I bought my first Mac this week. It's all quite new to me. I would like the comments / suggestions of experienced Mac users on the necessity to purchase Mac Office.

Do you think it is necessary to buy Office for Mac in order to be fully compatible with the 90% + people who use MS Word and MS Excel ? Or will Claris take care of my home-small business needs in a seamless manner ? I'm worried that fonts/columns/tables etc. may not transfer seamlessly unless I have Mac Office. Let me know if that's a wrong impression.

Secondly, I need further clarification as to how my Mac can write in Japanese. In my old, Windows-98 based PC, we had installed the Japanese IME which allowed us to choose Japanese keyboard in Internet Explorer, Office suite, MS outlook, etc. It was simple: one installation and it worked for the most important software. It was free.

Will it work the same with my Mac ? If I select Japanese keyboard, will it work like the IME on my old PC ? Or do I need to install Japanese-language keybord for each program I use ?

Thank you for all your help,

Stephane

I wouldn't rely on Appleworks to run all my documents.

I just tried to run a Word doc in Appleworks, and it didn't come out pretty.

You should consider getting Office X Standard version. It's cheaper now.

Welcome to the forum. And-- Congratulations on buying a Mac--You will love it!

For graphics, movie editing, music management, photo management, ease of use, beauty, multi media, web browsing, cd burning, and just about everything else EXCEPT office/business stuff, the Mac programs CANNOT be beat. But- you better get MS Office for Mac if you are planning to try to communicate with the rest of the world on that level.

Mac's are for the creative, fun stuff but thankfully, we can use MS Office when we have to do the regular business stuff like letters and spread sheets. I have MS Office because I have customers who design signs in Word and then email me the Word files for fabrication. Personally, I find Appleworks a whole lot easier to use than MS Office but there are problems opening word files in it.

MS Office contains Entourage also- you will find this useful if you like to use the newsgroups. Mac's "Mail" will not access newsgroups as it is not a "hybrid" mail program as Entourage is. And then there's Powerpoint- pretty awsome program. You really do get your money's worth with MS Office. As James said, it's now available at a lower price.

But just you try to make a movie on a windows pc! forget it.

I don't have a clue about how to write in Japanese. Sorry.

Welcome to The Mac Forum.
I know there's an option to install a Japanese Language Pack when upgrading or installing 10.3 (Panther), but I'm not sure if that will help you.
Sysops

The short answer to this is ABSOLUTELY!

Office isn't cheap, but it's worth every penny in the "compatibility" dept. If you were simply creating a newsletter for print or pdf on your end, Appleworks would be fine... but if you want true, no problem compatibility, Office is the only way to go.

I have the only Mac in a 4000 employee company and also communicate with a very large world wide customer. I use Office almost exclusively to create letters, spreadsheets, and PP presentations on the Mac... and not one of my contacts have any idea that it's all being done on a Mac on my end.

The only thing that happens on occaision is margins may move slightly between OS's.

Can't help on the Japanese part, but feel it shouldn't be a problem with OSX... and possibly the addition of fonts.

Thank you all for your replies. We'll go purchase an Academic edition of Office for Mac.

I did find the answer to my question about writing in Japanese. In System Preferences, in the International options, you can select input methods other than for roman characters. Many different alphabets seem to be supported. After selecting Japanese, you need only select a Japanese font from Appleworks or any program you're running. Apple has developed a few Japanese fonts that are so beautiful (so I'm told), that it means a lot for Japanese users. Appleworks comes with an impressive Japanese-language dictionnary.

I most impressed that these things are all standard, free, requiring no installation whatsoever. I bet my new Mac will keep surprising me like this for a while...

Have a good day,

Stephane

Audets,
We're very glad that your problem got solved, and glad we could help. Please note that we are moving, and that this Genius Bar is now closed (so no one posts more technical problems before we move to the IPB, because we won't be able to answer them if they're here.)
Thanks,
Sysops