new mac owner

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mahita

48 posts

Geek

#14241 22-Jun-2007 22:28

i have just brought a brand new mac, it has the trail office mac
now i need to know what would be a good office to put on the mac,
i have up till this week been a windows xp person so all help would
be appreciated.
can i use my ms office xp student and teacher 2002 version on the mac

thanks

Mahita

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189 posts

Master Geek

#75691 23-Jun-2007 08:33

You'll need a mac version... unless you're running windows on your mac.

Office 2004 Standard For Mac - $675

Office 2004 Academic For Mac - $249

..or if you resent paying that much for office, there is neo office, a native OS X port of open office, for free.

http://www.polarbearfarm.com

alasta

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#75698 23-Jun-2007 10:27

Apple used to offer heavy discounts on Office when buying it with a new machine, although I'm not sure whether they still do. Obviously it's too late for this advice to be of any use to you but other viewers of this thread who are considering buying a Mac should definitely look into getting Office with their machine if they need it.

I recently purchased an OpenOffice CD from Dick Smith for $10 and it's good enough for the occassional use that I get out of it but I wouldn't recommend it to someone with limited technical knowledge as you have to be able to run it under the X11 interface and I have found this to be a bit shakey. lduncan suggests that Neo Office is OS X native, so it sounds like this would be a better option for you if you want to go down the open source path.

You could also consider iWork as an alternative (about $140), but it doesn't come with a spreadsheet application (yet).

Fossie

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#75820 24-Jun-2007 22:36

I wouldn't touch office for mac with a very very very long pole. If you got an intel mac, it will run slowly as its designed for PPC macs. Wait until they release office 2008 for mac.

destined

45 posts

Geek

#75851 25-Jun-2007 11:42

The performance of Office 2004 is not too bad on an Intel Mac. I am running an original MacBook Pro (Core Duo), and apart from reasonably slow load times (30s or more often), the performance in the apps is passable. If you can wait I do agree getting Office 2008 will be a better idea as it will have support for the new format, plus be a Universal binary, but if you only use Office occasionally, then the 2004 version should be fine.

Vorbis

176 posts

Master Geek

#76022 26-Jun-2007 19:25

mahita: i have just brought a brand new mac, it has the trail office mac
now i need to know what would be a good office to put on the mac,
i have up till this week been a windows xp person so all help would
be appreciated.
can i use my ms office xp student and teacher 2002 version on the mac

thanks

Cheapest way (apart from neo) is to pay $39.95 for Vmware fusion, install xp under osx and then use your existing ms office disk.

freitasm

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#76025 26-Jun-2007 19:29

Make sure you have an official copy of Windows XP. Even though it's a virtual machine you still need an authentic and valid copy.

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lduncan

189 posts

Master Geek

#76041 26-Jun-2007 20:29

If you go the virtualisation way, parallels (www.parallels.com) is also a good option, coherence, full 3d graphics acceleration support...

http://www.polarbearfarm.com

Fossie

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#76062 26-Jun-2007 21:37

Vmware fusion is very nice, I would recommend it over parallels. It has Directx 8 support, Unity (which is like coherence only much much better), USB 2 support..etc etc

bradstewart

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#76066 26-Jun-2007 22:32

Fossie:
Vmware fusion is very nice, I would recommend it over parallels. It has Directx 8 support, Unity (which is like coherence only much much better), USB 2 support..etc etc

Wow and you used to be such a Parallels troll!!!

Fossie

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#76069 26-Jun-2007 22:38

*cough* im open to bribes *cough*

rcw

30 posts

Geek

#78504 17-Jul-2007 16:35

A little behind on my typing.. but

Open Office is now a highly usable MS Office replacement for most purposes. NeoOffice is a Mac style port of Open Office.

http://www.neooffice.org/

I use it every day for actual work.

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spazz

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#78796 19-Jul-2007 11:46

I'm a Mac geek so I use Pages 8-)

It has doc format export so you can send Word files to Office users, but I generally find it quite a nice app, I use it daily for lecture notes etc.

http://walkingisoverrated.com

SteveLuke

5 posts

Wannabe Geek

#79362 24-Jul-2007 03:53

I avoided Word for Mac for years, but eventually bit the bullet and installed it on my primary computer, a G4 iBook. I increasingly needed to deal with stuff from everyday officialdom, rather than my usual fare of arcane policy documents and archival material I could handle with the Mac OS X inbuilt PDF, with a little help from PDF Pen.

I find things go noticeably swifter and with more feeling of certainty with Office ready waiting when needed, unless I feel like sending someone a document that can't readily be edited, for whatever reason. I wouldn't advise thinking too long over this one, if in doubt.

Nonetheless, in terms of creative productivity, I prefer Mellel for drafting long documents. I've found it extremely stable on a 300,000 word document with extensive footnotes and a few graphics. The type looks good on a monitor, and the strong styles approach encourages self-discipline when initially laying out a document or project. The only major problem for me is that theres no cross-referencing. Exporting from Mellel to .doc format works well for me, but I don't have to trust it because I have Word ready and waiting to check over any .doc file output.

I also have iWork, but don't feel inspired by Pages. I think Keystone is great, but its been so long since iWork was upgraded I hesitate to suggest investing in it at this point. I'll be in like a shot when iWork 07 is finally released .. but maybe it'll be iWork 08 by then. And leopard. Lots of possible irritations. Or delays. Or both.

Now if time wasnt crucial, and there was a PC already about, a network solution suggests itself. Simplest way of all to use an existing XP version of Word. The simulated Windows environment applications cost money, but otherwise I have no comment, since I've never tried them.

But if time is crucial, theres no point in hesitating.

cheers
Steve

Api

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#80697 1-Aug-2007 09:32

I'm using NeoOffice every day. No major problems. Even the minor ones have pretty much dried up.

But, and I think everyone forgets this, if your needs are simple, get a simple text editor. I use TextWrangler (was once the free version of BB Edit). If you need a little formatting, TextEdit (already on your Mac) is quite sufficient.

Of course, you could also use vi

maninimepo

72 posts

Master Geek

#84237 29-Aug-2007 10:57

I tried the mac version of office and found it to be quite sluggish, so I switched to NeoOffice.

However, it just felt too much like a Windows program. Loads of buttons and toolbars everywhere, getting in the way and hiding the valuable stuff from me.

Now I use pages and it's like a dream come true. Seriously.

Cheaper than Office, and although it doesn't have as many features (but I've not found myself wanting more from the app), it just sits back and lets you do the job.

Very easy to use.

The internet home of Nick Jennings

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