MS Word

[Rob&Carol Q]

I probably know the answer to this but I ask the question just to confirm...

My eldest daughter is away at college...Ohio State for those curious...and we recently bought her a new laptop to finish out her last year. Now the issue...she needs MS Word. PowerPoint, and Excel.

I have already purchased a copy of MS Office for younger daughter for her laptop up at Bowling Green via my job at a HUGE discount($10...WooHoo). Sadly, I cannot buy two licenses for download, only one. Sooooooo, what can I do?

My options as I know them...
1. Wander over to Best Buy and pay through the nose.
2. Go on base and see if there is an military discount version.
3. See if my own version will load onto her computer. It's about two years old and registered at MS. Not sure if I have a license for more than one computer though. I'll have to check that. When I bought Norton they gave me three downloads...perfect!
4. Tell her to use Google Apps...I'm not all that trusting yet.
5. Tell her to take advantage of her Computer Nerd boyfriend.

So, any comments?

 

[rickandcindy23]

I bought this one and am well pleased

http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Off..._1_1?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1285250560&sr=8-1

This license is good for 3 users, which worked for us.

 

[davhu1]

Option 5

My options as I know them...
5. Tell her to take advantage of her Computer Nerd boyfriend. QUOTE]

Check with the school. They may have a free download or may cost very little.

When S2 bought new computer for college, S1 said not to get any software. They can get it free from school. License is good as long as they are enrolled and suppose to delete the application after they graduate.

Alternate: use Open Office (free, Google to download)

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Just use OpenOffice. It's free and fully compatible with M$ Office.

 

[AwayWeGo]

I Resemble That Remark.

Just use OpenOffice. It's free and fully compatible with M$ Office.

Back in the old days of Windows & PCs, I used WordPerfect.

When we switched to Mac Mini, I tried MS Word For Mac & AbiWord -- didn't like either of those.

Then I downloaded & installed Open Office Dot Org & have been using that satisfactorily for a couple of years now. It has no trouble opening old WordPerfect files left over from the old pre-Mac era.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

[Clemson Fan]

Go to the military base if you have PX privileges!

They absolutely do sell a military appreciation version that includes word, excel, PowerPoint and a 4th one that I'm blanking on right now. It includes 3 copies/licenses so you can put it on 3 different computers. I've seen it priced anywhere from $50-$80 depending on whether there's a sale or not.

 

[TUGfan]

My PC has Wordperfect..............
My laptop has Microsoft Word............

Can I DL OpenOffice to both & will it then convert documents from both formats on either computer so that I can edit documents back & forth between the two?

This would be great and sounds very promising! I have been frustrated in not being able to open WdPft Docs in MsftWd and work on them.

Thanks very much!!!!

 

[janej]

Yes, use open office. I work for a big software company with over 50k employees. My company recently stopped paying for MS office site license and asked us to install open office instead.

 

[#1 Cowboys Fan]

Things bogged down on my netbook when I tried to download it.

Can someone post the best link to use---thanks.

 

[AwayWeGo]

Open Office Dot Org.

Can someone post the best link to use---thanks.

Click here for Open Office Dot Org.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

 

["Roger"]

Once she is registered as a student, she will be able to buy the Microsoft Office suite for $63. (Go to the Ohio State website, click on current students, then software.) There is nothing unusual about this price for university students. Most universities have a similar arrangement with Microsoft to sell this (and other software) for deeply discounted prices.

 

[Talent312]

While Open Office is a decent substitute, it is a tad more clunky and not as full-featured as the "real thing." IMHO, buying MS Office for the student or discounted price is the way to go.

I was Word Perfect user for nearly 25 years, starting back in its DOS-days in the early 80's. However, every office that I know has migrated to MS Office. So, I used Open Office to convert my WP docs to OO files for a while. About a year ago, I finally broke down and bought MS Office and have converted most of my OO files to MS.

 

[e.bram]

NJIT offers it to students for free.

 

[JoeWilly]

I can purchase through my employer for $10.00 too. I just received an offer to upgrade to the newest version of word for $10.00. Maybe your employer will get this offer soon. I wonder though if you could keep the old version and get the new version, just on different pc's? It might be worth checking.

 

[pkyorkbeach]

I do not like Open Office..There a glitches in it that you do not realize until you start using it daily.

Bought my Office-Word, Excel from Amazon at a decent price...

 

[Rob&Carol Q]

Super responses, thanks alot gang.

I have already used the Government's Home Use Program (HUP) for $10 but they only allow one download. Trust me, I tried for two.

I have a copy of MS Office Standard 2007 that is a Military Appreciation version and if I read it right...yup, I have three licenses and I have only used one. My Daughter comes home this weekend and I'll give her the box and let her figure it out. I'm betting on the Boyfriend taking charge of that issue.

