Cheap Windows Office...need help

Hello everyone,
I need some help
I am buying a notebook in ~4 Hours and I just realized that I don't have an extra copy of Windows Office Which I need badly as I am a student...
However I also have a budget and I need suggestions for the cheapest copy of Office I can get (It's ok if I have to download it from Microsoft if they do that now...sort of like Steam)
These are the requirements:
Microsoft Word
Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Powerpoint
Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
Thanks in Advance,
-TBird

 

What's your budget? MS Office Student and Teacher Edition is $149 and has all the apps you're wanting. Of course if you want free, you could always try OpenOffice.org. It's MS Office compatibility has gotten much better lately.

 

If you're a student, see if you can get MS Office at the college for a discounted price. It will be much cheaper that way.

Basic edition comes with Excel, Word, and Outlook . . I'd say step up to the Small Business edition, that comes with all of basic plus Powerpoint.

Chaz

 

For the student & Teacher edition do I have to prove I am a student?
and if so how do I do that? (I go to a private High School)
I do NOT need Outlook so if there is a way to get without Outlook for less $$ than suggest it!!
Well thanks for the first lead Now that I know I canget it for $150... How about I just say $100 is my budget
Thanks to Mach_Zero & Chaz for quick responses!
Thanks in advance for any help!,
-TBird
(Please include URL for where I can get it THANKS!!!)

 

Go to Staples. You can just try to buy it. I don't think that they really check. Find some clerk and just chat with them about how you think that this is a good price and that you have homework due in 2 weeks, BLAH BLAH BLAH....Or even wear your school shirt, letterman jacket, etc. etc.

 

Hello again,
I did some more searching (I can't ask for help and not be looking myself...)
What do you guys think of this?
http://www.atomicpark.com/xq/aspx/microsoft-office-student-and-teacher/familyid.7122/buy.software/qx/productlist.html
Thanks For any suggestions,
-TBird

 

That's Student & Teacher Edition, and the store seems legitimate...

http://www.bizrate.com/ratings_guide/cust_reviews__mid--25256.html

They can't care less if you're a student or not. The place where I work was buying an iMac and the Apple phone person asked if we wanted mac ffice for $150, knowing we're a business. We said ok. It came and it turned out to be the Student & Teacher Edition.

(Then everything sat under a desk for a month, Macintel came out, and Apple took the whole package back for a full refund, including even shipping and handling. Sweet.)

 

check these out..

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ory=1149&Description=microsoft+office&Ntk=all

pb,out.

 

OpenOffice is FREE and does have very good compatibility w/ M$ Office. I know, I use it daily. You should really try open office before you spend your $. You can always get the M$ Office later if OpenOffice doesn't work out for you.

 

Noah,

I don't know what you're talking about. I've tried using the Word counterpart of OpenOffice, and it was like pulling teeth. All of a sudden, most of the document went into the margin, and after looking at it for 15 minutes, we (2 of us) were still unable to figure out why. It was like, whenever there we wanted to use a basic feature that Word has had forever, like track changes, it was absent.

I think it's fine for someone who absolutely can't afford to pay for Office, but I don't see how it's worthy of recommendation...

Malia

 

Excellent Online Retailer:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16832102528

I have shopped with them before, so you can feel safe.

 

Gee Malia, did you try the recent version? OpenOffice 2.0 opened my thesis just fine- formatting included. I know in the past the compatability wasn't very good. Yeah, there are probably features that M$ has and OOO doesn't. However, tracking changes isn't one of them. I just checked my OOO help file and the feature is present. Go to Edit>Record>Changes and away you go. I bet the other features you were after were probably present, but in a different menu and or called by a different name.

 

^^^^^^^
That's generally the case. Things are just not where you expect them to be if you've developed some well ingrained habits from using MS Office.

 

OOo can open things decently, but once you start editing the document, mysterious things can happen. It was a couple of months ago, so it was a recent version.

Why should track changes be under Edit? When you track changes, you don't MAKE changes, you just use a tool to keep track of them... It's like word count, one of those things that are convenient but don't do anything in and of themselves. True, you edit when you accept/reject changes, which is a part of the same function, but via a toolbar, not a menu item. You only use the menu item to turn it on... And, since you found it through the help file, not by just seeing what's where, it seems you think it's counter-intuitive also.

So, I don't know if I looked under Edit, but counter-intuitive UI can kill any program. After looking for 15 minutes trying to figure out why the paragraphs all went into the margin and not being able to find stuff, I probably gave up easily on the track changes.

Malia

 

I often go to help files when I don't find/get things on the first try. I have spent too much time beating my head on walls in the past. Now I just ask for help faster.

Contrary to what you supposed, the location of the change tracker isn't counterintuitive to me. It seems counterintuitive to expect that OOo should have exactly the same UI as MS office. It's a different app by different programmers, so my intuition tells me to expect layouts and so on to be different.

I can easily see how somebody classifies keeping track of changes between versions of documents as part of the editing process, regardless of what you do with the changes. Intuition tells me I just need to sit down and learn a new program.