I just bought a macbook pro and am ready to order Microsoft Office for Mac. I use Windows 2007 at work and want to be sure I am able to work with files from that system. Do I need to buy 2 different editions of Microsoft Office to be able to do this?

Question

Do I need to buy 2 different Microsoft Office products if I want to be able to use my new Mac with Microsoft Office for Mac and also use files saved on my work computer which uses Microsoft Window 2007?

Answer 1

Pomme4us wrote:
Do I need to buy 2 different Microsoft Office products if I want to be able to use my new Mac with Microsoft Office for Mac and also use files saved on my work computer which uses Microsoft Window 2007?
Sorry, but your likely going to have to use Windows 7 and Office on your Mac at work using Bootcamp.
Although you can share files OfficeMac and Office on Windows, the formatting will be off because two platforms use different installed fonts and formatting. This will cause a productivity lost and require extra editing at work
If you could share just PDF's then your fine, but that will unlikely be the case.
So to share files seamlessly your going to have to install Windows 7 (another $300) full version, 64 bit, using Apple's Bootcamp.
https://www.apple.com/support/bootcamp/
It's ok, though, you can boot into OS X to use that online and surfing etc at home. It's the internet and sharing of files from other Windows users that cause Windows to hoze up, so mimimalize both of those and you should be fine.
You can also run Windows 7 in a virtual machine software like Parallels or VMFusion. as long as you don't have any super demanding needs of the hardware, like running 3D games or super intense CPU actions like video processing. Office work is just fine and it's safer than Bootcamp, as in a virtual machine you can keep "snapshots" of previous states of the OS, and revert back to in case something goes wrong in mere seconds.
A real good piece of news though, Windows 8 is so radically changed from Windows 7, that your workplace will remain with Windows 7 as long as possible to put off all the retraining necessary with that new OS version.
So think of the $300 + $60 investment in Windows on your Mac as a longterm thing.