Office for Mac or Office 2003 via Parallels?

denise0730 · Jul 29, 2008

I'm in the midst of the switch from PC to a MacBook Pro. I have to run some Windows-only software so I purchased Parallels. I also purchased iWorks and have been getting used to Pages. However, as a university professor who has worked for years on Word, I'm having the most difficulty switching to Pages. So now, with the fall semester on the horizon--and lots of word processing in my future--I'm considering whether to buy Office for Mac or to load my old version of Office 2003 on the Windows side of my machine.

On the one hand it doesn't make a lot of sense to load 2003 on my Mac. Why put a Windows product on an Apple? But I do own it and doing so would save $$.

On the other hand Office for Mac would allow me to operate pretty mcuh full time on the Mac side of my machine. One additional question I have is should I buy the full version or the Home/Student version? Primarily I do lots of fairly complicated word processing--I'm a historian. Looking at the specs it doesn't seem as though there are any differences between the full version and the Home/Student version, but there may be differences not apparent from the chart shown on the Apple store website. However, one drawback of the Home/Student version is that it is not upgradable--or so it seems from the specs page.

Any advice or comments would be most appreciated.

Thanks!

reast · Jul 29, 2008

denise0730 said:
I'm in the midst of the switch from PC to a MacBook Pro. I have to run some Windows-only software so I purchased Parallels. I also purchased iWorks and have been getting used to Pages. However, as a university professor who has worked for years on Word, I'm having the most difficulty switching to Pages. So now, with the fall semester on the horizon--and lots of word processing in my future--I'm considering whether to buy Office for Mac or to load my old version of Office 2003 on the Windows side of my machine.

On the one hand it doesn't make a lot of sense to load 2003 on my Mac. Why put a Windows product on an Apple? But I do own it and doing so would save $$.

On the other hand Office for Mac would allow me to operate pretty mcuh full time on the Mac side of my machine. One additional question I have is should I buy the full version or the Home/Student version? Primarily I do lots of fairly complicated word processing--I'm a historian. Looking at the specs it doesn't seem as though there are any differences between the full version and the Home/Student version, but there may be differences not apparent from the chart shown on the Apple store website. However, one drawback of the Home/Student version is that it is not upgradable--or so it seems from the specs page.

Any advice or comments would be most appreciated.

Thanks!

I ended up purchasing the mac version. I think it really depends on your preference. If you like the new windows office "ribbon" and have already purchased it, I would just run it in Parallels. It works fine and you can run it in coherence mode so it looks like a mac app.

jroller · Jul 29, 2008

There is no reason to purchase a new version (unless you simply want it or you are working in an environment that demands it). For simple word processing, I'm not sure there has been a compelling reason to upgrade in quite a long time.

I would encourage you to continue becoming familiar with Pages. I have gotten to the point where I simply do not use (or even want to use) Word anymore. I have Office for the rare case where I need it, usually because someone sent me something that doesn't translate perfectly into Pages. The more you work with Pages the less you will feel compelled to return to Word.

Finally, a reminder that in addition to Parallels, you have to have a copy of Windows to install as well. Parallels is not a Windows replacement, but rather an enabler, if you will.

technologist · Jul 29, 2008

If you're having trouble adjusting to iWork, you might well have trouble adjusting to the latest Mac version of Office, as well. While Office 2003 (Windows) and Office 2004 (Mac) are pretty similar in terms of toolbar and menu layout, the gap between those two and 2008 (Mac) and/or 2007 (Win) is much larger.

(For that matter, the gap between Office 2007 on Windows and everything else is pretty big, too.)

So that raises the question of how much change you want to undertake at once.

And no, there are no differences between the Home/Student version and the other versions when it comes to Word.

Office for Mac or Office 2003 via Parallels?

denise0730

reast

jroller

technologist

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