Just a quick question, for those who use Microsoft Office on OS X, is it worth the money? Obviously, Microsoft holds a significant hold in the market of productivity software and I am wondering if it's worthwhile to purchase the product or if there is an OS X alternative (aside from AppleWorks, which doesn't exactly fit my needs) I have yet to discover?
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Office for OS X
- Thread starter baummer
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baummer said:
Microsoft Office is the best office suite out there. If you regularly exchange files with Windows users, you have to have it. If you don't, well, if it's worth the money or not depends on which of the programs in office you mostly use. While there's a number of word processing applications for the Mac and Keynote can replace PowerPoint, there's nothing that could match Excel. There's also OpenOffice which is a good office suite, but it's Mac port requires X11 which isn't really convenient IMO.
If you're in serious need for a office product you should probably get MS Office. The 2004 version is very nice IMHO. OpenOffice is horrible to use on Mac because it needs X11, although you might want to try out NeoOffice, which is a port of OpenOffice to Cocoa/Java that runs on Mac without X. They just released a new beta of it:baummer said:
http://www.neooffice.org/
I just want to chime in that Office 2004 on the Mac is pretty much the nicest office experience I've ever had. I really like it, and I think many of the feature additions are very thoughtful. I haven't tried Office 2003 on the PC, but going from Office 97 to Office XP or .X, I didn't think they really added any useful features, so I was very pleasantly surprised by 2004.
Anyone use (slightly-OT) 2003 on PCs? How does it compare? I've heard that at least some of the thoughtful new features are in there too....
Anyone use (slightly-OT) 2003 on PCs? How does it compare? I've heard that at least some of the thoughtful new features are in there too....
Office is and it isn't worth the money.
For most tasks you can get by without it, but any time you need to interoperate with a peecee user you'll NEED to have it. Pages (from iWork) is a good program for importing and exporting Word documents, but there are still issues with it and it's not ready for the big time, but by version 2 it might. Excel on the other hand is a little harder to replace, I've yet to find another decent spreadsheet program. Basically, if you're going to do your own thing on your own machine and not need to deal with colaborative work, then you can get by without Office, but thats a big if.
On the other hand, Office 2004 is by FAR the best version of Office that I've ever used (on either platform). That being said, I havn't upgraded my personal machines from v.X yet, because the price is just insanely high for the amount of use that I get out of it. Look into getting a "cheap" copy somewhere, the full retail price just doesn't feel worth it. Check with your school, mine (University of Michigan) used to have a deal where you could get a two computer license for $30-40.
For most tasks you can get by without it, but any time you need to interoperate with a peecee user you'll NEED to have it. Pages (from iWork) is a good program for importing and exporting Word documents, but there are still issues with it and it's not ready for the big time, but by version 2 it might. Excel on the other hand is a little harder to replace, I've yet to find another decent spreadsheet program. Basically, if you're going to do your own thing on your own machine and not need to deal with colaborative work, then you can get by without Office, but thats a big if.
On the other hand, Office 2004 is by FAR the best version of Office that I've ever used (on either platform). That being said, I havn't upgraded my personal machines from v.X yet, because the price is just insanely high for the amount of use that I get out of it. Look into getting a "cheap" copy somewhere, the full retail price just doesn't feel worth it. Check with your school, mine (University of Michigan) used to have a deal where you could get a two computer license for $30-40.
How about Office 2004 on Tiger ... any issues?
I got Office 2004 for Mac a couple of weeks ago. I didn't install it on Panther because I was waiting for Tiger to be released. I still haven't installed Tiger because there are compatibilty issues with Tiger and Final Cut Pro.
I just wanted to know if people are running into problems with Office 2004 on Tiger.
Thanks & Regards
I got Office 2004 for Mac a couple of weeks ago. I didn't install it on Panther because I was waiting for Tiger to be released. I still haven't installed Tiger because there are compatibilty issues with Tiger and Final Cut Pro.
I just wanted to know if people are running into problems with Office 2004 on Tiger.
Thanks & Regards
amac4me said:
There doesn't seem to be a consensus opinion. I and several others run Office 04 on Tiger without any trouble...Others are not so lucky.
MS Office Review in MacWorld
Here's a thread where someone was asking about MS Office on Mac. I made the 4th post that points to MacWorld's review on Office for Mac. It's better than the Windowz version!
It's been great on my iBook, and it fulfills all my needs. I even use Entourage as my email, contact dbase, and calendar.
Here's a thread where someone was asking about MS Office on Mac. I made the 4th post that points to MacWorld's review on Office for Mac. It's better than the Windowz version!
It's been great on my iBook, and it fulfills all my needs. I even use Entourage as my email, contact dbase, and calendar.
