If you are brand new to owning a Mac, might suggest waiting a couple of months to find out if you will continue even using Windows or not. Many people put Windows on their machines to start out with and find they really don't have a need for it.
Or you can try Open Office first - it's free, and see if that will work well enough for you.
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If you are running fusion, Office works just fine inside the Mac. Office 8 is now out for the Mac. There is no Office 8 for Windows.
Just one caveat - don't assume that because the Mac version is newer, that it has more features. In fact, the Mac version of MS Office is missing VB support, which can create problems with macro-enabled spreadsheets and other documents.
In my opinion, your best bet would be to try OpenOffice.org 3.0. In many respects it is easier to use and more functional than MS Office for Mac and highly compatible with MS Office documents. It's completely free, so give it a try and see if you like it before you plunk down any of your hard earned cash on an inferior Microsoft product.
StarOffice 9 Writer Word processing with support for tables, notes, table of contents, diagrams, and indexes, compatible with Microsoft Word.
StarOffice 9 Calc Spreadsheet functionality with new chart engine, Data Pilot (pivot tables), Solver (new in v9), filters, and compatible with Microsoft Excel. Also has capability to convert some Excel macros instantly. Version 9 also adds workgroup collaboration.
StarOffice 9 Impress Presentation tool with dozens of animation effects, Flash export and support for CustomShapes (called AutoShapes in Microsoft Office). Version 9 adds a presenter console to give more control over slide shows and native table capability (no more coping and pasting tables from a spreadsheet). Compatible with Microsoft Powerpoint
StarOffice 9 Draw Easy-to-create organizational charts, network diagrams, floor plans and sketches, and lots more.
StarOffice 9 Base Easily create "self-contained" database documents with all relevant data, table definitions, reports, and forms. New in v9 is a report builder for easy and fast creation of reports.
StarOffice 9 Extensions PDF Import, Weblog Publisher (blogger), Presenter Console, Report Builder, Mediawiki Publisher, Presentation Minimizer, eFax for StarOffice
I'm runing MS Office 2007 blue edition and it works fine, allthought it was never designed to do so, so I guess you shouldn't have any problems runing whichever Office you want.
