MS Office - Which one?

Ticklemouse

albertross wrote: »

Laptops have a habit of getting knicked, and hard disks have a habit of failing/getting corrupt. So if you use it for business, backup!

LOL - tell me about the corrupted discs! I was actually in the process of beginning to back up my database when the motherboard on my PC died and I lost it!! Luckily it wasn't that big - but I have learned my lesson.

Also, my lappy still tends to live in the house - I just used my business as an excuse for getting a lappy as much as anything

sjc_2

I used Office 2003 at work and have moved to the "007 Version and it took a bit of getting used to, but overall now I find it better and easier to use especially reformatting documents. Don't get me wrong I only possibly use about 10% of the products capability but what I do use is easier on 2007 than 2003.

On computability between different versions anything that is sent to you in 2004 format you will be able to use as normal, however if you send them a 2007 file they will not be able to open it. You can however set Office 2007 to use compatibility mode and save all the files in 2003 format by default. That is what I currently do until everyone else catches up.

wakandem

Get OpenOffice it will open ms-office files and once you get used to it, it is great to use

Chippy_Minton

Ticklemouse wrote: »

I have Access on my PC but I've never used it. My database is a fairly simple "list" of names and addresses of suppliers that I can put into assorted categories. I have been using Outlook up to now.

Told you I was a numpty - is Access that much better?

No need for Access for a simple list like that - use Excel instead. And yes, Access only comes with the Professional variant, so is more expensive.

The Office 2003 Student/Teacher edition would be suitable for your purposes and cost-effective: http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/60747

vetfred

If you've not done already, you could download the Open Office suite - it's free (and legally so!) You could see if that suits your needs - it has the equivalent of Word, spreadsheet and other stuff and the Writer program (Word) opens Microsoft .doc files and can save into them too, so it's quite compatible if you're saving and sending things for other people who have Microsft products: http://www.openoffice.org