Stupidly bought iWork w/new iMac. It's awful. Where's cheapest place to buy Microsoft

[stever500]

I can't vouch for the compatibility with MS Word, but I would look into OpenOffice. It's free, and I hear it's very close to Word.

http://download.openoffice.org/other.html#en-US

Also, Google has free Word, Excel, and PowerPoint online. You can make a document online and export into it's corresponding Office version. Plus, the documents you make are online, thus you can access them anywhere.

http://docs.google.com

Hey thanks. This is a great idea, to try this BEFORE I plunk down $100+ on the Microsoft stuff. I downloaded it today and I'll see how that goes. Strangely enough, Pages is now gone from my computer. How does that happen so ...easily? I don't remember doing anything to delete it from my computer. I have the disc of course so I reinstalled it, but it is annoying to have to do this. Macs are very unusual sometimes. This learning curve is much more than I thought it would be. Oh well.

I have thought about installing Windows and Word for a PC as some of you have suggested, but due to the cost and hassle, I'm going to retain that as my very, very last resort.

Here's my two cents after reading this thread.

If you need guaranteed 100% compatibility with your current Microsoft Office (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) files that you created on the PC, then the best way is to get WMWare Fusion or Parallels, install indows (XP for example) and install Office 2007.

This will provide you the exact same operating environment that you have been used to and your documents will be exactly the same. There will be no issues with formating, embedded file types and VBA for example.

The next level down would be Office 2004/8 for the Mac. While not 100% compatible with the Windows version of Office, it's pretty close if you will. You may have some issues with complex documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, and we'll need to tweak them. But this should be minimal.

For your needs Microsoft Office for the Mac may be enough. You can test a trial version and see.

I won't go any farther down the pecking order with iWork, OpenOffice, NeoOffice and others. Just to say for simple word processing, spreadsheet and presentations they are fine. Many individuals find them to meet their needs. And they are decent products.

However, you will have issues if you work in a Microsoft Office operating environment. Many of us who have tried them as alternatives have found too many issues and it's not worth the time, effort and hassle. YMMV.

Good luck in your decision.

Whoops, after reading your reply, I guess openoffice may not work for me either. I don't want to deal with ANY more hassle, time or effort as you suggested. For me, I'm thinking that Office for a Mac may be a great option for the $90 or so that Amazon is charging.

 

[CeeZee]

*tip- after you install Office, change those default file formats. ..The newer file extensions give people with older versions of Office trouble so better to use the more common office formats until more people update office....
http://it.rockefeller.edu/pdf/documentation/Change_Default_Setting_Office_2007_2008.pdf

Thank you so much for the tip. I was able to install Office 2008 for Mac on my new iMac through Microsoft HUP and I know that leaving the extensions the way they defaulted would have certainly caused some problems.

 

[xlii]

I can't vouch for the compatibility with MS Word, but I would look into OpenOffice. It's free, and I hear it's very close to Word.

http://download.openoffice.org/other.html#en-US

Also, Google has free Word, Excel, and PowerPoint online. You can make a document online and export into it's corresponding Office version. Plus, the documents you make are online, thus you can access them anywhere.

http://docs.google.com

I have openoffice on my mac and I love it. Give it a try. It's free, it works, and it looks good. Why let MS rip you off every couple of years when their old office suite no longer can read their new office suite output files.

 

[stever500]

I have openoffice on my mac and I love it. Give it a try. It's free, it works, and it looks good. Why let MS rip you off every couple of years when their old office suite no longer can read their new office suite output files.

It's funny how one gent will say it doesn't work that well at all and another will say it's great. Since it's free, you're right, I'll try it I guess.

 

[300D]

Tpb.

 

[sushi]

Whoops, after reading your reply, I guess openoffice may not work for me either. I don't want to deal with ANY more hassle, time or effort as you suggested. For me, I'm thinking that Office for a Mac may be a great option for the $90 or so that Amazon is charging.

It all depends on the complexity of your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.

It's funny how one gent will say it doesn't work that well at all and another will say it's great. Since it's free, you're right, I'll try it I guess.

Sure, give Neo-Office a try. It might be enough for your needs.

When you said that you had 15 plus years of documents, that's an indicator that you are somewhat of a PowerUser when it comes to Microsoft office and extensively use features such as Pivot Tables, VBA, complex formatting, etc. Additionally, you mentioned that Pages wouldn't work for you.

If your documents are simple 1-2 page jobs with simple headers and footers then Neo-Office may work fine for you.

Like I mentioned above, there is nothing wrong with iWork, Neo-Office, open Office, etc. if they meet your needs. However, when they don't it can become a pain.

So the no brainer way is to recreate the environment that you've been using for 100% compatibility. If however, you don't have complex documents, spreadsheets or presentations, then there are options.

 

[stever500]

It all depends on the complexity of your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.


Sure, give Neo-Office a try. It might be enough for your needs.

When you said that you had 15 plus years of documents, that's an indicator that you are somewhat of a PowerUser when it comes to Microsoft office and extensively use features such as Pivot Tables, VBA, complex formatting, etc. Additionally, you mentioned that Pages wouldn't work for you.

