Thinking of the switch have a software decision can you help?

Guys,

I need another computer in the house. Since the ipod I'm more interested about Mac. I'm looking at the iMac and pretty sure I will own one within a week. My question is I use MS office. Now I understand that mac has their own version and I could go that way with a minimum investment. Or I can buy the XP disks (didn't come with the computer) and run XP and keep MS office.

What do you think would be better way to invest my software $ I'm leaning towards going mac all the way but if I have office should I buy it again?

Looking for opinions maybe someone that has made this decision.

thanks,


Joe

Others might say different but I'd get Office:mac (in fact, I did).

You will need to run either Boot camp or Parallels to use your original Office. Both require that you also have your own copies of Windows.

Your correct, about being able to purchase Office 2004 for Mac, it does run a bit slower then you maybe used to if you had a fairly fast pc, but it is still very useable.

There are other alternatives however, such as NeoOffice located here

http://www.neooffice.org/

and Office org located here

http://www.openoffice.org

Good luck

I would concur with Martin S. Office :mac is the best bet. It is not all that expensive if you get the Student, Teacher version (about $125). According to every salesman I talked to, there are no ethical issues with buying this if you are not an academic - as one sales person put it to me "have you learned anything new today? Then you are student".

If you interested in not paying that much however, NeoOffice is an EXCELLENT drop in replacement from the open source world, and it is freeware. It has equivalents for all of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and many more. It reads and writes Microsoft Office file formats and does a very good job of file compatibility (althought the odd Word file with lots of embedded graphics can get it confused).

mac57 makes a good point. I use Office:mac because I have to ensure compatibility in using templates and what not. If I didn't I'd probably use NeoOffice.

Thanks a lot guys

My usage of office is reports and light excel work. It sounds like mac office should do ok. I'm sure that mac office reads MS word files?

PS I'm an 43 year old grad student starting my last class today so the ethical issues of buying the teacher addition is not an issue. For the price difference I would go out of my way to learn something new the day I bought it.:bushman:


Joe

I would put your PC version of Office on ebay and get some money off the Mac version.

fuji1 said:

My usage of office is reports and light excel work. It sounds like mac office should do ok. I'm sure that mac office reads MS word files?Joe

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If that's the case why not save some money and use NeoOffice?

I just checked out the NeoOffice site it looks like it would work well. Would have to learn how to use it or is it very close to office? Do you know if it can read MS office files.

Joe

I just found the neooffice site and they have a PC version also. I'm going to download it and check it out.

Thanks,
Joe

NeoOffice works quite similarly to MS Office, but it is different, and you will need to learn the deltas. The Excel equivalent is quite close to Excel and the Powerpoint equivalent is even better, nearly aa dead ringer for PowerPoint. But the Word equivalent is quite different and you will need to work that out.

Okay I ordered the imac yesterday with the Office for Mac. Teachers edition!!!

I guess if I'm going with Mac I better run Mac all the way. Not sure if I wanted to buy a mac and still run windows software. Seems odd to me to go MS on a mac and I don't have programs that I need to keep. Bought if from MacConnections and they tell me it will be here MONDAY. **** I usually take off Mondays but this week I have a project to do so I'm working. Stupid me.


Thanks again,

Joe

There are new versions of Office coming out (Office 2007, with a major change to the interface, on Windows is almost out, and Office 2008, which will be a Universal Binary, on the Mac will be out in about 6 months)

Personally, I would wait, maybe try to get by with NeoOffice, for a few months until Office 2008 comes out, unless I needed it now.

technologist said:

Personally, I would wait, maybe try to get by with NeoOffice, for a few months until Office 2008 comes out, unless I needed it now.

Click to expand...

That's what I'm doing. I didn't want to waste my money on a non-Universal version of Office only to have a new version come out a few months later. Plus, I really like the Ribbon interface for the Windows version, so I'm really excited to see what they do for the Mac. :black: