My cousin’s purpose for wanting Office for Mac is so he can view and do a little editing of Excel files created on Windows Office — change data in cells and maybe tweak a formula. I told him about Open Office by Sun, and he said it wouldn’t read Excel files correctly. Is that true? I would think basic editing (change data in cells) should cause no problems. Maybe tweaking a formula would.
I have iWork, but viewing Windows Office doc’s the font is not available in iWork (format is fine), so I bite the bullet and got Office for Mac so I wouldn’t have any problems whatsoever. Is that true? Some say only by running Windows’ Office via Bootcamp would there be no problems whatsoever. I would think running Mac Office should provide a perfect translation of imported files from Windows Office.
— TM
It is true that only office for windows will give you 100% compatibility with office for windows. Bfut unles yup are preparing documents for publication, it shouldn't matter too much.
Open Office should open most basic spreadsheet files, and so will iWork Numbers. Sure some styling will not translate, but the numbers should. Since Open Office is free, then why not try. There is also a free trial of iWork. And Office Mac should be very close to 100% compatible.