If your documents are simple 1-2 page jobs with simple headers and footers then Neo-Office may work fine for you.

Like I mentioned above, there is nothing wrong with iWork, Neo-Office, open Office, etc. if they meet your needs. However, when they don't it can become a pain.

So the no brainer way is to recreate the environment that you've been using for 100% compatibility. If however, you don't have complex documents, spreadsheets or presentations, then there are options.

Hmmm, my word docs can't be that complicated. They're basically resumes, lots of them in different incarnations, saved Excel spreadsheets with REALLY basic info on them like names, addresses, phone #'s and contact info - no computations at all, and approach letters to companies with our company logo at the top (the logo that won't center correct for some reason in Pages).

 

[sushi]

Hmmm, my word docs can't be that complicated. They're basically resumes, lots of them in different incarnations, saved Excel spreadsheets with REALLY basic info on them like names, addresses, phone #'s and contact info - no computations at all, and approach letters to companies with our company logo at the top (the logo that won't center correct for some reason in Pages).

Then maybe your needs are such that an alternative will be a good fit for you.

As for Pages not centering your company logo, maybe you can edit those documents if that is all that's wrong with them.

 

[jjprusk]

OpenOffice is the way to go

Suite of Word, Excel and Powerpoint?

Many people online at 1-800-My-Apple and at the Apple store strongly suggested trying iWork with Pages and Numbers for $41 and then getting the $99 1-1 membership too INSTEAD of buying Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint for the $146 they were selling it for, all student discounts.

Numbers and Pages are AWFUL for me. None of my tons of PC word docs (I'm a 15 year PC user before last month when I got a 27" iMac 3.06 base model which I adore, for the most part) look right in pages. There are logos in Word for our company that won't move to the center of the pages document. The guy on the phone from Apple said there's nothing I can do after we spend a lot of time with Footer and Header changes.

He thought the store would refund me the $41 I spent on it and then sell me the $146 Microsoft suite instead. He also said I should have done this to begin with because so many of my docs and spreadsheets were on Microsoft. Arghhhhh. I have spent countless frustrating hours this past month trying to get stuff to work. I can't wait to get rid of Pages.

Is there a cheaper, yet safe place to get Word, Excel and Powerpoint than the Apple Store discount? I don't want to buy anything on Ebay. I just don't trust that place, mostly. You never really know if you're going to get what you are trying to get and it's a pain if the product is a scam, to get your money back. I don't have time or patience for that. Is there another trusted seller though? Or, just get it from the Apple store and call it a day? $146 seems like a LOT of money just to have Word again, and Excel. I don't really use Powerpoint much at all but it would be nice to have if I need it.

A friend had mentioned openoffice but I'm not really familiar with it. The one that's free on the internet? Is that really comparable to the actual "Word" product? If it is, why would so many people... buy Word for so much money?

Thanks,
Steve R

Go to http://www.openoffice.org/ and simply download the suite for Mac OSX. It has all of the functionality of M$ Office, is a free download, and in many cases actually has better functionality. We've converted @ work from M$ stuff and this is a great alternative.

 

[panzer06]

snip

Back to topic, I didn't realize that Office for Mac would be different than Office for Windows. I wonder if the logo that is indented all the way on the left when I use Pages would still be indented and immoveable all the way to the left on Word for Mac? That would stink. On my original PC version it's centered where it needs to be.

I'll check into whether my company has Office available somehow for such a cheap price. I doubt it but I'll check. I don't think our IT dept sells anything at all come to think about it so I'm sure I'll be stuck just buying it online from Amazon or Apple.

Again, I appreciate the quick responses. I don't know what VMware fusion is and it sounds more complicated than I need to get right now. I hope the basic Office for Mac will work... I should find out soon.

Cheers,
Steve R

Steve,

Also remember Office 2008 for Mac does not support Windows macros that may be embedded in any Office for Windows files. Office 2004 does and the new Office 2010 will. Complex documents, some page lengths and headers and footer may require some adjustment between the Windows and Mac versions of Office.

One of the biggest difficulties we see are with Excel documents (and to a lesser extent Word) that were created years ago in long forgotten versions of Excel and updated for years in Windows versions before being opened on a Mac. Editing back and forth with embedded graphics and trying to embed PDFs in Word and have them open correctly in Windows have also caused problems.

This said, I work primarily in Office 2008 for Mac ,jumping into Fusion to access native Windows version only as needed for that truly difficult cases.

Cheers,

 

[stever500]

Then maybe your needs are such that an alternative will be a good fit for you.

As for Pages not centering your company logo, maybe you can edit those documents if that is all that's wrong with them.

This is a good point. Maybe I'm giving up on Pages too easily. Yeah, it won't get our company logo centered. The President of the company suggested just removing it from the letter - problem solved.

I will work with Pages a bit more and see if I can make it work for me before buying Microsoft for Mac. And, I might download and try openoffice again. I just deleted it the other day when someone on here posted that it was very inferior to Word.

