Advice please ASAP MIcrosoft Office / Open Office

familyfitz

Long story but short version is ... poured cup of tea over Dell laptop with detrimental effect (!). Being replaced by insurance co and been negotiating upgrade on what they originally offered as replacement.

Problem we have is that on the last laptop we had Microsoft Office XP Pro - in my last job we were licensed to put the software onto home machines and hence that is what I did. I have this on a disc (dated 2004 so not sure what version of Office this is) still in my possession.

The new laptop will come with Vista Home Premium on. The insurance company wont pay for Microsoft Office 2007 to be put onto new machine, even altho they so say should result in me being in the same position I was in laptop wise as I was before the accident. Mmmm strange analagy I think in light of not putting Office on again. I said I didn't have the disc (moved jobs and no longer access to it (ok slight porky!)).

So, what to do. Been long negotiation to get reasonable offer for new machine -
do we pay ~ £60 (according to Dell website but who knows according to insurance as their prices are plucked out of the sky) to get Microsoft Office on at source?

Would our version of Microsoft Office work with Vista?

Husband has mentioned Open Office as so say providing same abilities as Office? Does this mean all my documents made on power point excel and word will open and be useable on this programme?

Any advice would be very much appreciated ASAP as need to confirm with insurance tomorrow am.

Thanks

Sput2001

OpenOffice would do the job, and open the documents you need, but (and this is purely a matter of opinion) MS Office is the superior software.

If your disc of Office is labelled 2004, then there's a chance it's MS Office 2003, which should work fine with Vista. I'm not sure if Office XP (the earlier version) would.

Do you have a child at school? if so, try www.software4students.co.uk where you'll be able to pick up Office 2007 for about £35.

Ice_2

familyfitz wrote: »

Long story but short version is ... poured cup of tea over Dell laptop with detrimental effect (!). Being replaced by insurance co and been negotiating upgrade on what they originally offered as replacement.

Problem we have is that on the last laptop we had Microsoft Office XP Pro - in my last job we were licensed to put the software onto home machines and hence that is what I did. I have this on a disc (dated 2004 so not sure what version of Office this is) still in my possession.

The new laptop will come with Vista Home Premium on. The insurance company wont pay for Microsoft Office 2007 to be put onto new machine, even altho they so say should result in me being in the same position I was in laptop wise as I was before the accident. Mmmm strange analagy I think in light of not putting Office on again. I said I didn't have the disc (moved jobs and no longer access to it (ok slight porky!)).

So, what to do. Been long negotiation to get reasonable offer for new machine -
do we pay ~ £60 (according to Dell website but who knows according to insurance as their prices are plucked out of the sky) to get Microsoft Office on at source?

Would our version of Microsoft Office work with Vista?

Husband has mentioned Open Office as so say providing same abilities as Office? Does this mean all my documents made on power point excel and word will open and be useable on this programme?

Any advice would be very much appreciated ASAP as need to confirm with insurance tomorrow am.

Thanks

I would pay the extra £60 which is cheap...I think if you have office then other docs wont open in it and v-v if you can get office for that price then get it as it is much dearer else where...
there was M$ office 2003 and now its M$ office 2007...if that helps...
open office is good but if you are used to M$ I would stick with them...
hths
student M$ office is on offer at £80 at the moment so if yours seems like a bargain...

office 2003 came as a 90 day trial along with office 2007 90 day trial with windows vista ultimate on my new laptop...

Discount software for sale</SPAN>, available to students and family members in United Kingdom.
No student card, student e-mail address or student id required. Just login, pick your cheap software and checkout!
Reviews, screenshots and product advice for Microsoft Student Office in our educational software information directory

that site is dirt cheap..I am gonna go for it and see what I get...

mdbarber

Does the employee license scheme extend to ex-employees?, don't think it does so you better check before admitting in an insurance claim you were using un-licensed software?
Sounds like open office will do all you need if just basic word and excel docs you need to access and edit.
MS office in my experience is actually inferior in many aspects to OO, but is much more user friendly to novices.

familyfitz

Thanks for quick responses. I am actually a teacher but on supply at the mo in a school so haven't wanted to ask a seemingly begging question. Will look at student option in a minute - is it going to be same as if buying Office 2007 from Dell (i.e. who insurance are going through) and would you get the disc in either case in order to re-install if ever needing to? Presumably licensed only to that one machine though?

fwor

familyfitz wrote: »

Husband has mentioned Open Office as so say providing same abilities as Office? Does this mean all my documents made on power point excel and word will open and be useable on this programme?

I made the change from Office 2003 to Open Office about 18 months ago, with no regrets at all. I have hundreds of old documents created in Word, Excel and Powerpoint, and have never had a problem viewing, editing and saving them in a MS-compatible format (in case I should ever have to go back).

It's true that the user interface is slightly different, but it doesn't take long to get used to - and it costs nothing more than the bandwidth to download it if you want tp give it a try.

familyfitz

Thanks mdbarber. My underanding when in previous job was that the license was bought to cover employee machines (but who was I to question further!) - discs were openly made available for home use tho.

As a teacher (now) actually do a lot of powerpoint presentations etc and teach the kids use of power point as well as other programmes Office so dont want to mix up software between school and home really.

Sput2001

Will look at student option in a minute - is it going to be same as if buying Office 2007 from Dell (i.e. who insurance are going through) and would you get the disc in either case in order to re-install if ever needing to? Presumably licensed only to that one machine though?

If you go through software4students you'll get a disc with a licence key. There's no retail packaging, just a disc and a wallet. It's completely legitimate, though, and won't really be any different to getting it from Dell, I suspect.

I've installed my copy onto my main desktop and my laptop, with no problems.

Andy_L

mdbarber wrote: »

Does the employee license scheme extend to ex-employees?, don't think it does so you better check before admitting in an insurance claim you were using un-licensed software?

The new(ish) home use program (where you buy another copy for <£20) specifically states ex-employers no longer have the license. If it was just using the "can be installed on a desk top & one mobile device" then that license is held by whoever bought the software so almost certinally not the OP.

LardyCake

OpenOffice should work just fine. Why not give yourself a chance to save some money?
- install OpenOffice (cost = £0),
- try it for a bit,
- if it does what you want then end of story, you have saved the cost of buying MS Office

shadowdragon

Open office will be fine for typing up lesson plans, schemes of work ect. The licence you got Office 2003 was the campus licence, I used to get the same. The only time you would really hit a snag with Open Office opposed to MS Office if you did any complex macro work or Visual Basic for Applications (VBA).

The layout is pretty generic.I use Open Office now for the same reason that I no longer qualify for the campus licence and refuse to pay for MS Office when theres a free Office suite that is fit for purpose.