MS Office documents on Macbook

[blackbookie]

Hi im just about to buy a macbook and i have one concern.

I am a university student and obviously i will be using alot of MS office documents.

I am on a tight budget and dont want to spend any money on software for now, so is it possible to read MS office documents on a mac?
How about processing and editing them?

I heard about open office, i had experience using that on a PC, but i noticed that when i opened a MS word document on OpenOffice or vise versa, the document got a little messed up....

so if i download open office on my mac, will i be experiencing alot of crap happening ot my documents specially MS office ones?

What is the ultimate solution for a person who has fallen in love with a macbook and doesnt wanna spend money on word processing software?

 

[louishen]

Try Neo Office (the native OS X port of Open Office)

The MacBook also comes with a trial of iWork which can also open office documents

give both a try

 

[blackbookie]

Try Neo Office (the native OS X port of Open Office)

The MacBook also comes with a trial of iWork which can also open office documents

give both a try

thanks BUT
i dont wanna buy the macbook then "give both a try"
i want to make sure, then go ahead with buying it.

 

[cwa107]

thanks BUT
i dont wanna buy the macbook then "give both a try"
i want to make sure, then go ahead with buying it.

Both products are compatible with MS Office documents (they can even create documents in native MS Office formats). You can download NeoOffice from www.neooffice.org for free, and a trial of iWork and MS Office for Mac will be included on any new Mac. Either way you choose to go, compatibility won't be a problem.

 

[MacDeac]

If you need 100% Microsoft Office compatibility, then there is only one choice: Microsoft Office 08 for Mac.

However, you have to consider what you need. I just finished a Master's degree at Wake Forest University. I switched to a Mac half way through the degree, and I am glad I did. When I purchased my Mac, iWork 08 was not out yet, so I decided to wait and see whether I liked that or Office better once it was released. In the mean time, I used NeoOffice, and it worked fine. Once iWork 08 came out, I decided that I could do what I needed to do in Pages. But here's the key, I never had to turn any .doc files in. All of my profs accepted .pdf files. If I had to turn in .doc files, I would have purchased Word. (tables and hanging indents do not save correctly from Pages in iWork.) So, Pages did what I needed it to do. It reads .doc files well enough (I kept NeoOffice on my system just in case there was a problem) and I turned my assignments in as .pdf files. And although I liked Pages, I loved Keynote, so I decided to purchase iWork, because, overall it did more of what I needed done.

So, you need to assess what you need, first. This includes what you can spend. Then decide what you want.

 

[RNDdave]

Hi im just about to buy a macbook and i have one concern.

I am a university student and obviously i will be using alot of MS office documents.

I am on a tight budget and dont want to spend any money on software for now, so is it possible to read MS office documents on a mac?
How about processing and editing them?

I heard about open office, i had experience using that on a PC, but i noticed that when i opened a MS word document on OpenOffice or vise versa, the document got a little messed up....

so if i download open office on my mac, will i be experiencing alot of crap happening ot my documents specially MS office ones?

What is the ultimate solution for a person who has fallen in love with a macbook and doesnt wanna spend money on word processing software?

NeoOffice, OpenOffice.org and iWork may still have some issues with the formatting of MS office documents. Equally so MS Office may have some issues with the formatting of files produced in NeoOffice, iWork or OpenOffice.org.

Usually the formatting differences between the apps will be minor and is usually limited to white space and tables. (as such it doesn't take too much to tidy up when you move to another app).

If you need to use MS office at Uni then you probably want to buy MS Office.

MS Office for Mac is available at a reduced price for students.

If you have MS Office for a Windows computer already; you may want to look at buying VMware Fusions or Parallels as these are likely to be cheaper than the student version of MS Office and will allow you to use Windows software that you've already purchased.

Also on the virtualization front; you may want to look at VirtualBox. I've not used it myself but it is supposed to be pretty good and as it's free - it will have no impact on your budget.