[fleurya]

I'm assuming your school has microsoft license agreements which allow you to buy their programs for peanuts. If that's the case and I really don't want to try Office '08, you can buy and install Windows and Office '07 to run on your Mac. That's what I've done. I have Office '04, but the converter for '07 docs sometimes doesn't work well or not at all.

Personally, I'm going to get '08 as soon as it's available on my campus under the license agreement (next week). I've heard from reliable people on this forum that it works quite well, some of the new features look really good, and for $5-10 it's not a huge commitment if it doesn't work out well. If you have such a license agreement also, it may be worth it just to try it out. Also, it's probably loaded on the Macs in Apple stores if you have one nearby. I don't know why MS didn't offer a trial version this time.

BTW, you have to take those reviews on Apple's site with a grain of salt. Apple has a lot of insane fanboys out there who love to do nothing but bash on MS and defend Apple's own products like iWork. I can imagine plenty of people out there who would write bad review and have never even tried the apps before. All I'm saying is, check other reviews on more neutral sites before passing judgement. As I said, people on this forum, who's opinions I have come to respect, have said it's not bad at all. If you can find MAc people giving it the thumbs up, it can't be all bad.