I use MS Office Standard version. There are minor differences, hence a short learning curve, but overall I feel that Apace Open Source is more frequently updated. It does everything Office did for me, and it's free, which is a major benefit. You should give it a try.
None. Have no need for it, and if I did I would use LibreOffice or OpenOffice first. If I was forced to use office, 2003 is the best one imho.
Same here. I've tried Kingsoft Office Pro and free versions. I liked it. But found MS Office to be more useful and convenient.
As I don't usually need to write anything in office products I just use Microsoft Word Viewer and Excel Viewer. It's really lite and allows me to read most Microsoft office files as far as I can tell. There's also PowerPoint Viewer if I ever needed. More information can be found here http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=4 If I do need to do a basic edit in any Microsoft files I can always use the online tool OneDrive.
No joke: I've used 17,5mb worth of (semi-) portable Office '97 files for over 10 years now, this is for Word and Excel. 19 files in total. I only need a tiny (dirty) Autohotkey helper tool to click away the "Can't init VB" warning. This runs on anything from XP to 8.1, including PE. Installs (copies) with a SFX in one second. Well, you probably think I'm nuts, but this tiny setup produced thousands of documents, Excel is used for maintaining around 20 spreadsheets 24/7.
Same here. Oh yeah and the fact is was cheap (less that £10 sterling) with the HUP might have contributed to my decision I also like the fact that Pro Plus versions still come with an msi rather than relying on click to run which doesn't get along with SBIE at all. Cheers
You should, or could, try a newer one (like 2010, or 2013). It has features, that are NICE (useful, to me; 4 pro-work). Everything from integration with programs like the Abbyy Finereader (for OCR) and Adobe Reader Pro, through the extras, like, Visio (use it, lots, for designing forms and such & almost daily, too); also there's the non-English spelling and grammar check / program (that comes separately; used to be an ISO file / CD on office 2003, "Proofing Tools" & now it's a download / file). It took a LONG time *to get used to it* 2 get used to the new versions / interface, but once I got over it - it just increases productivity a 1000-fold, unfortunately, plain and simple.
I voted for Office 2010. I also use MS Office 2003 which I actually prefer. I got a new Win7 64bit computer and already had 2010 because when I bought it my son was at Uni. and got it for a special price. It is the full version, not the student. By the way I also have Office 2007 still in the box.