It was about getting access to those applications and features that Mac users don't get out of Office and about trying to find something that natively supports the new Office 2007 file types. So my search for the best alternative to Office wasn't just about money. Until Office 2008 for Mac comes out, we either have to ask people to save documents in the older format or rely on a converter, which is still in beta.
In fact, with Microsoft's new Office 2007 file formats, we can't even directly open and edit files from the most recent versions of those core applications. Even the staple three applications of Word, Excel and PowerPoint sometimes lack features found in their Windows counterparts. There has never been a Mac version of Access or Publisher, for example.
(Office 2007 for Windows went on general sale last January, and we won't get Office 2008 for Mac until sometime this fall.)Īnd even when a Mac version does ship, we get only some of the components. We often need to wait six months or longer after Office for Windows gets updated before we get a comparable version. In addition to concerns about price, we Mac users face our own unique Office challenges.