I have an old Office:mac CD ("designed exclusively for Mac OS X). Would this
be useful as a base for cheapest upgrading to ... 2004 or whatever you
recommend?
Any old version works for upgrade to a newer version, but the problem with
upgrade CDs is they require you to always have the old version installed or
have the physical CD to install. If you do go the upgrade route, then make
sure you keep your media safe.
If you don't need Exchange you can get Office 2008 Home & Student Edition
very reasonably. $108.99. This will give you licenses for 3 computers. This
is not an upgrade so no worries with finding the old CD.
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http://tinyurl.com/4ydu2u>
If you do need Exchange, then get the Special Media Edition. Right now it's
cheaper than the Standard Upgrade is $181.99
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition upgrade $169.99
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http://tinyurl.com/pack5w>
If you don't use VBA, I suggest you get Office 2008. Spaces are a problem
between Leopard and Office, but I believe this also affects 2004 as well as
2008. Some one will correct me if I'm wrong on this. Personally, I use the
Command-Option and click on application in dock to hide others windows.
Randy Singer posted this on the Mac-L list recently about Word:
<
http://lists.listmoms.net/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?sub=950106&id=401083267>
Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:09:20 -0700
Author: "Randy B. Singer"
Subject: Re: Office 2008
What is the advantage of upgrading to 2008, if they are planning on
bringing
VBA back in 2010? Is there something I am missing - more along if
not broke
don't fix it??
I rarely use any other component of Office other than Word, so my
comments are based on this.
I probably wouldn't have switched from Office v.X if I hadn't gotten
a great deal on Office 2008, as Word v.X was still working great.
That said, Word 2008 has some nice advantages over previous
versions. The biggest one is speed. Word 2008 is fully native.
The second is compatibility. Word 2008 is 100% compatible with the
new Microsoft XML-based file formats...no add-ons required. (You can
still open and save to the old file formats if you prefer.)
The third is the improved interface. I follow the blogs of the folks
in the Microsoft Mac Business Unit, and I know that they took all of
the complaints of Mac users about Word's interface to heart. They
went out of their way to make it as easy as possible to find
features, and to reverse actions or turn off features if you don't
like them. Compare Word 2008's interface and Word 2007 for Win's,
and you will see that the Mac version has a different, and much
better interface.
Finally, not everyone needs Visual Basic. In fact, of the large
number of Word users I know, just about none use VB. You can still
do Macros in Office 2008, but they need to be based in AppleScript or
Automator. Even my favorite Word add-on, MacSimplePrompter, was
ported from VB to AppleScript.
So, the advantage is that you get to use a better, faster, nicer,
more compatible application for the next two years...or more (MS is
known for slipped release dates.) None of that is critical, but it
*is* very nice.
___________________________________________
Randy B. Singer
Co-author of The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th, and 6th editions)
Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html
___________________________________________
