Appleworks/MS Excel

[Anne Keller-Smith]

Hi -

I've been using an old, old copy of MS Excel 98. I'd like to convert to 
Appleworks.

I notice that if I save out of Excel as a .DIF file, I can import into 
Appleworks 5.
However, formulas are all lost, imported instead as fixed numbers. Is 
there any
way to keep my formulas? Would a newer version of Appleworks keep 
formulas?

Other tack: buy a newer copy of Excel. Any way to buy just Excel, as 
the whole
MS Office is way beyond my budget? I just need to hedge against this 
copy of Excel
going belly-up, as it refuses to copy any more to my other machine. In 
other
words, if it gets corrupt I have no way to resurrect it.

Or, perhaps, a not-quite-new version of Excel from Ebay ...