Office 2008

I have been using a MBP since Jan 09 excellent machine, while discussing MacBook with a PC user who's daughter is purchasing a MBP I informed him that I did not have windows installed in my MBP as I did not wish to install virus checkers etc. I suggested that all she would need was possibly Office 2008 for Uni.

When she went to the Apple shop in Manchester the assistant there informed her that she would be better off with iWorks as using Office 2008 would expose her to viruses.

I understand that many (possibly correctly) would prefer iWorks to Office but is this exposure to virus correct or is this a case of an assistant who does not know what they are talking about.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

L

A case of an assistant who doesn't know what he's talking about.

First of all, there are no viruses in the wild that can attack OS X. And since macros can not run in Office 2008, that also eliminates a malicious macro attack.

Regards.

chscag said:

A case of an assistant who doesn't know what he's talking about.

First of all, there are no viruses in the wild that can attack OS X. And since macros can not run in Office 2008, that also eliminates a malicious macro attack.

Regards.

Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing. Plus...if it was possible to create a virus that could infect Office 2008 for the Mac..then there's no reason to believe that a virus couldn't be written for iWork as well!

So I would figure both programs are basically equally secure or equally vulnerable.

- Nick

Lindsay stick with MS Office as some lecturers will refuse to accept work in anything but Office. She may well get the Home and Student version cheaper at Uni, or from the Uni Book Shop, if they have one. Make sure she updates to version 12.2.2, and also downloads the latest version of Open XML File Converter, version 1.1.1.

Also show her how to set the preferences to save documents in the Windows 2007 format .doc and not the default .docx

Along with harryb's suggestions, another great one to have is the 'save as pdf'. This one works great especially for saving a single sheet of an excel workbook for e-mailing.

You can grab those downloads here.