How can i use microsoft office on the mAC - what app do i purchase? help?!!

Question

how can i use microsoft office on the mAC - what app do i purchase? help?!!

Answer 1

What aspect of Microsoft Office? Office is a suite of programs... Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.
You've got several potential options. Libre Office and Open Office (both googleable) are 'open source,' free, downloadable programmes that will open most MS Office programmes and perform many of the functions of MS Office. Might be an idea to have a look round for reviews (etc) first, to see if they sound like they'll match your needs.
If you're keen to use the App Store, there's Apple's own suite of programmes: Pages, Numbers and Keynote. They're a word processor, spreadsheet programme, and presentation-type programme with similar functions to Word, Excel and Powerpoint respectively. They're pretty good for most functions, and are better integrated with Macs than MS programmes. They're excellent programmes for what they do, and relatively cheap (about £14 each?).
But if you're heavily reliant on MS, want ALL the bells and whistles of MS, or need to regularly transfer files between MS programmes on other computers and your laptop / desktop computer, then they might not be the best of ideas. Keynote - IME - can have some difficulties in transferring formatting to Powerpoint.
Finally, there's MS Office Mac 2011. You can't download MS Office from the App Store, but can order the CDs from most online stores (including Apple's own store). It might be worth price hunting - if you're a student, you can usually find the programmes relatively cheap (£38 at the moment on Software4Students, though you'll need to belong to an academic institution / have a UK .ac email address). Apple's own prices on MS software are unlikely to be the best prices out there (though the product will be identical).
MS Office includes Word, Excel and Powerpoint in the basic version. The slightly more expensive version (which, I think, is the £38 one on S4S) includes Outlook. Which - IME - is far more of a nuisance than Apple's native Mail programme.
(I should probably add - I'm an academic. I own both Apple's own programmes, and MS Office 2011. I tend to use the MS programmes more, if only because they're the ones that other people tend to use, and transferring between Apple and MS programmes is a minor inconvenience. Pages also lacks Garamond, my favourite work font. The Apple progs are, however, far more beautifully integrated, and would be MORE than good enough for most users...)