microsoft word student or any cheap offers

surfsister

thanks all some good ideas here. I work at a uni so will try to get one there. Also will try the suggestions re "OpenOffice DOES handle .DOCX files too"

I love this forum as it is so useful and the people so helpful too!!

Niv

I have for a long time been a fan of OpenOffice, unfortunately there are a couple of drawbacks that I have yet to find a workaround on (mainly because I believe there is any). A couple of cases where word is needed over OpenOffice below:

1, Application forms created in word and using various formatting. Very fiddly to get it to look right and even when you think you have and print it, its messed up.

2, Opening word documents that have tracked changes and comments on. OpenOffice does not seem to like this very much at all and indeed I have found it to make the document very difficult to read. Once saved the changes do not change correctly and the whole thing becomes a nightmare.

3, When a job specifically wants the applicants to know how to use office, with the best will in the world, the two programs do not work the same so there is no way to ‘get used’ to office by practicing in OpenOffice.

I do accept that my examples are specific and for the general user that wants a program at home to produce a document they are a non-issue. But I thought it worth highlighting in any case.

macman

If you need macros to work, then yes, you need MS Office. For almost everything else, OO or LO will suffice.