Obtaining Microsoft Office

As you are loading software on your new computers, you really want to have both AppleWorks and Microsoft Office. AppleWorks has served us well and continues to be an easy program to learn and use. It's an especially good program for students. For us, getting a license for AppleWorks was a major step forward at a time when the closest thing we had to a word processor was Wordpad, we thought a spreadsheet had something to do with making up the bed, and PowerPoint sounded like a show featuring a TV preacher. AppleWorks not only gave us tools, it gave us the same tools, so that we could share documents electronically.

Microsoft Office has far more bells and whistles, and is constantly being upgraded. In addition, Office is by far the most popular productivity package. When someone outside of our school sends you an attachment, it's going to virtually always have been composed in one of the programs that comprise Office (Word, Excel, or PowerPoint). When your son or daughter brings home a half-completed term paper from high school or college, it's going to virtually always be composed in Office. So, having Office as well as AppleWorks on your machines is pretty imporant.

So how do you get it?
Glad you asked. I have in the office a disk for both Office 2000 and Office 2003. If your machine is running Windows 98, you need Office 2000. If you machine is running Windows XP, you will want Office 2003. When you install the program, you are going to be asked for a code. That code is printed on the plastic cover that houses the disk.

What about home use?
If your school has a license for Microsoft Office (and our entire school system does), as a teacher, you are permitted to load a single copy on a home computer. You may borrow a disk from the office to do this. Again, you are going to be asked for those same code numbers.