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Student Buying Photoshop / Creative Suite and Microsoft Office for Mac

A

ashley

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 24, 2006
66
0
Hi! This is my first post, but I've been lurking on the boards for a while - in fact, you were all very helpful in deciding on my first Mac - a white Macbook, 2.0 GHz, 1.0 gig of RAM, 100 GB harddrive (not sure if it's posted in my sig ...)

Anyway, I've searched through tons of old threads, but can't find any with my specific problem.

I'm a college student who will be doing some graphics work for my classes - not a graphics major, but enough that I'm going to be using Photoshop and Illustrator. I'll also be using Microsoft Office (Works, Powerpoint, Excel, etc).

The problem is the price (of course! I'm a student!) - the free versions of the software ( GIMP, neooffice, etc.) aren't really options right now - I need to be absolutely sure the programs will work with other students' and other computers' versions of the software, and I don't really have the computer knowledge to figure out all the quirks of the free software.

SO - I've found the websites like journeyed.com for the student edition of the Creative Suite ($380), and amazon has Office for $82 right now, but I want to make sure that these are the best prices I can get.

Some of the old threads mentioned buying from a campus computer store for very very cheap, but as far as I can tell my school doesn't have discounts, and I don't know how to find these stores for other university. I'm located in the Southeast. Does anyone know of schools in the southeast that would sell versions of these programs for these low prices, or any other suggestions?

Every little bit helps!

Thank you in advance!

Ashley
 
How much longer can you wait to get those applications? Neither of what you are buying are Universal so it will be slower than it is if it were running native. It would be an aweful lot of money to spend on applications that don't run to the fullest on your computer. have you considered iWork?
 
office won't be universal until the next release of office


cs3 will be universal, but with that much ram, photoshop will run ok, but not brilliantly. i have both installed on my macbook pro 1.83, and they run fine.
 
ashley said:
Some of the old threads mentioned buying from a campus computer store for very very cheap, but as far as I can tell my school doesn't have discounts, and I don't know how to find these stores for other university. I'm located in the Southeast. Does anyone know of schools in the southeast that would sell versions of these programs for these low prices, or any other suggestions?
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The deals that a university can offer on their site-licence contract with the publisher, are only for their own students and faculty -- so you couldn;t walk into a different institution and ask them to honour your ID from your school -- unless your school has some reciprocal agreements with them.
The boxed Student editions that you have found are the ones you can buy 'over the counter'
Call your college's bookstore, then their computing Services department, to verify whether or not your school offers student purchase under their site license.
 
Thank you for the help so far!

$11 for Office 2004 and $179.95 for CS2 at my college.
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WOW!

Call your college's bookstore, then their computing Services department, to verify whether or not your school offers student purchase under their site license.
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Good idea - I've been trying to search my school's website, but that can get tedious. I'll work on that Monday.

so you couldn;t walk into a different institution and ask them to honour your ID from your school -- unless your school has some reciprocal agreements with them.
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Just in case my school doesn't have the agreement discussed above, I was thinking more along the lines of getting a friend at another school to buy it, and then paying them back. Would it have some sort of blocker on it that I could only use it at the school it was licensed to? I guess that wouldn't really be legal (having a friend buy it for me)?
 
If you go to IU I can help you with the CS & office business. (on their website that is)

but that's unlikely.
 
office won't be universal until the next release of office


cs3 will be universal, but with that much ram, photoshop will run ok, but not brilliantly. i have both installed on my macbook pro 1.83, and they run fine.
Click to expand...

I read the thread on the possibility that CS3 will be January 2007 or possibly earlier - I was thinking about trying to wait until the developer's conference in August to see if we'd get any more information.

Any idea of when Office will be released in Universal?

have you considered iWork?
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WOuld that be compatible with and have the same features as Office? I'll be working on group projects where we'll need to go back and forth a lot.
 
ashley said:
WOuld that be compatible with and have the same features as Office? I'll be working on group projects where we'll need to go back and forth a lot.
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iWork is compatible with Office, yes.

I'm not so sure about the Keynotes & such, but you might as well go with Office just to be safe. Just a thought.
 
