Office 2007 Ultimate on Parallels or 2008 on OS X?

[fruitpunch.ben]

I will be soon taking stock of my i7 iMac and so will want to upgrade from current Office 2004 to something Intel native.
I've been thinking I'll skip Office 2008 for now and give iWork or OpenOffice a try.
But Microsoft currently has a deal for students where I can buy Office 2007 Ultimate for Windows for $64 which is a really great deal.
What do you think? Will it work well running Office 2007 in Parallels on my 27" i7 (it will have 8GB RAM) or am I better with Office 2008 Student and Teacher for Mac?

 

[Koodauw]

I too am interested in the results as well. It seems to me that office 2007 runs better than its Mac counterpart. (from my limited experience)

 

[akbc]

I stopped using OpenOffice a while ago, so I can't really comment on their new versions..

But, if you're sharing your work with others, and formatting is important, office 2007 on Windows is the only way to go...
Office 2008:mac is pretty okay after installing the SP1 and SP2, but the format is still off from the windows version and the mac version sometimes.
iWork isn't really a choice if you're sharing your work with others.

on my uMBP, I have iWork '09, Office 2008 and I run Windows 2007 on my VMware only IF i have it open...(the vmware)
And for docs that i must share with others, I often use the office 2008 or iWork '09 with saving to PDF option.
If it's a work I don't need to share, I find myself using iWork '09 more often.

But ultimately, I still think office 2007 for windows is the superior one among the three. So i think you should stick with that.
Specially since you can run it with CrossOver for mac... the office 2007 suite. I haven't tried it myself, but it has a "gold" rating.. so it must be working well

 

[ayeying]

I have both for Mac and Windows. I personally prefer Word for OSX, it seems easier then the Windows counterpart, dunno why. For all other programs like Excel and Powerpoint, the Windows side seems better for me.

 

[phatlipboardz]

I have Office 2007 for Windows and Office 2008 for Mac.

I use Office daily and I can say hands down (for my needs), I like using the Mac version. It just seems more streamlined and I haven't had any issues with formatting.

I tried iWork for 30 days and unfortunately I ran into some formatting issues with Windows/Office users.

I have a VM with Win 7 on it, for "emergencies." Not that I'm against Windows, but I just like and benefit from OS X more. Since I got the updated Quickbooks 2010 for Mac, I haven't even turned on my VM as this was the last reason to access it on a daily basis.

 

[King Mook Mook]

Hi,
Well about a year ago I had the exact same dilemma you did; Whether to use Office 2007 through CrossOver or Mac Office 2008.

I choose Office 2007 because (although it may be just me) I vastly prefer the Office 2007 interface to the Mac 2008 interface. I find it way more useful and certainly easier to use, and it is much more 'logically' set up than the half-baked Mac 2008 interface. When I run it through CrossOver I find that it works really well, it is very quick and responsive (this is on a UMBP 17") and I can print all of my documents fine through the CUPS setup that CrossOver installs for you.

However if you prefer the Mac 2008 interface than I would go with that because apart from the interface I can see no other reason to go with Office 2007 rather than Mac 2008.

Hope this helps,
King Mook Mook

 

[Bbusyb]

I actually use both as I have Office 2007 Ultimate on Win7 on my Bootcamp Partion as well as Office 2008 installed.

I originally went just with Office 2007 as I wanted Outlook as I need it for Work related purposes, and felt that I could probably get away with using iWor fro small stuff for when I didn't want to boot VMware.

What I found was that for what I was doing it made sense to get Office 2008 (With a student price of £37($55) it was pretty cheap) as while not as full featured as office 2007, It will do 90% of what I need nativly meaning that I don't need to have a VM running, which affects performance. I really Wanted it mainly for Excel, as I find Numbers in iWork too limiting.

Do keep in Mind that if you want to use an email client, Outlook is a much superior product and office 2007 comes with a few additional programs like Onenote which I really love using.

As you are planning to use it on a iMac, you'll probably not run into as much performance Issues as I do running it on a 13"macbook so you should be fine running it under Parallels. If however you like a More "Mac" like experience, consider going for Office 2008 for Mac as the GUI is quiet Apple like and as such shortcuts and operations should be familiar to a longtime Mac user.

 

[9822737]

Try Neo Office also.

 

[fruitpunch.ben]

I actually use both as I have Office 2007 Ultimate on Win7 on my Bootcamp Partion as well as Office 2008 installed.

I originally went just with Office 2007 as I wanted Outlook as I need it for Work related purposes, and felt that I could probably get away with using iWor fro small stuff for when I didn't want to boot VMware.

What I found was that for what I was doing it made sense to get Office 2008 (With a student price of £37($55) it was pretty cheap) as while not as full featured as office 2007, It will do 90% of what I need nativly meaning that I don't need to have a VM running, which affects performance. I really Wanted it mainly for Excel, as I find Numbers in iWork too limiting.

Do keep in Mind that if you want to use an email client, Outlook is a much superior product and office 2007 comes with a few additional programs like Onenote which I really love using.

As you are planning to use it on a iMac, you'll probably not run into as much performance Issues as I do running it on a 13"macbook so you should be fine running it under Parallels. If however you like a More "Mac" like experience, consider going for Office 2008 for Mac as the GUI is quiet Apple like and as such shortcuts and operations should be familiar to a longtime Mac user.

I have not been able to locate a similar student discount program here in Canada, the cheapest I have found it is for $149, so the $64 for office 2007 for Windows is much better value for money! Thats the main reason I have atm for leaning to the Windows version

 

[Hal1980]

I prefer the OSX formatting, but excel is inoperable for me in Office for Mac 2008 because there is no VBA support. To most users this won't matter, but for those who need to do intense excel work and programming, the lack of VBA is fatal.

Really was a mistake to drop it in 2008 as VBA is pretty much an absolute must for anyone working in financial simulations and valuations. Can't wait for the Office for Mac 2010/11 which is supposed to return support.

 

[Bbusyb]

I have not been able to locate a similar student discount program here in Canada, the cheapest I have found it is for $149, so the $64 for office 2007 for Windows is much better value for money! Thats the main reason I have atm for leaning to the Windows version

Well I got it from a Reseller (Software4Students.co.uk), Not directly from Microsoft , so that could be part of the reason.

It might be worth it checking with your institution directly, as University's often offer dirt cheap prices if you buy through them, but which may not be listed online.

 

[thegoldenmackid]

I use Keynote, Excel, Pages and Word. The combination suits my needs. Virtualization seems excessive. OpenOffice is def. a solution, but I got Office at a huge student discount, paying $300 for it would seem excessive.

 

[zbasarab]

i would get microsoft office for mac, but i woudnt pay 4 it...if you catch my drift >)