Necessary Microsoft Office programs?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>Someone mentioned the other day that new PCs and laptops don't come with the full Office pack - and true, my new laptop has this trial version of Microsoft Office 2003 but no built-in Office programs. I'm thinking of getting Office 2000, but the programs also come separately, like Word, Excel etc. I was wondering:</p>

<ul>
<li>which of these programs are most necessary? (aside from Word) I realize it may be different, e.g. Excel to the Humanities major and to the Finance major, but what about Powerpoint, Frontpage, Money, and the others?</li>
<li>is it better to buy the full Office pack or to just get e.g. Word and Excel?</li>
<li>how does Microsort Works compare to Office?</li>
<li>is Office 2003 that much better than 2000?</li>
</ul>

<p>(and P.S. Would it be safe to say Firefox is the preferred browser over Explorer? I tried it and never looked back. :) )</p>

2

<p>You probably only need Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Almost all classes will require you to type something, many will require graphs or tables, and some have Powerpoint lecture notes. </p>

<p>If you want to save money you could try out OpenOffice, a free MS Office alternative. Not 100% compatible with Office projects, but it's good enough for my uses since most of the time I'm only opening Word or Powerpoint projects, not saving to them.</p>

<p>And Firefox is fantastic. I can't stand IE and it's non-tabbed browsing.</p>

3

<p>Still an Internet Explorer supporter here.</p>

<p>"which of these programs are most necessary? (aside from Word) I realize it may be different, e.g. Excel to the Humanities major and to the Finance major, but what about Powerpoint, Frontpage, Money, and the others?"</p>

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<p>"is it better to buy the full Office pack or to just get e.g. Word and Excel?"</p>

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<p>"how does Microsort Works compare to Office?"</p>

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4

<p>Stay away from Works!</p>

5

<p>My school requires Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Access. You probably won't need access, but definitely the other three. It's a good idea to get the most recent versions.</p>

6

<p>I'd get Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for sure. I don't think you will NEED the lastest versions, since i've been using 98 for a while on my old pc, but there nice to have.</p>

7

<p>Well, the next version of Microsoft Office is going to utilize a different file format. And I believe Microsoft will only be extending backwards compatibility to Office 2000. If your using anything older than that, it won't work with the next version of Office.</p>

<p>By the way, you might want to check out the prices in your student bookstore. The prices that were offered at mine were considerably lower, since Microsoft does offer an academic discount.</p>

8

<p>You should get Microsoft Office Pro but DO NOT BUY it until you check with your college's computer store (or book store if it serves the software sale function). College's very often have special deals where you can get Office for a lower price than you can get it anywhere else.</p>

9

<p>i have a ibook and i use microsoft office student edition its cheaper and has everything a student would need..</p>

10

<p>Microsoft (although not just Microsoft) is pretty aggressively enacting certain options that force users to urgrade regularly, as IAmthe Evilist pointed out. Plus, there are some options that might not be available on really old versions. I know that they will no longer support MS Money versions more than two years older than the current.</p>

<p>I'd have to look up and actual price, but I'm pretty sure I paid sixty or eighty bucks at my campus computer store.</p>

11

<p>best bet is to find someone with MSOffice Professional, and just borrow their CD.</p>

<p>Small Business edition doesnt have Powerpoint, and MSOffice Professional is like $400. or if you already have a previous version of office from a previously bought computer, that works too.</p>

12

<p>"best bet is to find someone with MSOffice Professional, and just borrow their CD."</p>

<p>that's not very nice.</p>

<p>going that route might cause problems later on--as it is right now, I'm pretty sure you have to allow MS to check your computer to make sure you have a registered version of Windows.</p>

<p>You can get it from amazon if your school doesn't have their own computer shop for $125...this version doesn't have Access, though (not sure if you'll need it...I did, though I could have used a computer lab for the two assignments I needed it for)</p>

<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000C0XT1/qid=1121703135/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-5815949-9536623?v=glance&s=software&n=507846%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0000C0XT1/qid=1121703135/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-5815949-9536623?v=glance&s=software&n=507846&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

13

<p>Microsoft has already stated that it will be checking for genuine software during Windows Update, and since Microsoft has now integrated Office Update into Windows Update, you can be sure that they will be checking the authenticity of the software.</p>

<p>With the academic discount, Microsoft Office is really competitively priced. I remember that a license at my bookstore cost something like $100.</p>

14

<p>borrowing the CD isn't the problem - borrowing the key is where the problem would arise.</p>

15

<p>make sure you buy it from your school where it is quite cheap.</p>

<p>And...I dont know how you can still be an IE supporter...? It has nother special and works like a stepped on piece of crap. The only reason it has the market share it does is because it ships with every computer and when people want to gon online they click the icon that says internet explorer.</p>

<p>Firefox is a far superiour replacement (as is safari) and they are both standards compliant as well.</p>

16

<p>The problem I have with Office 2003 is that it is extremely slow to load, as is software from Adobe Systems (Acrobat, Photoshop, etc.). That this the only reason I would want to stick with something basically obsolete like Office 2000.</p>

<p>If you can afford it, get the complete Office set (2000, 2003...strictly your preference). It's better to have software and not need it than to need it and not have it.</p>

17

<p>So qwerty, what do you think?
Please let us know, at least myself.</p>

<p>And ottothecow, I just don't know. I don't care for the tab browsing or anything. I've used Netscape 7, Opera, and Firefox. None of them really appealed to me.</p>

18

<p>While I have to admit that Firefox is more secure, Internet Explorer is still more compatible. There are several sites that I use that do not support Firefox, which makes Internet Explorer a necessity.</p>

<p>I personally don't like tabbed browsing. You heard me right, I don't like tabbed browsing. Since all of the IE windows are grouped together on my taskbar, I find it very convenient since both my programs and browser windows are at the same place.</p>

19

<p>You don't need any of them - go to <a href="http://www.openoffice.org%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.openoffice.org&lt;/a> and download OpenOffice. you can save things as microsoft files, or even open microsoft files - or use the openoffice file format.. and it's legally free. The interfaces are just like the microsoft office interfaces as well.</p>

20

<p>Check with your school bookstore and see if they sell it with a discount. I was able to get microsoft office 2003 for $15 at Carnegie Mellon, and I know that UT is similarly priced.</p>