If you go to IU I can help you with the CS & office business. (on their website that is)

but that's unlikely.
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No ... unfortunately. I appreciate the gesture though!
 
Where are you going to school? Southeast is kind of broad. I'm a student at UNC-CH and NCSU... both schools have discounts if you know where to look on the sites. It is usually easier to just go and visit the book store though. If you're going to either of those fine schools I can point you in the right direction.
 
Just call your college bookstore and ask about the programs you need. When we have been able to purchase through the university bookstore the price has been incredibly low. FWIW, we were never able to find information online at the college website, it took a call or visit to the bookstore.
 
Those of you who have bought from your university's bookstore - was this a one year license or was it the full copy?
 
ashley said:
Those of you who have bought from your university's bookstore - was this a one year license or was it the full copy?
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Mine was a full copy with a perpetual license granted upon graduation from that college.
 
I ended up emailing the computer division at my school and they let me know that they DO have a similar program - CS2 for $180 , and Office for Mac for $11! If I wanted, I could even get Windows XP for $25. Awesome.

I've decided to try and wait for CS3 ( specifically the universal binary) to come out and use a combination of GIMP and the computer labs at school to make it through this semester, though. No sense in throwing away money, good deal or not.

I'm beyond excited. Thank you all for your advice! :D
 
Have you considered Photoshop Elements ( I don't know if you need the entire suite for your projects or just photoshop functionality)

Its pretty cheap and its definitely as much as I need.
 
Kwyjibo said:
Have you considered Photoshop Elements ( I don't know if you need the entire suite for your projects or just photoshop functionality)

Its pretty cheap and its definitely as much as I need.
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Well, I'm a journalism student who'll be taking graphics classes - I intended on using it for my graphics classes and other classes where we do graphics work, and then hopefully going into more graphics work for a post-graduate degree. BUT although I'm gung-ho now, I could change my mind...

For the classes I'll be using Photoshop, InDesign, and probably a little of Illustrator - those are the minimums.

But, that's a good idea ... I could buy Photoshop Elements for $40 through my school, see if it'll work for what I need (and see if I stick with the graphics stuff ...) and then upgrade to CS3 when it comes out, if I still think I need it.

Is using Elements just like using a pared down version of Photoshop?
 
Paintshop Pro by (corel if I am not mistaken) isn't too shabby either and it is really cheap with the edu discount. I have tried academic superstore before and have been pleased with them with my purchases can't say much for the customer service as I have little to no contact with them, but verification was always within 1 day (usually just a couple or so hours). Good luck with the classes and software!
 
I"m going to give this general advice.

If you don't know the differences between PS and Elements than you probably only need elements to start. I realize this is a vague thing, I really love elements its a bit quicker and it doesn't feel junked up.
 
3kids said:
Just call your college bookstore and ask about the programs you need. When we have been able to purchase through the university bookstore the price has been incredibly low. FWIW, we were never able to find information online at the college website, it took a call or visit to the bookstore.
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FYI: At my university, the bookstore sells most software at the "full" education price and has absolutely no idea that the university computer store sells software at a much lower price (due to volume licensing). Upshot: check more than the bookstore. :)
 
you'll probably be able to make it through the semester without owning cs2 since you're a journalism major. i'm a graphic design major who has taken graphics courses in the journalism department and basically it was all just newspaper/magazine layout with not too much design/graphics involved- definately nothing very advanced.

that deal ($180/$11) is definately awesome and you better take it when both apps become universal!!
 
17luv said:
Paintshop Pro by (corel if I am not mistaken) isn't too shabby either and it is really cheap with the edu discount.
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true, it's a nice program, very easy to use, but it's windows only unfortunately :(
 
discoforce said:
FYI: At my university, the bookstore sells most software at the "full" education price and has absolutely no idea that the university computer store sells software at a much lower price (due to volume licensing). Upshot: check more than the bookstore. :)
Click to expand...

It's the same at my school. The Office of Software Licensing is a well-kept secret for some reason. The bookstore doesn't mention them, and the bookstore sells software at regular educational prices which is much more expensive than at the OSL.
 
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