My first word processing software that I gained any competence with was WordStar... Yeah baby. "dot commands" :hysterical: I recall having a 5.25 Dos boot disc followed by the WordStar disc followed by your "properly formatted" work disc. Wow...and that was screaming fast for the time. Funny...I clearly recall the first "Hard Drive" that arrived into the Brigade. Master Gunnery Sergeant Cordice received a 20MG machine. Not that he knew what to do with it but rank does have its privileges and I remember finding a reason to go see it. The MGySgt was deeply engaged in a game of computer golf and was calculating a rather tricky putt when I arrived. Got to love it...

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

My first word processing software that I gained any competence with was WordStar... Yeah baby. "dot commands" :hysterical: I recall having a 5.25 Dos boot disc followed by the WordStar disc followed by your "properly formatted" work disc. Wow...and that was screaming fast for the time. Funny...I clearly recall the first "Hard Drive" that arrived into the Brigade. Master Gunnery Sergeant Cordice received a 20MG machine. Not that he knew what to do with it but rank does have its privileges and I remember finding a reason to go see it. The MGySgt was deeply engaged in a game of computer golf and was calculating a rather tricky putt when I arrived. Got to love it...

Ahh ... another WordStar person.

The first word processing program I worked with was a proprietary program written by grad students in the computer science department at US-Berkeley. It was made available on the terminals in the work rooms in the bowels of the computer sciences hall.

The system worked strictly with flat ASCII files. But using various keystroke combinations you could move around the document, and select and replace words. Actually had the most flexible movement options I've ever seen. For example, you could move ahead, say five words and specify whether you wanted to land at the front of the word or the end of the word. Or you could move forward to, say, the fourth next occurrence of the letter p, and specify whether you wanted to land ahead of or behind the letter.

To get anything printed you had to put it into the job queue for the mainframes as a print job. It would then be printed on a line printer and you would pick it up in an output bin.

Although you could get something printed out, the biggest use of the program was as an alternative to punch cards. Instead of creating stacks of punched cards at keypunch machine, you did the same thing at a CRT terminal and now had the stack as an ASCII file instead of a huge box of punch cards. What an advance!!!

********

The next stage after that was the early IBM word processing typewriters that showed about thirty characters of text at a time on a display that was about an inch high and eight inches high, right above the keyboard. When you were done, you issued a print command the famous IBM Selectric golf ball would go to work. The operator needed to sit around and feed the paper in one sheet at a time, because it was still basically a typewriter.

Then I went to work in an office where they actually had an IBM word processor. A real CRT screen, keyboard and printer. It truly was a computer, but the operating system was strictly word processing. When you turned it on, it opened as a word processor, and that was all you could do with it.

finally, as the first IBM-PC's (and clones) began diffusing into offices, I learned WordStar. We didn't have PCs on everyone's desk yet, so when I wanted to edit something myself I grabbed the secretary's PC when she was at lunch or in the evening after she went home. Except for the early stuff on the terminals at UC-Berkeley, that was actually the first word processing I did for myself - up to that point only word processors were allowed to use the machines.

And yeah do I remember running WordStar (and rBase and 1-2-3) on those old 8084 and 8086 machines with two floppy drives and no hard drives.

Put the OS disk in drive A and boot the computer. Remove the OS disk from drive A and insert the program disk in Drive A. Put your file disk in Drive B.

Then hard drives came along, and now there was a C drive that would boot cimputer and where the program files were stored. Now you only one floppy drive, which you used to load your files.

 

[stmartinfan]

How about Wang word processors? They were the hot machine at my company during that era after they had the centralized "word processing department" - Before everyone got a machine, it was a small group of people who would take documents that needed typing or revising and do all the work and then print it for you.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

How about Wang word processors? They were the hot machine at my company during that era after they had the centralized "word processing department" - Before everyone got a machine, it was a small group of people who would take documents that needed typing or revising and do all the work and then print it for you.

Somehow I never wound up working somewhere that was using micros - neither Wang nor DEC. The closest I came were those terminals at UC-Berkeley. When you walked into the rooms, it looked just like DEC workstations. But the terminals were connected to a 360 main frame instead of a micro.

***

I was talking with someone about a week ago about the impacts of word processing on wages and salaries for office staff.

When I left school and went to work as a junior engineer in a non-design engineering office (i.e, we produced reports, not designs), my monthly salary was ~$1400/month. That's as a fresh out of school engineer with a Masters Degree. A Clerk-Typist II, which was the standard clerical position in an office, earned about $450/month - roughly one-third of my salary. Those Clerk-Typist positions were almost entirely female. In a reasonably productive office, there would be one Clerk-Typist for every three professional staff, such as myself.

They spent most of their time typing material we hand wrote, retyping documents after we made revisions and edits (again by hand), and transcribing field notes, memos. and letters from dictating machines. If a clerk typist wanted to advance to a higher level their best option was to learn shorthand; then they could be a "stenographer" and make about 10% more.

