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Transfer PC MS Office to Mac (Bootcamp)

Pukey

Pukey

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 7, 2008
424
1
Gekkostate
I have searched the guides and forums, but couldn't find anything on exactly this subject. I have Microsoft Office 10 on my PC desktop running XP Home. I'm going to buy the full version of XP Home for Bootcamp. I'm wondering if it is possible to just transfer Office from my PC to XP on my Mac. If there is already a thread on this I would appreciate if someone could direct me to it.
Thanks.

EDIT: The Mac is a MBP.
 
Pukey said:
I have searched the guides and forums, but couldn't find anything on exactly this subject. I have Microsoft Office 10 on my PC desktop running XP Home. I'm going to buy the full version of XP Home for Bootcamp. I'm wondering if it is possible to just transfer Office from my PC to XP on my Mac. If there is already a thread on this I would appreciate if someone could direct me to it.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

You'd have to call Microsoft and beg them to let you transfer it. Because of activation, your copy of Office is locked to the hardware you installed it on (unless you have a volume license version), so automatic activation would most likely fail on your Mac and Office would go into "reduced functionality mode" in (I think) 30 days.
 
Not sure you can network XP Home to another PC though. The easiest solution would be to use a USB flash drive to transfer your information. I was thinking you want to just transfer the documents. I think you have to call M$ and have them "reset" your Office activation in order to transfer it.
 
DannySmurf said:
You'd have to call Microsoft and beg them to let you transfer it. Because of activation, your copy of Office is locked to the hardware you installed it on (unless you have a volume license version), so automatic activation would most likely fail on your Mac and Office would go into "reduced functionality mode" in (I think) 30 days.
Click to expand...

Thanks DannySmurf. That's good to know. They really ream you for everything eh? So now I have to buy not only a copy of XP for my Mac but now MS Office too! Sheesh! Maybe I'll just get iWork or stick with Google's document applications.
Thanks again for the info though.
 
Shabbis said:
Not sure you can network XP Home to another PC though. The easiest solution would be to use a USB flash drive to transfer your information. I was thinking you want to just transfer the documents. I think you have to call M$ and have them "reset" your Office activation in order to transfer it.
Click to expand...

Thanks Shabbis. I didn't think of that. Yeah, I have ALL my PC files on an external Western Digital Hard Drive. I'd like to be able to view my Word files on my Mac through Bootcamp. Guess I am gonna have to break down and buy BOTH XP Home and MS Office for it. Oy vey!
 
Actually does anyone know how well Office 10: Word, Excel and Power Point files work with iWork?
 
Just a caution (you may or may not care about this): be careful about the free office suites that advertise compatibility with MS Office as a selling point. Some of them do export files that Word (for example) will read, and with a .doc extension, but what they export is not actually a .doc file, but rather a rich text file with a .doc extension. Word will read this fine, but there may be subtle compatibility issues that could bite you later (for example, revision tracking won't work at all in these cases).

iWork, on the other hand (as far as I know), reads and writes actual MS Word .doc files. And, IMO, is a much better suite than the free ones that are available anyway.

Note, I know nothing about NeoOffice specifically, so I don't know what the behaviour is with that suite; this is just something I've noticed about other programs that advertise "Office compatibility."
 
Thanks DannySmurf. I'll hold off right now and think what would be my best option. iWork sounds like both the safest and cheapest as long as I can open any of my PC Word files on it and hopefully the PowerPoint files will open in Keynote.
 
Pukey said:
Thanks DannySmurf. I'll hold off right now and think what would be my best option. iWork sounds like both the safest and cheapest as long as I can open any of my PC Word files on it and hopefully the PowerPoint files will open in Keynote.
Click to expand...

I've been using iWork since it was released (I've also used OpenOffice and AbiWord and a few others). Even though iWork costs, I've found it definitely to be the best.
 
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