Which Microsoft Office?

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

I suggested freeware but she wants to stick with what she knows. (Ah, the power of branding burns deep in the minds of Youth!). A student licence looks good but quite how you persuade MS that you are a bonefide student is a bit unclear. I'm on the case. Thank-you.

Get he to look at OpenOffice, it's surprising how it pretty much looks and operates like MS office. Most uni's will use the docx files anyway.

 

[byegad]

I'm an Open Office user and the only issue I have with it is it's a bit slow to open initially. However once open it works just fine. Should she find she really needs MS Office the Uni will be able to tell her which version and installing it isn't roacket science so she should be able to do it while there, using the good old Bank of Mum&Dad for the cash.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Another vote for Google Docs, all the MS Office integration you need and all the docs are stored online. So no worries when she spills beer/coffee/tea/milk over the pc.

I've heard Office 365 is pretty good, but I've not had a chance to try it yet.

I've had a couple of problems using Google Docs spreadsheets recently. It seems less intuitive than Excel or Calc (the OOo equivalent) and some formulas won't bounce from Calc to Google. Graphs are also a complete no-no.

 

[Danny]

I suggested freeware but she wants to stick with what she knows. (Ah, the power of branding burns deep in the minds of Youth!). A student licence looks good but quite how you persuade MS that you are a bonefide student is a bit unclear. I'm on the case. Thank-you.

software4students do not seem to ask for an excessive amount of ID.

Haven't tried Office 365 but one of the advantages of using it is that your licence fee covers new versions of the product for 4 years.

 

[Danny]

I've had a couple of problems using Google Docs spreadsheets recently. It seems less intuitive than Excel or Calc (the OOo equivalent) and some formulas won't bounce from Calc to Google. Graphs are also a complete no-no.

Agree that Google Docs is not nearly yet fully featured, but it is fine for simple uses, and great for collaboration as you can have multiple people working on the same document/spreadsheet/presentation at the same time.

Google are also investing heavily in Docs so you can expect more features to appear in the future - unlike Open Office which sadly seems to be stuck in a bit of a rut.