have Office 2008 for Mac and third party office suites like NeoOffice, but that won't help if you if there is actually a requirement for Office 2007 Pro
Short of that, you have Office 2008 for Mac and third party office suites like NeoOffice, but that won't help if you if there is actually a requirement for Office 2007 Pro
I'm sure you can buy MS office for Mac (I have). And you can get a student discount too. But, if you don't want to pay for it, I'd just let the man install it. If he breaks it I'm sure the college will pay for the damage 
I'm sure you can buy MS office for Mac (I have). And you can get a student discount too. But, if you don't want to pay for it, I'd just let the man install it. If he breaks it I'm sure the college will pay for the damage
Yeah, I would just go with the mac version out of simplicity, however if you are like me and occasionally need access to Microsoft Access or any other program not in the mac version, just boot camp it or use virtual box.
I have to use Microsoft Office Excel 2007 because i need plug-in support for things like solver and data analysis. I run windows xp/7 in VMWare Fusion 3 and have Microsoft Office 2007 installed. I usually run excel in unity mode and it works great. Runs just like a native application.
Lol Windows and Microsoft Office probably cost the same price
Yeah, you won't get no arguments there, but many of my business classes use Access and Excel. My university did offered a nice discount for Windows and Office so its not that bad.
Lol and iWork is only 50 bucks yet just as good
iWork might be good or even better than MS Office, but Office is just the standard office application in universities/colleges today.
MS Office Ultimate is $59 for students (some schools even have better deals, ask the IT department).
http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/theultimatesteal-us/default.aspx
Where can I get iWork for $50? I might wanna give it a try.
iWork might be good or even better than MS Office, but Office is just the standard office application in universities/colleges today.
MS Office Ultimate is $59 for students (some schools even have better deals, ask the IT department).
http://www.microsoft.com/student/discounts/theultimatesteal-us/default.aspx
Where can I get iWork for $50? I might wanna give it a try.
I got mine with my MacBook Pro when I purchased it for an extra $49.00. But I'm sure you can either buy it online or pick it up from any Apple store
Trust me, its WAY better than MS office. And guess what? It can also read MS stuff. So if a guy on his PC sends you a Word document, you can open it in Pages (the word processor in iWork). iWork is designed for Macs, so it runs better on em' too. Its got the Apple feel
If you really need MS Office (and it sounds like you do) just install WIndows via Bootcamp and handle your school stuff there. I'm doing the same. At home and for my private stuff I'm always booting OSX, at work I am in Windows on the same machine. There are no barriers between the partitions so in OSX you can easly grab/edit the files from your Windows partition and vice versa...
Lol and iWork is only 50 bucks yet just as good
Haha well until iWork has its own database software then my hands are tied. Although I once had a professor who told me no self respecting using access for their database needs. I believe him now that I work for a small business, nothing but SQL statements for me there.
chances are your school has an agreement with Microsoft so that means office 2008 for Mac will be available to download. Now if you need something like Access you are SOL and you will need to boot camp your computer.
office 2007 will not work on OSX. Office 2008 will work on OSX. See if your school has office 2008
office 2007 will not work on OSX. Office 2008 will work on OSX. See if your school has office 2008
Yes, but Office 2007 will work if you have the Mac version. Because I know some people that have Office 2006 installed on their Macs.
what are you smoking. There was no Microsoft office 2006. Just like there is no office 2007 for OSX.
You had Office XP (2001 I believe)
Office 2003 (XP)
Office 2004 (OSX)
Office 2007 (windows)
Office 2008 (OSX)
Office 2010 (Windows)
Lol and iWork is only 50 bucks yet just as good
crikey, how much mis-info. do you really want to spread?
Compared to serious productivity Office software, iWork is a complete and utter joke.
Open Office would be a better choice but it's nearly as bad but free.
Hmm, it must be the OSX2008 one. But the guy brought a MBP 3-4 yrs ago and he got Office with it. So, it coulda been Office 2004...
For most people iWork is great. It has so many cool features that Office doesn't have. I mean: http://www.apple.com/iwork/ The pics of it there look pretty good, don't they?
I can tell you a couple of things. Already people mentioned running Excel under virtual machine. I think that is currently the best way to go. Reason follows:
1> i have used all versions of office since Office 95, XP to 2007. there has been quite a few improvements in Excel particularly not so much IMO in Words, Power point etc. Eg, remove duplicate function, solver, sorting on multiple factors, multiple filter function etc. etc in Excel made my life a lot easier.
2> You can buy Office for Mac (but why would you when you'r getting the windows version free from your college) BUT remember the Mac Office 2008 is CRIPPLED meaning a lot of the new useful functions that I mentioned above are missing. I know because I had it installed by my institute on my MBP. And was sorely disappointed. I mean if I had paid good money to buy it I was surely going to return it or do something about it, MS DOES NOT mention the lack of functionality in the 2008 Office in Mac compared to Windows Office 2007.
3> I also purchased the iWork when I got my new machine when I learnt that it can read/write MS formats. What no-one told me is that every time you have to save a word file or any file in MS format from Pages/Numbers (iWork suite) the default option is Apple format (ofcourse) BUT there is no way of saving the file your are working on-the-fly as you go along in MS format. Every freaking time you will be saving it you will have to go through at least 3 clicks and hit enter. That sucks for anyone working on a paper/thesis or anything other than writing a short memo to you mother-in-law. WORKAROUND is do the entire project in apple format and finally export it in MS format, but anyone who has done anything collaborative knows what a pain that might be not to mention all the confusing manuscript version you will be creating along the way which if not firmly managed will drive you nuts.
4> For running Windows, I think if you have a fairly recent machine with 4GB RAM get VirtualBox from Sun (it is free, but you will need a licensed WinXP, which you will need anyway for any VM). Add your Mac home directory as a network drive that VM-WinXP can see and you won't have constantly copy paste files between mac and XP. (perhaps only when you will be running photoshop, illustrator, VirtualMachine, Mail, iCal and iTunes all at once you might need 8GB but who would do that?).
5> Download and install free softwares NTFS-3G and MacFUSE so that your mac will be able to read write on NTFS volumes. If using snow leaopard 10.6 then it is better as it has less compatibility issues.
Hope this helps you.
^^^
He is on the money there...
Right now, the best option for you is to either run Windows on a virtual machine or install it on a bootcamp partition...
In fact, if you install Win on bootcamp and use PD5 (even VMWare Fusion will do), you can run the same Windows instance in a virtual machine right within OSX...
IMO, it is not worth going through all the formatting differences in Office 2007, Office 2008, Open Office, iWork....Just stick to what the college is prescribing
He is on the money there...
Right now, the best option for you is to either run Windows on a virtual machine or install it on a bootcamp partition...
In fact, if you install Win on bootcamp and use PD5 (even VMWare Fusion will do), you can run the same Windows instance in a virtual machine right within OSX...
IMO, it is not worth going through all the formatting differences in Office 2007, Office 2008, Open Office, iWork....Just stick to what the college is prescribing