Does MS really need to charge that much for Office?

Hardware and technical stuff
21

Does open office have something similar to VBA?

22

Home & Student is $149, and you can install it on up to 3 computers. So if you do need it for multiple PCs, that can bring the “per computer” cost down to $49.

It doesn’t have Outlook, but if you’re running Vista and not in a business environment, Windows Mail will probably handle your e-mail needs anyway. It has junk mail filtering, spell checking, and lots of improvements over Outlook Express.

23

You can get a compatability pack to read the new file types in the old versions, so no.

24

Good luck sending your JPG resume to any HR person, the vast majority of which demand Word .doc format and nothing else, and not having it tossed out (if not spam filtered before they ever even seen the e-mail, since jpgs with a lot of text are a huge red flag for most spam filters).

25

I’m hoping Trom’s post was trollbait for the PNG/GIF-aware in the audience.

26

I almost bit.

27

HTML and XML are also bloated and awful “open source” file formats. I agree with CCZ.

28

/applause.

29

Education & Student is only $149? Does it have Frontpage and Access too? I don’t use Outlook.

I’m not a student nor an educator so I guess I don’t qualify unless ther’es a workaround for that.

30

Maybe it’s just been my experience with Adobe Reader all these years.

As for XPS, NO! I’m sick of proprietary formats!

31

Hardy-har-har.

32

That’s why I break them into 30 pieces, and then recontruct them with malware installing HTML.

I just wanna be difficult.

33

As others have pointed out, there are compatible programs out there that are either cheaper or free.

Note: On the word processing front, I usually use Abiword instead of OpenOffice because Abiword runs so much quicker.

34

Bah. Word processors are stupid and inefficient. LaTeX FTW at $0.00.

Now you damn kids get off my lawn.

35

oops. replied to the wrong thread.

I’m old and it’s Friday.

36

I’m an idiot

37

There’s always a workaround. Bribe a college kid $40 to buy you a copy.

38

Can you just buy it in a store?

39

My understanding is that the student edition is only available at colleges and only valid for students with a student ID. Has this changed?

40

I think the Home and Student version is available retail.

Yep, it is: http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=342861&pfp=jan28

Now, there’s a “student and teacher” version for the Mac, that has some restrictions, but I don’t know if it’s anything more than the honor system:

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?pfp=cat3&product_code=312656&Pn=Office_2004_for_Mac_Student_and_Teacher_Edition