01-10-2014, 06:41 PM
"Well, I'm driving a Mac. This means buying Bootcamp, Windows AND Office. There is an emulator out there but it doesn't really allow web queries like a native PC and Excel."
Why that route? You can buy MS Office for Mac for $139.00 (comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint), or you could use the Office 365 on up to 5 computers for $99.99 per year, or a little over $8 per month.
As a side - I did use open office for awhile and there was an add-on that someone made that did query Yahoo for stock information which I used to update my open office spreadsheets. I ended up back on Excel since my wife bought a student priced MS Office Professional (overkill but was only $79.99 at the time).
Even though the office 365 looks like an expensive solution you are getting the benefit of using it on 5 machines, you get web storage, it costs barely more than one Starbucks fancy coffee + tip per month, near 100% compatibility with other tools of primary use, lastly you have a gigantic user base out there for help and there are stacks of books written about using Excel.
I'd test Office 365 for a month and see if it meets your needs.
Why that route? You can buy MS Office for Mac for $139.00 (comes with Word, Excel, PowerPoint), or you could use the Office 365 on up to 5 computers for $99.99 per year, or a little over $8 per month.
As a side - I did use open office for awhile and there was an add-on that someone made that did query Yahoo for stock information which I used to update my open office spreadsheets. I ended up back on Excel since my wife bought a student priced MS Office Professional (overkill but was only $79.99 at the time).
Even though the office 365 looks like an expensive solution you are getting the benefit of using it on 5 machines, you get web storage, it costs barely more than one Starbucks fancy coffee + tip per month, near 100% compatibility with other tools of primary use, lastly you have a gigantic user base out there for help and there are stacks of books written about using Excel.
I'd test Office 365 for a month and see if it meets your needs.