Do I really need Office X ???? Apple Works okay???

[edX]

I just got the new aw 6.2.2. apple has fixed the printing problem and they claim it will now open word documents. If this is so, then they must have been reading this insanely long thread. I don't have any word docs to try this with (i don't want cooties) but sounds like some of you might be jumping up and down with joy if it's true and leonis can stop worrying about buying 'that other program'. Of course it seems like he made that decision already. I would also bet he wouldn't tell us if he did after all that's been said.

[Aussie John]

so will Appleworks (latest) open both word and excel files?

also will it write to word format?

[edX]

aw 6.2.2 lists save translators for word and excel in the following versions -
excel - mac 5 & 98, win 5 & 97,2000
word - mac 6 & 98, win 6,95 & 98,2000

again I have no m$ docs to try and test what it will open. hopefully someone else will report

[Hypernate]

As much as I hate Microsoft and Office etc. I am forced to buy a copy of Office 2001 when I buy my iMac. ATM I still only have my awful wintel piece-a-sh!t, but yeah.

For school, I have teachers who MAKE me give files in, on pc formatted disks in Word *.doc format.

This really will be interesting with a macintosh without a floppy drive and, well, yeah. I suppose I'll have to hand it in on either a CD (formatted to Windows if I can through Mac OS X) or buy a USB disk drive.

Anyway, for the Office, I have to buy it, but fortunately, Microsoft is giving us students a huge discount (It's still overpriced!).

Rather than AU$999 for the full Office 2001, they'll sell it to us for AU$299.

Still a rip off...

[karavite]

Hi Hypernate - That's absurd that you have to go through all that to hand in an assignment - even if you used nothing but a PC. Also, a student price of $300 for Word or Office is riduculous! Maybe you should remind your school that there is this amazing new medium called email that not only lets you send messages to people, but attach files as well. Disks? That is so Y1K man! Sneaker net.

However, more often than not, teachers and students have difficulty with attachments, and I have heard of people being given incompletes or being marked down for handing in assignments "late" due to corrupt files, disks, deleted messages...

I think that the demand for certain file types rests mainly on peoples inability to understand attachments, file types, "Save as," "import," file extensions (for example a Mac user converting a AppleWorks file to Word but failing to add a ".doc" and/or the receivers inability to use the Word file menu to open a doc rather than double click on the file) and every other potential screw up you could imagine.

I suppose one could say this all rests on people being computer illiterate, but I always wondered why Apple didn't create a killer app *as part of the OS* that would go much further to solve this problem that repeatedly results in people who don't know better to blame the Mac as being "incompatible." I know there are a million ways to handle this - my argument is that novice Mac and PC users just don't get it and many just never will get it (including teachers and school adminstrators). I think file conversion could be handled more transparently and/or without so much user knowledge and understanding of all the afore mentioned attributes of managing files. My basic argument is that people don't have to be registered mechanics to drive a car, so why should they be hackers to send a text file! MS banks on making this difficult - their primary interest is to lock people in to using their apps and ease of use is always a secondary concern. Apple made its mark and continues to make its mark on ease of use.

Any way, I am babbling. I just think your school is being unfair and should accept plain old paper until they get their act together. If you wanted to be a real radical, maybe you could drop a virus infected disk off to your teacher some day - then they would institute a new policy where teachers have to run a virus scan on every assignment, and of course that would be too difficult for most teachers and/or they would find it was too much hassle and then go back to accepting paper only - not that I would ever recommend or do such a thing.

[noei24]

Recently, I installed AppleWorks 6.1.2 (the full retail version) on a friend's iMac (333MHz Tray-Load running Mac OS 9.0.4). And removed AppleWorks 5 from the computer after the installation. For some unknown reason, AppleWorks was unable to open PC Word and Excel documents; the files just would not show up in the directory window even with File Type and File Format set to All.

I'm puzzled because AppleWorks 6.1.2 works fine on my iMac (350MHz Slot-Load running Mac OS 9.0.4) at work. Did I miss something? Is there something I can do to make AppleWorks' file translation feature work?

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.


P.S. Several postings argued against the need to spend money on PowerPoint. Try Viewer, a freeware PowerPoint viewer, at this URL -- http://piau.mac.tucows.com/files/powerptview.hqx

[genghiscohen]

Perhaps the AW 5 preferences are still on your friends machine?

[edX]

testuser is right, you need 6.2.2 to translate word and excel. also to get rid of all sorts of bugs!!