Microsoft Office - Which Version?

[Mumbank]

Please can someone give me some advice. I am about to buy my 17yo daughter a new laptop. She is in Year 12 and plans to go on to Uni, hopefully to study medicine, if not something along those lines.

I have been given conflicting advice about which version of Microsoft Office 2007 I should buy for her computer.

1. She only needs Home Office and Student Version.
2. She MUST have Small Business Version at the very least.

Can someone tell me the difference and perhaps some recommendations.

The rest of the computer I have picked (but not ordered) is Dell 2gb ram, 160gb hard drive etc but I just don;t know about the version of office? All Help appreciated

 

[Whiskers]

Please can someone give me some advice. I am about to buy my 17yo daughter a new laptop. She is in Year 12 and plans to go on to Uni, hopefully to study medicine, if not something along those lines.

I have been given conflicting advice about which version of Microsoft Office 2007 I should buy for her computer.

1. She only needs Home Office and Student Version.
2. She MUST have Small Business Version at the very least.

Can someone tell me the difference and perhaps some recommendations.

The rest of the computer I have picked (but not ordered) is Dell 2gb ram, 160gb hard drive etc but I just don;t know about the version of office? All Help appreciated

Hi mumbank

This might help.

The uni course coordinator will be able to tell you the minimum and recommended requirements.

I think one thing about the student version is that while it is much cheaper it may not be upgradeable to higher versions. The site may tell you.

What's included in Office Home and Student 2007:
Excel 2007
OneNote 2007
PowerPoint 2007
Word 2007


What's included in Office Small Business 2007:
Excel 2007
Outlook 2007 with Business Contact Manager
PowerPoint 2007
Publisher 2007
Word 2007

You can get a 60 day free trial, details about price and add-ins here:
http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/suites/default.aspx

I am only using a Dell 500MB RAM and 10GB hard drive at the moment, so your Dell is more than 4 time bigger than my desktop, so I don't think you will have any problems with performance. Not into video stuff too much, somebody else might be able to advise there.

EDIT:

I would not even bother with it. Save yourself a lot of money and download open office its free. I got it the other week and cannot see any difference to the Microsoft product. In fact I think it has some extra features.

Its compatible with MS office too.

That is a good point. But sometimes they specify a particular version of a particular product for certain courses to be compatable with teaching aids. Should check with course coordinator.

 

[philr]

I would not even bother with it. Save yourself a lot of money and download open office its free. I got it the other week and cannot see any difference to the Microsoft product. In fact I think it has some extra features.

Its compatible with MS office too.

 

[Santob]

As a uni student, the most important software she'll need is Word to write essays, papers etc.. She may also need Powerpoint to do presentations or prepare slides, and Excel may also be needed if she ever does a subject requiring mathematics/calculations.

Outlook is not as important, in fact if the only real "communication" she'll do is simple email then Outlook express which comes free with Windows will be good enough to do the Job. I'm not sure what onenote is, and considering I sit at a computer all day using the office suite of products - its a safe bet she wont need it urgently either.

And i'm not sure on price but I believe the student edition is significantly cheaper. The recommendation on using Openoffice is a good one, as all MS Office files are compatible (so work done in MS Word can be opened using Openoffice and vice-versa), however bear in mind that MS Office is the quasi-standard thats used in most organisations including universities.

Also as another recommendation - don't use the internet explorer and outlook express that comes with windows, but install Firefox for internet viewing (and install the Adblock and noscript extensions), and also consider using Thunderbird as the email program rather than outlook express.

 

[agro]

all you need is:

Word
Powerpoint
Excell

forget the rest, stick the basics and save ur hard earned

 

[ice]

No specific knowledge of the merits of either package but in 5 yrs at uni junior has never needed anything other than Word and Excel.

ice

 

[wildkactus]

Agree with santob and philr.
since i have moved to openoffice and mozilla products (Firefox / Thunderbird) have had a better office platform. so these are worth a look.

if you still want to go with office, get the latest version of student 2007 save the bucks and this should be all that is needed.

but have a look at the open source products they are better value.

 

[Mumbank]

Wow thank you all for your advice and input. I think i'll just go with the student version as I think that is all she will need as well.

Thanks all

 

[nomore4s]

OneNote won't be essential but she could find it very helpful, it's really just a word program but can be organised and stored like a notebook.

 

[SM Junkie]

Everyone has hit the nail on the head, Microsoft basic is all that is required. I would add one other point, I would not recommend having Windows Vista at this point in time. I'm having all types of problems recieving and sending file. I remember when Windows first came in, that also had teething problems and Vista is a bit the same. I've been using computers since the PC conception and I'm having the most difficulties adapting to Vista.

 

[Stan 101]

openoffice is a great product, though if your child is learning in the maths / engineering areas, the uni might expect excel. They are similar programs but not the same. There are some fundamental differences.

Also, Office 2007 has done away with VB. If you don't know what VB is, it probably won't affect you. There will be a lot of heart ache when people with large ans important spreadsheets filled with macros try to upgrade to office 2007, though..


cheers,

 

[Trader Paul]

Hi folks,

..... open office may be free, but it is DEFINITELY NOT totally compatible
with MS Office and MS operating systems ... just one example, being cited
by AA in NZ:

AA dumps open office

... and from bitter experience, in another tertiary environment, open office
incompatability can cause other complications, like very slow computer
response times, after extended use of open office.