By 1990, when PCs and word processing systems were pretty much fully deployed, the company that I was with was hiring entry level engineers with Masters degree for about $45,000 per year. The position that used to be a "Clerk-Typist" was now a "Word Processor", who earned between $30,000 and $35,000 per year. And we had about one Word Processor for every ten engineers.

*******

I thought those change were interesting. The salary disparity was much less, but the level of skill had increased greatly. Our word processors weren't just typing, but taking responsibility for laying out, formatting and produced documents. They were also much more familiar with the commands, menus, etc.

So a lot of the drudge portion of the job had disappeared - they didn't get much handwritten original stuff because most of the initial writing was done by the professional staff. With that drudge work gone, fewer of them were employed. But as the skill level of the job increased, so did the pay.

 

[DaveNV]

Can't remember the brand name now - it may even have been Xerox - that made a word processor we used to generate printed reports. Very awkward to use by today's standards, but hey - what all do you want to store on that whopping 40K EIGHT INCH single sided single density floppy?

And anyone here old enough to remember the LNW80? It was a clone of the Radio Shack Model 1, sold as a bare motherboard or as a kit. Used a Z80A eprom to suck the guts out of the Z80 chip in the Radio Shack computer. You could supply your own parts, or buy their kit. Convert an ac/dc TV set for use a monitor, and you were almost there. Add in the keyboard kit, a cassette player, and a joystick, and voila! Power it up, snicker at the Radio Shack Model 1 splash screen, and you could play the PacMan clone "ScarfMan" all day long! (A friend and I built one of these on the kitchen table in 1981. He still owns it, and it still works. Holey cow!) We subscribed to 80Micro magazine, and typed in line after line of BASIC program code from the printed pages of the magazine. Who needs the Internet?

To the OP: You may want to look at Costco for their Upgrade of MS Office. If you check the fine print on the side of the box, you may find it will upgrade from a host of previously-installed programs. For me, one of those programs was the OEM copy of MS Works that came on my last laptop. Not a bad deal to own the whole thing.

Dave

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

And anyone here old enough to remember the LNW80? It was a clone of the Radio Shack Model 1, sold as a bare motherboard or as a kit. Used a Z80A eprom to suck the guts out of the Z80 chip in the Radio Shack computer. You could supply your own parts, or buy their kit. Convert an ac/dc TV set for use a monitor, and you were almost there. Add in the keyboard kit, a cassette player, and a joystick, and voila! Power it up, snicker at the Radio Shack Model 1 splash screen, and you could play the PacMan clone "ScarfMan" all day long! (A friend and I built one of these on the kitchen table in 1981. He still owns it, and it still works. Holey cow!) We subscribed to 80Micro magazine, and typed in line after line of BASIC program code from the printed pages of the magazine. Who needs the Internet?

My first PC was a VIC-20. It displayed on the TV screen. Had a keyboard and a processor. No joystick. You moved the cursor with the arrow keys.

I typed in the basic code for a very primitive "Space Invaders" type of game. you used the left and right keys to position the gun, and pressed the space bar to fire.

 

[DaveNV]

My first PC was a VIC-20. It displayed on the TV screen. Had a keyboard and a processor. No joystick. You moved the cursor with the arrow keys.

I typed in the basic code for a very primitive "Space Invaders" type of game. you used the left and right keys to position the gun, and pressed the space bar to fire.

I had one of those, too. And a Timex Sinclair 800 (later upgraded to a 1000) "computer." (I use the term loosely... And a Kaypro 2X - the 25 pound "portable" computer. (Remember CP/M before PC-DOS existed?) And then MS-DOS broke onto the scene, Bill Gates became a household name, and everything has never been the same. Man, those bleeding edge of technology days...

Dave

 

[Kal]

...Then I went to work in an office where they actually had an IBM word processor. A real CRT screen, keyboard and printer. It truly was a computer, but the operating system was strictly word processing. When you turned it on, it opened as a word processor, and that was all you could do with it.

finally, as the first IBM-PC's (and clones) began diffusing into offices, I learned WordStar. We didn't have PCs on everyone's desk yet, so when I wanted to edit something myself I grabbed the secretary's PC when she was at lunch or in the evening after she went home. Except for the early stuff on the terminals at UC-Berkeley, that was actually the first word processing I did for myself - up to that point only word processors were allowed to use the machines.

And yeah do I remember running WordStar (and rBase and 1-2-3) on those old 8084 and 8086 machines with two floppy drives and no hard drives.
....

Steve - As I recall the World of Wang dominated word processing in about 1983. The word processor person became my best buddy as I jumped on the single machine at lunch or after hours to do the document editing myself. It was much easier than mark-up and wait for it to be done by someone else. Then came Lotus 1-2-3 and subsequently Symphony which included a component word processor. Ahhhhh, it just couldn't get any better. 300 baud modems were truely rocket science.!