Office 2008...what else?

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Hi all. I'm new to this forum so if this is the wrong place to post this question, I beg apologies.

I'm a college student and I purchased my MacBook about 7 months ago. It didn't come with a word processor. As you can probably imagine, not having a word processor in college is killing me. I need one now...I needed one yesterday.:Grimmace: I was waiting for Office 2008 and was planning on buying it until I went to Apple's Website and read the customer reviews. Apparently Office 2008 is very glitchy. The worst thing for most people is that is wasn't worth the upgrade.

My question is, since I'm not upgrading (I have no word processor at all) what should I do? Just get 2008? Hunt down a copy of 2004 and use that instead? Or is there an alternative? Keep in mind, I am in college and professors like to email/post files for us students that were created in Word or Powerpoint. I need something that I can use to look at those files with. Any help?
 
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Neo Office is a mac port of Open Office

Its opens and saves Excel, word and powerpoint files, its actually very good software and if you use Office, you will be able to use NeoOffice in minutes.

Best thing is, you get a full Office suite for free, nada, zip

www.neooffice.org
 
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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.
 
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How about iWork. The trial version of iWork comes pre-installed.
 
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I'll check out the NeoOffice thing.

As far as Apple licensing, yes my school does have one. But it still costs around $80 to get Office 2008. If it were $5-10, then yeah, I would just try it.

About iWork, my computer didn't have a trial version pre-installed. If it did, it ran out after a certain amount of time. The first time I tried to use it I was directed immediately to the Website where I could buy it. So I have no idea what its like. I'm sure its ok. The problem is, would I be able to view files created in Word/Powerpoint with iWork? I dunno, I'm terribly ignorant about it.

Anyways, thanks for the feedback. More help is welcome. I will continue to check out opinions and see if I can find out more about 2008. Maybe those reviews on Apples Website really are bogus.
 
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I agree with fleurya, I have Office 2008 and it works great on my Mac. I personally found it to be a worthwhile upgrade from Office 2004, both in terms of features and the increase in speed.
 
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I'll check out the NeoOffice thing.

As far as Apple licensing, yes my school does have one. But it still costs around $80 to get Office 2008. If it were $5-10, then yeah, I would just try it.

About iWork, my computer didn't have a trial version pre-installed. If it did, it ran out after a certain amount of time. The first time I tried to use it I was directed immediately to the Website where I could buy it. So I have no idea what its like. I'm sure its ok. The problem is, would I be able to view files created in Word/Powerpoint with iWork? I dunno, I'm terribly ignorant about it.

Anyways, thanks for the feedback. More help is welcome. I will continue to check out opinions and see if I can find out more about 2008. Maybe those reviews on Apples Website really are bogus.
From what I heard yes, I dont know exactly what to do. You'll have to ask around about that, sorry.
 
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Yes, iWork can open and edit Office files, but to be honest, as a college student, you'll want to stick with Office for 99.99% compatibility
 
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I also got Office 2008. I used every version of Office for Mac over the years. Office 2008, is overall a nice program, although some people are experiencing some glitches, as to be expected from a recent release. Office 2004 also had some glitches at first, although very usable from day one. Microsoft will update Office to address issues.
As a student, as we all were, I know money is tight. If you are not able to get Office 2008, at a reasonable price, there are alternatives, as mentioned.

Apple pages is certainly a worthy word processing program as well. I used it until recently, and its compatibility to Word is excellent. Iwork, to purchase is much cheaper than Office. A trial version is available http://www.apple.com/iwork/trial/

NeoOffice, similar to Microsoft Office is a free open-source alternative Office Suite. Certainly worth downloading and trying since it is free.

If Office 2008-Student version allows you to install up to three computers, like Office 2004 version, you could get two other people and split the cost. Check out the license agreement first though!!!
 
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Can keynote open up powerpoint files? If so then iwork might be an option. I've never used keynote before though. And would like to know about this myself as well. Also though it's a little old now appleworks is still a great word processing application. I still use it and it's worth a look into.
 
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Yes, Keynotes will open power point files.
I got iWork instead of Office because of availability (at the time) and although I haven't used it a lot it does have some really nice features the times I have. I have had a few things that I couldn't edit on a Word document but it wasn't a big deal at the time.
 
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As a college student, I must say NeoOffice is a great way to go. Full compatibility with MS Office file types and it's never lacked a feature I needed so far.
 

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