You're yet another person who recommends PDF for sending docs to profs. I'm guessing this means most of them don't mind this?
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You're yet another person who recommends PDF for sending docs to profs. I'm guessing this means most of them don't mind this?
I regularly have to write reports, scientific research journal articles, grants, etc and in a highly collaborative environment at grad school. I find Neooffice kludgy for word processing. Recently, I was recommended by a mac guy for using Mellel, which seems quite good for writing thesis, research articles, etc. But again transparent compatibility is a problem. I had used MS office (windows version) extensively until three years ago when I switched to macs 
) very happy man with it). Since then Office:mac and now occassionally new windows office. I must say as much as I want to get rid of any MS thingy, I can't find a suitable replacement. And this is just Word. If you plan to use research presentations and have to give a copy of slides to your professors like me (so that they can use your hard work in their own presentations), then forget about using keynote or anything else. Even Office:mac will stand in the way of compatibility for some ppt files. Shadows won't come good. TIFF embedded objects (if copied from clipboard) simply dont show up on windows powerpoint. Many fonts get replaced with ridiculous ones on opening in windows office. And I have heard too many complaints from other team people. After much hit and trial, I have now become more consistent in knowing what embedded figure formats, fonts, etc work on both mac and windows. Spreatsheets: for most casual use, both neooffice and excel are fine. Mail clients: I like entourage slightly more than thunderbird (even though I prefer search functionality of latter), because it allows easy incorporation of projects and liking email to them and calendar, etc.
For most functionality that you require, I guess Office 2007 (or 2008??) will be no different from current office on mac. Current windows office is much better than previous versions. In macworld demos, I saw new office:mac will still retain the ribbon (that I find extremely useful, even better than ribbon on current windows version) and except new file formats and few other goodies, esp in powerpoint, its not remarkably different (I guess most of the time that they have taken so far is for making an intel native version).
As another forum member suggested, I too resort to providing pdf copies where editing is not required by anyone else. This is actually a safer method to disseminate your work like your cv, reports, etc. Even ppt files can be converted to pdf format (although you loose animation).
If your priorities are to write just reports, I guess neooffice may be just fine. But if research papers, grants, thesis work and ppt presentations are required, then Office:mac, a referencing program (like Endnote, Bibdesk), and a pdf organizer like Papers (if you tend to collect too many journal articles in pdf) is definite must. Papers is just pure ecstasy. I love this application, just like iTunes. I guess once I will establish my own group, I will not allow any windows machine. Then I will be very happy shifting to other programs like Mellel, keynote, etc and get rid of MS forever! or so!!
) very happy man with it). Since then Office:mac and now occassionally new windows office. I must say as much as I want to get rid of any MS thingy, I can't find a suitable replacement. And this is just Word. If you plan to use research presentations and have to give a copy of slides to your professors like me (so that they can use your hard work in their own presentations), then forget about using keynote or anything else. Even Office:mac will stand in the way of compatibility for some ppt files. Shadows won't come good. TIFF embedded objects (if copied from clipboard) simply dont show up on windows powerpoint. Many fonts get replaced with ridiculous ones on opening in windows office. And I have heard too many complaints from other team people. After much hit and trial, I have now become more consistent in knowing what embedded figure formats, fonts, etc work on both mac and windows. Spreatsheets: for most casual use, both neooffice and excel are fine. Mail clients: I like entourage slightly more than thunderbird (even though I prefer search functionality of latter), because it allows easy incorporation of projects and liking email to them and calendar, etc.For most functionality that you require, I guess Office 2007 (or 2008??) will be no different from current office on mac. Current windows office is much better than previous versions. In macworld demos, I saw new office:mac will still retain the ribbon (that I find extremely useful, even better than ribbon on current windows version) and except new file formats and few other goodies, esp in powerpoint, its not remarkably different (I guess most of the time that they have taken so far is for making an intel native version).
As another forum member suggested, I too resort to providing pdf copies where editing is not required by anyone else. This is actually a safer method to disseminate your work like your cv, reports, etc. Even ppt files can be converted to pdf format (although you loose animation).
If your priorities are to write just reports, I guess neooffice may be just fine. But if research papers, grants, thesis work and ppt presentations are required, then Office:mac, a referencing program (like Endnote, Bibdesk), and a pdf organizer like Papers (if you tend to collect too many journal articles in pdf) is definite must. Papers is just pure ecstasy. I love this application, just like iTunes. I guess once I will establish my own group, I will not allow any windows machine. Then I will be very happy shifting to other programs like Mellel, keynote, etc and get rid of MS forever! or so!!