So, invest in the standard expected by the uni and gain peace of mind,
by using a proven and tested product, like MS Office.

have a great day

paul



=====

 

[philr]

Paul

It would be good to see all Uni's going with the Open Office product then Microsoft could struggle to be compatible with them.

It would also save a lot of people donating millions of dollars to Microsoft every year for a product that is not that different.

 

[Uncle Festivus]

Paul

It would be good to see all Uni's going with the Open Office product then Microsoft could struggle to be compatible with them.

It would also save a lot of people donating millions of dollars to Microsoft every year for a product that is not that different.

There are degrees of compatibility between the 2. I've had enough problems with OO to the point where I had to buy MSO07 to run Excel files correctly as OO has problems with macros. As much as I like to use open source, in this case the Microsoft product, for the price of the Home & Student edition, about $150, is by far the more elegant and functional of the 2.

One note is pretty good too, great for doing screen captures, and optical character recognition (OCR).

 

[Awesomandy]

Just wondering, which course is she planning to study? Either way, I would say that Word is essential for writing essays, reports, etc, and I would now say that PowerPoint is also a must. Increasingly, students are expected to use PowePoint in presentations, and I believe having it on the laptop will be very beneficial. I graduated about 2 years ago, and I have made around 8 - 10 PowerPoint presentations in my 4 years of uni life.

If she is going do a degree that involves business and/or science subjects, Excel will be of good use as well. However, quite often, with science and engineering subjects, they'll have to use specialised packages. While these are available for sale, the costs are very high (thousands of dollars), which means the only feasible way option is to use these packages in uni.

It is also worth noting that, sometimes, students may be asked to use specific macros, and there's a good chance that they won't be compatible with office 2007. Personally, I would much prefer office 2003, but I doubt it's available anymore.

Also, some courses will involve using Access, the database program, but I would be surprised if this is needed for more than 1 or 2 subjects out of the entire course (unless she is specialising in databases).

Personally, I think that Outlook is unnecessary, however, some people like to use it as a personal organiser as well. It's also quite useful for storing contacts, and setting alarms for tasks due in the future. Having said that though, I still prefer the traditional method of pen and paper, via a diary.

There is also Publisher as well. It might be useful if she is going to do journalism or similar, but as an accounting graduate, I have never touched it. Onenote is a good notetaking program as well, but, again, I have never touched it. It's faster and more convenient to just print out the lecture notes, and then scribble on them in the lectures/tutorials. Of course, there's FrontPage for making web pages. Some subjects may require making web pages, but they are few and far in between, so I probably wouldn't bother with it either. There are also many other web page creating programs as well, and as long as the created web pages follow the established and accepted standards, there shouldn't be any compatability problems with any programs.

So, in a nutshell, Word and Powerpoint are absolutely necessary. Excel is useful and a good tool to have in most cases. Outlook and Access would be considered as optional (if they are available for a good price, you might as well get them, but there's no harm leaving those out), and everything else, you can pretty much just forget about them, as I personally don't see the value in them.

 

[dalek]

It is also worth noting that, sometimes, students may be asked to use specific macros, and there's a good chance that they won't be compatible with office 2007. Personally, I would much prefer office 2003, but I doubt it's available anymore.

This is a good point, I have not upgraded to Office 2007 from 2003 due to incompatibility issues. I understand Word, and or, Excel use different file extensions in 2007 which is annoying.
There are quite a few product reviews available on the net which you might find useful. I would consider a 2003 package instead. They are readily available secondhand with a valid licence.

 

[Santob]

This is a good point, I have not upgraded to Office 2007 from 2003 due to incompatibility issues. I understand Word, and or, Excel use different file extensions in 2007 which is annoying.
There are quite a few product reviews available on the net which you might find useful. I would consider a 2003 package instead. They are readily available secondhand with a valid licence.

2003 in my opinion is definitely better than 2007. They've changed the user interface with 2007 so much that many of the features you'll use regularly and used to be on a toolbar at the top are now many more clicks away than they used to be.

All the offices I've worked in continue to use 2003 as 2007 is too much of a "revolution".

 

[Stan 101]

I do have a group of Office 2007 compatibility tools that I could probably upload if anyone is interested..I haven't had to use them in anger...yet so I can't critique them. My IT department has been using them, though..

 

[Awesomandy]

This is a good point, I have not upgraded to Office 2007 from 2003 due to incompatibility issues. I understand Word, and or, Excel use different file extensions in 2007 which is annoying.

Both the 2007 version of Word and Excel now use new file formats. If someone with an older version of office wishes to open these new file formats, they need to download a converter from Microsoft. Most people won't bother though, they'll just tell the author to re-save the file in their 2003 formats.

 

[theasxgorilla]

Both the 2007 version of Word and Excel now use new file formats. If someone with an older version of office wishes to open these new file formats, they need to download a converter from Microsoft. Most people won't bother though, they'll just tell the author to re-save the file in their 2003 formats.

I use 2007 on one PC and 2003 on another with the converter tool and it's fine. Even works with Visio, which do quite a bit of work with. I recommend running 2007. It's like Vista, it's the future, it is better (when it works) and you're going to have to learn it eventually. If you're not in IT however, maybe you prefer a reliable tool and can afford to wait.

ASX.G