Office suites and external monitors

Hi everyone!

This is my first post so please bare with me!

I hopefully will be switching to mac in September, timing with the of the start new university year.

I intend to get either a Macbook or Macbook pro 13" (allowing me to take it home) and also an external monitor so I can work on a bigger screen at university.

As a student my main software use will be an office suite. I know there is iWork and also Microsoft Office for Mac. However I don't know the difference between them. Which would be better? Does iWork work better with Mac than Microsoft Office?

The university medschool (where I am based) is now switching to 100% PCs, but this shouldn't matter assuming both suites handle .docx files (is this true?).

In summary which is the best suite to get? And also can anyone recommend a 19-20" external monitor and the cables I will need for each laptop?

Thanks all.

Gurd.

Welcome to the forums!

I recently just finished college where I was an English Secondary Education major, so I really needed an office suite that had all the bells and whistles. I also didn't want to cough up over $200 for one.

That being said, I used (and still do) NeoOffice. It has all the functions of MS Office and is fully compatible with it (so it won't be difficult bringing your files to PCs). Its presentation is nearly identical to Word, Powerpoint, and Excel so you'll know how to use it right away.

And it's free =)

As for the monitor, you could get the adapter which allows you to use any DVI monitor with your macbook. I would personally go with a nice LCD monitor (I currently have a 20" Dell widescreen).

Good luck!

^ I think saying that NeoOffice or OpenOffice is fully compatible with MS Office may be overstating matters a bit. Documents and spreadsheets with anything more than basic formatting will not render as desired between systems -- although the raw content will translate just fine.

The university medschool (where I am based) is now switching to 100% PCs, but this shouldn't matter assuming both suites handle .docx files (is this true?).

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Stick with MS Office 2008 or the new version which should appear before the end of this year (Office 2011). None of the other suites including Neo Office or Open Office are 100% compatible. Nor is Pages from iWork. Since your school is going to all PCs they'll probably standardize on MS Office. You should too.

Regards.

Gurd said:

As a student my main software use will be an office suite. I know there is iWork and also Microsoft Office for Mac. However I don't know the difference between them. Which would be better? Does iWork work better with Mac than Microsoft Office?

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Shikarnov said:

^ I think saying that NeoOffice or OpenOffice is fully compatible with MS Office may be overstating matters a bit. Documents and spreadsheets with anything more than basic formatting will not render as desired between systems -- although the raw content will translate just fine.

Click to expand...

True, not 100% will translate all the time, but the majority will be the same and only some minor editing will be needed if a mistake does arise.

Honestly most professors and/or employers are going to want anything you produce (except graphic design) to be in a traditional standard formatting. A cost analysis or eight page argumentative prose doesn't need to anything more than it is.

With that said, I do produce a lot of brochures, reports, and financial reports that need to be dumbed down for some people. I produce it all on my Mac using Pages & Numbers and just send it to co-workers and clients as a PDF file so I don't lose formatting (and they can't screw it up). As far as any spreadsheets or working projects, those are always shared in a basic formatting where I work.

You'll probably be better off using Microsoft Office, more so if you're someone that doesn't have time to learn another suite or cannot easily switch between the two (I split my time between my MBP and a PC at work).

I do not run Office on my MBP, honestly I'd feel like I was cheating on my MBP to have any of that stuff on it. ;D

-Nate

I do not run Office on my MBP, honestly I'd feel like I was cheating on my MBP to have any of that stuff on it.

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Just some info for you, Re your remark above:

MS was producing and publishing Office applications for the Mac well before they did the same for the PC. So maybe you're cheating every time you use Office on your PC? ;D

Regards.

You can download trials for the paid ones, and the free ones are, well, free, so you can experiment to see what works for your needs and what doesn't.

I'm still trying to find a spreadsheet that meets my needs. So far, nothing holds a candle to Excel for the PC. Alas.