 

[Jason Beck]

Or you can go to Microsoft.com and download a trial off office. Give it a shot, see if you like it. I've tried pretty much everything and I prefer Office 2008 Mac.. To each his / her own though. But a little shareware trial won't kill ya. Go try it out.

 

[Sparky9292]

I guess it all depends on what you need. I *need* 100% compatibility and feature parity for work, so installing Windows and Office for Windows on my Mac were no brainers (use Bootcamp and have Parallels using the partition for in OSX use). If you've found iWork to be unsatisfactory, you may be on that same boat.

You don't need Bootcamp to run MSWord/Windows. That's an overkill. The only time Bootcamp is required over Parallels is for things that use the 3D video card like Video gaming or CAD.

 

[Gov98]

I know this probably is better discussed on the windows on the mac thread, but can you just run windows 7 on the Mac? I know this is heresy, but I prefer windows, but appreciate the form of the mac.

 

[RexTraverse]

You don't need Bootcamp to run MSWord/Windows. That's an overkill. The only time Bootcamp is required over Parallels is for things that use the 3D video card like Video gaming or CAD.

Well I do Bootcamp Windows for other things besides Office.

 

[knewsom]

OpenOffice

Just try it. I'll never EVER buy Office ever again. BIG fan. My wife's GOVERNMENT OFFICE even switched. It's that good.

 

[Wotan31]

Microsoft Office is a fairly decent piece of software. Don't get me wrong, I hate Microsoft as much as the next person and refuse to use a Windows PC at home, but Office is one of their products that generally does work pretty well. That said, I've heard lots of bad things about Office 2008 for Mac.

Office Home & Student 2007 edition for Windows was only $59 on Amazon today. I use that inside of VMware Fusion 3 when I absolutely have to have Microsoft Office.

But for most casual document viewing or basic editing tasks, OpenOffice for OSX works great.

 

[mindquest]

This said, I work primarily in Office 2008 for Mac ,jumping into Fusion to access native Windows version only as needed for that truly difficult cases.

Cheers,

I will be getting an Imac soon and will have Windows 7 on it via Fusion. Given that would you put office on native or on Windows 7? I am going back and forth on this. I have lots of .xls & .doc from 2003 version to bring over.

 

[sishaw]

A friend had mentioned openoffice but I'm not really familiar with it. The one that's free on the internet? Is that really comparable to the actual "Word" product? If it is, why would so many people... buy Word for so much money?

Thanks,
Steve R

Open Office is comparable, and the newest version reads .docx files. It is slow to start up compared to Microsoft office. There are a few different locations for some menu items, but otherwise it is similar to Office 2003. You could try it out and see if you like it.

People buy Word because it's a standard, but one can use Open Office.

 

[thegoldenmackid]

I bought mine new from the Amazon Marketplace for $107 - I got the Special Media Edition.

 

[Jason Beck]

LOL. I can't wait to move out of America.

 

[knewsom]

LOL. I can't wait to move out of America.

Guess the political debate got edited out - this looks really nonsequiter now, kinda funny.

 

[Cave Man]

(the logo that won't center correct for some reason in Pages).

In the Inspector, choose the Wrap Inspector, highlight the graphic and then choose Floating. That should allow the free placement of any graphic.

Now, about iWork 09. I am truly happy with it. This is a function of both better features in the 09 edition and the fact that Office 2008, in particular Word, is a major step backwards. I have been using Keynote since its inception, and Numbers for most of my spreadsheet work since 07 (although Excel is still far superior for complex tasks). But Pages really trumps Word. The biggest thing for me was the integration with EndNote. I only use Word when I have to interact a document with Windows folks (which isn't too often, fortunately).

 

[Jason Beck]

Guess the political debate got edited out - this looks really nonsequiter now, kinda funny.

I just noticed that.
bahaahhaah!

 

[stever500]

In the Inspector, choose the Wrap Inspector, highlight the graphic and then choose Floating. That should allow the free placement of any graphic.

Now, about iWork 09. I am truly happy with it. This is a function of both better features in the 09 edition and the fact that Office 2008, in particular Word, is a major step backwards. I have been using Keynote since its inception, and Numbers for most of my spreadsheet work since 07 (although Excel is still far superior for complex tasks). But Pages really trumps Word. The biggest thing for me was the integration with EndNote. I only use Word when I have to interact a document with Windows folks (which isn't too often, fortunately).

Thanks for this. I'm new to this so bear with me... I don't see an "inspector" logo on my Pages document, only on my Numbers document, so I can't make the changes you suggest. It's good to know though that Pages is a quality program so I'm going to try to make it work for me, warts and all. And, if I can't, I already re-downloaded Openoffice so I'll try that then too.

Man, so many helpful folks on here. My sister emailed me yesterday that when I come to visit her in Florida in 2 weeks, she's interested in buying a MacBook Pro. I'm so excited to help her get it. She has a POS PC desktop now that is world's old.

Cheers,
Steve