Microsoft Office 2010

I have been using Open Office in an attempt to not buying MS Office. However, after several months I find it not satisfactory Accordingly, I am about to purchasee MS Office Home and Student.

I note that 2010 is available, and also older versions. Is there any good reason not to buy 2010? If I send a document to one who has an older version can he open it?

If anyone has a source that is relatively cheap let me know. Thanks.

Regards,
Jerry

 

MS Office keeps getting more bloated with every version. 2007 is huge compared to 2003 and I can't imagine that 2010 is any smaller. It may depend on whether or not you really need all of these features. A lot of people use MS Office for years without even being aware of a lot of the features it has.

If you aren't happy with OpenOffice I would take a look at SoftMaker Office. This has a better compatibility with MS Office files than OpenOffice does and it's very light and fast. In fact, heise online tested office suites a while back and SoftMaker actually handled some .doc files better than Word itself. If you want it a bit cheaper (maybe), take a look at Ashampoo Office, it's a re-labeled version of SoftMaker.

 

go for Office 2010, it is improved and sleeker over 2007 version

 

Hi JerryM,

I upgraded a few weeks ago to Office 2010 (from Office 2007) and there's not a huge difference between the two. Office Outlook seems to take a lot longer to open up due to all the extra addons MS has added but you can disable these.

Where do you live? Students can get great deals on MS software. I picked up Office 2010 for $52.

 

Yes......there are 2 ways,afaik
Option 1:that person can install the office compatibility pack,so his/her version will support newer office extensions:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...70-3ae9-4aee-8f43-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en
Option 2: when you want to sent that person a document,choose "save as" and from the dropdown menu,you can select the format of which the document will be stored....for example as office 97-2003 *.doc .

 

What was wrong with OpenOffice?

An option is to get a technet subscription for $200; you can then get 10 lisences each of win 7 ultimate, office 2010 etc (you can use those extra lisences to install in a virtual machine etc).

 

I had a similar experience a couple years ago when I gave Star Office (Open Office's close cousin) a go by making it my primary office suite for about 6 weeks. The killer difference for me was autocorrect and spell check. Unfortunately, my typing is bad and my spelling is worse. MS office does a great job of auto correcting most of my mistakes and spell check fixes the rest, usually with the correct word being at the top of the list. Star Office on the on other hand corrected very few of the mistakes and often wouldn't even have a suggestion for a misspent word. And that was even using Star Office and its supposedly superior spell check.

I ended up purchasing MS Office 2007 and have been using Word 2007 as my main word processor ever since. Having said that, I still have the latest Open Office installed. I still use Draw semi-regularly and I actually prefer Calc over Excel for certain tasks. To each their own.

Keep in mind that if you qualify for the Home and Student version, you may also qualify for the Ultimate Steal promotion. May or may not be a better deal for you depending on your location and how many computers you're going to install it on. (I believe this is what microbial was alluding to as well.)

http://www.microsoft.com/student/office/en-us/default.aspx

 

I could not get the right formats, and could not even find how to consecutively number pages in a doc. I would have to number each manually.

I could not make a template that would tab as I needed. For instance I want a template that would be like this.

I. XXXXXXXXXXX

A. XXXXXXXXXXXX

1. XXXXXX

2. XXXXXXXX

a. xxxxxxxxxx

b. xxx

1) xxxxx

II. XXXXXXXXX

I could not find a way to make such a template and tab correctly.

When I previewed this the tabs did not tab at two spaces per change.

I live in Las Cruces, NM where NMSU is located.

Thanks for the comments.

Regards,
Jerry

 

I used OpenOffice for several years, about one a half year ago I went back to MS Office 2007. Why? Three reasons: documents look much better (I don´t know why, a matter of fonts perhaps), the overall “experience” with Office is much more satisfactory (subjective), and Office is very reliable.

 

The only freeware office suite which comes IMHO best in the right direction,compared to Open Office.Lotus Symphony,Ashampoo Office and other free stuff,,is Go-oo....although it's an OpenOffice derivate,it's tweaked to give you the best experience about m$ compatibility....
http://go-oo.org/

 

Microsoft Office 2010 is a slot faster and sleeker than 2007 (Well that's what i feel)

 

Er, I dont get the relevance of your location?

 

I hear that 2010 has been improved and isn't quite as "klunky" as 2007 is. I have 2003 and 2007. Took me a while to get used to 2007. You can always save docs and files in older version formats for compatibility. No problems there. I think if I had it to do now, I'd give 2010 a try.

 

See post #4.

Regards,
Jerry

 

Don't hesitate and buy Microsoft Office . I have also tried to use Open Office and it simply doesn't fit my needs . Office is the best .

You can first trial it http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/try/

And option to purchase is : FIRST buy Office 2007 Home and Student edition (cheaper) , SECOND Activate the License for Office 2007 ; THIRD - Send Microsoft proof of purchase and your license info and they FOURTH - they will give you Office 2010 for free.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/190993/microsoft_office_2010_technology_guarantee_faq.html

(don't buy from eBay - you won't be upgraded to 2010)

 

I've tried ALL, and I've always returned to Microsoft Office!
There is No comparison with other Office Suites...

Office 2010 is an IMPROVED version of Office 2007 !
If you can afford it, then, buy it.

 

I've been using the MS Office 2010 beta for quite a while and like it a lot. I also have 2003 installed, and going back and forth I see significant improvements in the 2010 GUI. My needs are simple though and there is nothing I do in Office 2010 that cannot be done in Office 2003. To answer your question more directly, I would definitely buy 2010 since the latest version = better support and compatibility over time IMHO.

 

Depends on what you want to do.. anyway you could save anytime a file in doc format, sometimes with minor loose of data

 

Thanks to All for the help. I am going to purchase MS Office 2010 within the next week or so.

Regards,
Jerry

 

Good idea. Running Office 2010 and very happy. It runs better than 2007 and seems more polished. The more I've tried alternatives, the more I realize that MS Office is the way to go.

Office 2010 is to Windows 7, as Office 2007 is to Windows Vista. Best analogy I could come up with.