Excel/Powerpoint

brummiebabe

Tried to look in thread at top for this, but couldn't get it to work!

Is there any way of getting Excel/Powerpoint at a reasonable cost? It's £200 for Microsoft Office (on their site!) I've currently got Microsoft XP (Home Edition) which came with 'Microsoft Works' but not Excel/Poweroint.

Any ideas anyone? I'm new to this PC lark, so sorry if it seems a dumb question!!!

gizmoleeds

https://www.openoffice.org - similar product but free.

jackbremer

Obviously there are millions of illegal copies lurking on the net, it doesn't take a genius to find them.

As we are in the mood for saving money, not stealing things, we have to look for cheaper alternatives.

Find OEM Microsoft Software from a reputable source. They will tell you that to be legal you must purchase it with a substantial piece of computer hardware, but a hard drive, motherboard or case need not cost more than £5-£25 these days...

eBuyer sell the SBE version of Office for £103 ex VAT @ http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=13250347403&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=65632
Microsoft OEM Office XP Small Business Edition SP3 - 1Pk

They say: Microsoft OEM Application\Server software Must be purchase with a fully assembled computer system only. Full Retail boxed products must be ordered if no hardware\PC system is to accompany the sale.

Bluesolutions are cheap as chips for a lot of software too, and give guidelines on OEM purchases @ http://www.bluesolutions.co.uk/shops/microsoft/Microsoft-oem-entitlement.asp

BlueVinney

Can recommend Openoffice as suggested by gizmoleeds.

I use it for spreadsheet and presentations and so far found no problems. You can output in both excel and powerpoint file formats (and read them as well!).

The whole package is very well integrated and I think you would need to be a real poweruser before you would find any limitations in handling anything MSOffice can do. In terms of value for money you can't beat it.

The first time I downloaded it I was on dialup and used the free download manager at (surprise) https://www.freedownloadmanager.org but with bb there's no problem. It's an 80Mb download.

BenL

If you only want to view the files and not create them there is free software on microsoft.com in the downloads area for this.

Ben