I just need microsoft word!

tada said:

When checking Office 365/Word 2016 I got the impression that this version could convert a pdf-file to a docx- file. Is this correct?

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No. Word cannot convert a PDF file back into an editable Word format word processing document. No word processor can do this.

tada said:

Having enjoyed the Word for Mac 2011 program for years, and needing only fairly simple editing, I am not tempted to invest in Office 365 yet. This thread seems to indicate that there should be no need to buy Office 365. Comments?

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If you are asking if there are any "must-have" features in Word 2016 (from Office 365) beyond what Word 2011 offers, then the answer is no. Word 2011 continues to work fine under Sierra and High Sierra. There may be new features in Word 2016 that you *want*. But only you can determine that.

https://products.office.com/en-us/mac/latest-office-for-mac

Note that when Apple releases MacOS 10.14 "Mojave", the rumor is that it will only run 64-bit apps. If that is the case, and you upgrade to Mojave, you will also need to upgrade Office/Word to the latest version for it to run.

tada said:

Any recommendation for a free pdf to Word 2011 converter?

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The PDF format wasn't designed to be editable or convertible back to the format of the originating document. There are ways to do it, but you are likely to find that some of them aren't satisfactory, especially some of the free ones.

If a PDF was created directly from a Word document, it's fairly easy to copy the text out of it using Preview or Acrobat Reader, and paste that text into a new word processing document. But just about all formatting will be lost and you will have to manually recreate it. There are conversion programs that will automate this, and they tend to be inexpensive, but they also don't recreate the original formatting.

If the PDF is of a graphic image of a text page (e.g. if it was a scanned-in image of a text document that was saved in PDF format), or if you want to save the original formatting of the document, only an OCR (optical character recognition) program will allow you to convert it back into a word processing document that is perfectly like the original. OCR recognizes text and formatting in the PDF, and re-creates it as a word processing document. There are free OCR programs, and even free Web sites that do OCR, but they are usually limited to a page or two, and don't do as good a job as a commercial OCR program.

Some options:

AnyBizSoft PDF To Word (free)
http://www.anypdftools.com/pdf-to-word-for-mac.html

PDFConverterOCR
http://www.cisdem.com/pdf-converter-ocr-mac.html

PDF OCR (free/$30)
http://solutions.weblite.ca/pdfocrx/

PDF2Office (Personal/Pro $59/$129)
http://www.recosoft.com/company/press/news12052003.htm
http://www.recosoft.com/products/pdf2office/index.htm

TextLightning $35
http://www.metaobject.com/Products/

Free PDF converter online at
http://www.freepdfconvert.com
http://www.pdftoword.com

Free OCR Web sites:
https://www.finereaderonline.com/en-us
http://www.onlineocr.net/
https://www.ocrgeek.com/
http://www.free-online-ocr.com/
http://www.newocr.com/

Of course, you can use any commercial OCR program to do a perfect job, but I don't think that you will be happy about the price. e.g.:

ABBYY FineReader Pro $120
http://finereader.abbyy.com/pro_for_mac/

It looks like Mojave will support 32-bit apps but will be the last macOS that does. See here.

Note that when Apple releases MacOS 10.14 "Mojave", the rumor is that it will only run 64-bit apps. If that is the case, and you upgrade to Mojave, you will also need to upgrade Office/Word to the latest version for it to run.

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Apple has already announced that Mojave will be the last version of macOS to accept and run 32 bit apps. It appears that Office 2011 will be alive and well throughout 2018 and most of 2019.

OP: As advised above, stick with Office 2011 but shop around for the best price.

I'm going contrarian here. I would recommend signing up for Office365 subscription model for the one-user license. Cost is about US$7 for one month. No contract. You can then try what you want and if it doesn't work, just cancel the subscription. Total investment? $7.

@Jake:

Great suggestion! Even I can afford $7.00. ;P

Doesn't Pages export in Word format?

If so, his MB Air should have been supplied with that


Edit - try this

Pages does save in Word format as do such programs as LibreOffice and OpenOffice. Those programs work well for me because the documents I transfor have pretty bssic formatting. As the formatting becomes more complex and things like macros or complex tables are added to the mix some of these items do not aalways transfer well. It's also possible that the person on the other end gets the documnt on the other end and doesn't realize that Word will open the document.

Pages has come a long way since Apple shelved iWork09 some time back. Even though I now use Pages for the majority of my in house document work, I have to agree with my good friend from Bayu land that the conversion of Word docs is far from perfect.

Apple just recently (yesterday) issued updates for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. That is encouraging knowing that Apple intends to keep up development and improvement for those apps.

Apple just recently (yesterday) issued updates for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. That is encouraging knowing that Apple intends to keep up development and improvement for those apps.

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I guess that's a good thing even though the latest updates aren't exactly earth shattering: And the user is using at least macOS Sierra 10.12.x or later

What’s new in Pages for Mac
Learn about the latest updates for Pages for Mac 7.1.


Improved change tracking
Track text changes in shapes and text boxes.

Add page backgrounds
Add colors and images to backgrounds in page layout documents.

New chart options
Give charts a new look with rounded corners on columns and bars.

And more
Add mathematical equations to page layout documents using LaTeX or MathML notation. Learn more
Enhance your documents with a variety of new editable shapes.
Improved support for Arabic and Hebrew. Learn more
Get complete step-by-step instructions and information on all the features in Pages for Mac.

What's new in Pages for Mac 7.0 … … …

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https://support.apple.com/en-ca/ht207243




- Patrick
======

If you want to edit PDF files, you probably need Adobe Acrobat. Not sure if that is available for Mac?

This is very expensive iirc

Thanks to everyone for all the help. Got office from Amazon and it installed easily. thanks for all the assistance

177mph said:

Thanks to everyone for all the help. Got office from Amazon and it installed easily. thanks for all the assistance

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I don't use any recent MS Office version but I just got an email that included a notice for an update.

Microsoft Office 2016 16.14.1 18 Jun 2018
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/54686/microsoft-office-2016

I have no idea as to why it says $9 99.

Maybe read any recent comments there before updating, if even needed.




- Patrick
======

Does anyone have an opinion of Apache Open Office?

lapidkey said:

Does anyone have an opinion of Apache Open Office?

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You could read the few here of try using your question in a google search:
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/9602/openoffice





- Patrick
======

lapidkey said:

Does anyone have an opinion of Apache Open Office?

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It has always been a step or two behind the other two OpenOffice siblings: NeoOffice and LibreOffice. However, it is still a fine product, and since it's free you really don't need to ask our opinion about it. Download it and give it a try and see if it meets your needs. If it doesn't, just trash it. You've paid nothing and hurt nothing.

I think that you will find, if you do a comparison, that LibreOffice is a bit more polished, offers a few more features, and is a bit more stable. And it too is free.
http://www.libreoffice.org

More info at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org

Macintosh Word Processors
http://www.macattorney.com/wp.html