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Running Office on Macbook

N

NikBar

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 10, 2007
27
0
Sydney
Hey everyone,

Ive been reading these forums for a while and now im posting for the first time, im currently looking at purchasing a Blackbook (converting from PC) the Main reason i will be making this purchase is to run Office. I have been Reading Mixed reviews about how well Office runs on an intel based Mac, so please share your thoughts on what you think about Office and how well it runs on an intel based mac.
 
You need at least 1GB RAM (EDIT: I forgot blackbook came with 1GB RAM standard, if you can afford it, I suggest even upgrading that) for it to run nicely.

Remember that a universal (read: faster) Office is coming out in Q3 '07 (supposedly). Can you not use NeoOffice (free, and pretty good) until then?
 
Don't listen to people who tell you need 1gb of RAM. I have a rev a Macbook. Word starts in about 35 - 45 second. Which is faster than my XP machine. I can have itunes playing music, mail, ical, safari and word open with no problems. I notice slow down when I have about 15 pages of text in word. But only then. And if I close some of the other open programs it goes get better.

My machine is the 1.83ghz CD, 512ram, combdrive model.

Hope that helps.
 
furious said:
Don't listen to people who tell you need 1gb of RAM. I have a rev a Macbook. Word starts in about 35 - 45 second. Which is faster than my XP machine. I can have itunes playing music, mail, ical, safari and word open with no problems. I notice slow down when I have about 15 pages of text in word. But only then. And if I close some of the other open programs it goes get better.

My machine is the 1.83ghz CD, 512ram, combdrive model.

Hope that helps.
Click to expand...

He is getting a blackbook, which comes with 1GB RAM anyway
 
Thanks for the Quick Replies,

Main Reason i wont to use Office is For School Assignments, reviews etc etc

Does Neo-Office have a Power Point Pogram, as well will it run on a PC Ie once i save something on a Flash Drive/CD can i open it on a PC

Thanks
 
Office runs fine on my MacBook (1GB RAM) and Mac Pro (4GB RAM). Even though it has to use Rosetta (as the UB version is yet to come), it runs just as well as it did on my G4 Mac Mini (1GB RAM).
 
NikBar said:
Thanks for the Quick Replies,

Main Reason i wont to use Office is For School Assignments, reviews etc etc

Does Neo-Office have a Power Point Pogram, as well will it run on a PC Ie once i save something on a Flash Drive/CD can i open it on a PC

Thanks
Click to expand...

It does, and it will
 
i've been using office 2004 since late jul '06 on 6 diff configurations: a CD 2.0ghz black MB w/ 512mb ram and 2gb ram, a CD 2.0 MBP w/ 512mb ram and 2gb ram, C2D MBP 2.16ghz w/ 1gb and 2gb ram. my conclusion is that office runs reasonably well on mactels, and it is best to run Office w/ at least 1gb ram.

despite the fact that office is not universal yet, i've never had a crash on any of the configurations. however, it does take time for office to load and at times it pauses as you type - words don't appear immediately. in addition, as a student, you are most likely to have other apps (firefox, adium, preview, itunes, etc) running when you are using office. therefore, it is a good idea to have 1gb or more ram so that everything runs smoothly. to give you an idea - with FF (113 tabs open :eek: ), adium, mail, address book, and shapeshifter running, it took the C2D MBP 2.16 w/ 2gb ram under 23 secs to open word.

there are also alternatives to office '04. pages (apple's word) and keynote (apple's powerpoint) can open and edit most MS docs. openoffice is another free office suite. running under XP in parallels, office 2007 can also be an option.

i really don't think you'd have any issue when using office on the MB. and w/ 1gb or more ram, you'll appreciate the MB a lot more.

NikBar said:
Hey everyone,

Ive been reading these forums for a while and now im posting for the first time, im currently looking at purchasing a Blackbook (converting from PC) the Main reason i will be making this purchase is to run Office. I have been Reading Mixed reviews about how well Office runs on an intel based Mac, so please share your thoughts on what you think about Office and how well it runs on an intel based mac.
Click to expand...
 
NikBar said:
Does Neo-Office have a Power Point Pogram, as well will it run on a PC Ie once i save something on a Flash Drive/CD can i open it on a PC

Thanks
Click to expand...

Even with simple presentations I have seen compatibility issues between Mac and PC Powerpoint. I dunno how Neooffice compares to Mac PP though. If you are doing presentations you will find that Keynote is significantly better than Powerpoint. On a Macbook I'd max out the RAM as it's not expensive and you get 2x512MB if you stick with 1GB which means you have to throw some away if you upgrade later.
 
"Needing" only 512 mb of RAM is very individual and imo only applies to people who also doesn't "need" to wait the extra 20 seconds of disk swapping time.
 
lol, 512MB isn't enough for mac:eek:ffice 2004, especially if u use excel, slow as hell, 1G is at least. some ppl might be ok with being tortured, i am not.
 
Mine took about 15 seconds also, from first clicking to the New Document box appearing.

White 1.83GHz CD with 512Mb RAM.




Office runs OK with 512, you'd definately benefit from 1Gb+
 
Office 2004 issues

I have a black Macbook with 1GB RAM and run Office 2004 (a lot).

I am not quiet sure what you mean Office runs ok. For me ok is not really enough. It is one of the main applications I use. I have to work on papers with more than 15 pages.... I just checked how long it takes to open my 45 page document... 40s.
I mean the start is fine with me, but I have serious issues with the program stopping in between and my words coming up 10 seconds later. If I have two docs open and run Endnote at the same time, it sometimes just hangs up and I have to force quit. The CPUs are speeding up to over 50% and before it stops, usually one core is running on almost 100%. Usually I can abrogate that when saving the file, to decrease the fan speed again.
Anyway I would say that is not acceptable if you have to work with word a lot. Any PC, even my 4 years old AMD 1Ghz can run this documents faster. I always envy my colleagues with the older PC laptops, who can open doc files instantly. And the macbook is a much newer computer with latests technology.

So I am really looking forward to a word for Intel-macs and I hope my department buys the upgrade.

I mean I really like mac, but all the emulator programs are damn slow and an upgrade to 2GB RAM is out of question.

Regards
 
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