[P1] open Word and Excel in Appleworks?

[e.mkeene]

> and I cannot afford to buy Office for Mac.

Check Microcenter. If you don't live near one, go to the website. They 
were selling the Educational version of Office for Mac (current 
version) For $119 and did not ask for or require educational 
credentials. I researched it as much as I could and could find nothing 
that would prevent it being used by non academics. Since I did not need 
it, I have not bought it so I can't swear about the restrictions. 
However, if you have kids in school, you qualify for an academic 
version so that would solve that.

I personally use AppleWorks to translate Office docs. I have been able 
to translate everything except powerpoint. For that, I have to dig out 
Office. I do find on Excel files, it is much easier to read them if I 
print them out after translating instead of trying to scroll across, up 
and down, etc.

When I refinanced my house recently, the bank sent all the forms to be 
filled out as Excel spreadsheets and they were rather creative in how 
they laid out the questions to be sure it fit on one sheet in super 
tiny fonts. Printing it out to use as a guide helped me to accurately 
tab to the correct space for my answers and not miss any questions. I 
did not find any weird characters due to formatting problems.

Word docs have never given me any formatting problems in AppleWorks 
either. There is another app, I think it is called Think Office, that 
is about $50 and is supposed to be pretty equal to MS Office and is 
said to open office files. I can't remember for sure if they have a 
free demo you can try or not. Versiontracker will  find it for you. My 
net connection is goofy right now so I can't verify it for you.

Since I prefer to run MS free as much as possible, even though I have 
office x, i still use the alternatives instead. MacLinkPlus is an 
excellent choice if you expect to encounter a bunch of strange files. 
There are very few files it can't crack one way or another. If you go 
over to Aladdin website and download a demo of stuffit, be sure to 
check the box for 3rd party offers. Then Aladdin will send you an email 
for a special price to purchase Stuffit and you will be entered on the 
email list for their 3rd party mail order offers. They stick with the 
really useful apps, mostly utilities and MacLinkPlus is one of those. 
If you buy it the first time with no crossgrade or upgrade offers or 
coupons or promos, it will run $80. If you get a coupon via Aladdiin 
(sent by digital river), you may get a substantial  discount. You might 
also try gooling for the digital river website and see if they have 
anything posted.

Mac User groups are another source of special pricing and discounts on 
many apps.


Mac Computer Show and Sale December 13th
Info at www.wap.org