buying Word /Office for student - please help

[gingeroots]

Ok ,we have Open Office but Ds does coursework ,school computer converts into Word which he then can't edit back home .
So was thinking would buy Word - looking on line but getting confused .
Can find this www.software4students.co.uk/Microsoft_Office_2010_Professional_Plus-details.aspx?gclid=CMmv0ZD3wacCFcod4QodJTglAg
but would that be ok ?
Amazon have some that say Product Key code
only - ?
We have a Dell laptop which seems to have Microsoft Office Word 2007 loaded ,but needs a Product Key .
We have only one machine and would ( according to DS ) need Excel for data handling and drawing graphs .
Any advice gratefully received ....

I get all my stuff from Software for students. Their stuff is always good if that helps.

our local computer refurb place installs it for £10 if thats any use

That software4students deal is incredible value, but the student's college/university has to be on their database (DS2's 6th form college isn't, but luckily DS1 is at uni and his is)

IIRC you get discs for 2 computers (if you've only got one you could pass it to someone else )

Providing you qualify (which as a school student he does), the software4students deal is unbeatable.

This will give you Word and Excel that you need plus a whole load of other excellent stuff.

Sure, Software4students is legit and you will be legally using Microsoft office.

Not sure what the problem is though because OpenOffice does open Word documents and allows you to save them too. OK, they may not be 100% compatible but usually only if its a complicated document which your DS is unlikely to be doing.

The other alternative is to use MS Office Live which is free and Microsoft's answer to Google Docs.

i can only find it for £89 (and would prefer on disk) wonder if you get a discount if you take student card in

you get powerpoint too with software4students, DS2 uses that a lot (& did for GCSE work too)

sea, you can get it on disc from software4students

blimey that is very cheap!!

how can i tell what bit i need? (sorry for hi-jack) but this is great!

you get the whole Office 2010 Professional Plus set for £38.95 (plus a £1.95 transaction charge)

you only get 1, I thought I got 2 last time but that may have been something else.

as long as you have a student at a registered school/college/university you can have it

i seem to have the service pack 2 with vista, assume this will be compatible

thanks for link will order was saving up for it

Ponders thank you ,I''ll try that - was worried as seemed too good to be true .
He is at school ,hopefully it's registerd .
I guess the software 4students site will verify this for me before I buy it ?
Niceguy - I don't know what the problem is either - something to do with what I call the memory stick it's loaded on to ?
It's also really hard to print the doc ,Windows keeps stopping and restarting .
It is a complicated document ( tho I guess that's all relative ) it's full of graphs and stuff ,is also a mix of stuff copied from internet ( which has other implications not to be dealt with here ).

I think ,on refection ,that the problem is that we can open a Word doc ( the school computer converts from open office to Word ,DS brings home on memory stick ,savrs on our computer ) but can't convert back to open office .

all that converting back and forth drove me mad in the end - hence buying this - am downloading now (couldn't wait)

it gives you an option when registering to put school/university on - have no idea how it knows you are really who you are though

Softwareforstudents is great. You download the Office thing from their site once you have paid for it.

Works well, it's fab.

thanks again - all installed now - saved £50!!

Oh ,bloody hell.
I've paid for it ,but looks complicated to install.
Says to uninstall ant trial Word programmes - I think I may have Word 2007 trial on my laptop - there;s an icon ,it opens and requests a product key >=.
is that a trial one ?
I can't find it under programmes in control panel to uninstall....

did it send you a link to install? i just clicked that - took an hour or so

i have trial versions too but didn't need to uninstall anything

if it keeps prompting you to uninstall - mine is under control panel

Yay !
Installed - it wasn't complicated at all ,the instructions sound complicated ,but the computer selects for you IYSWIM ,bit like predictive texting .
Only thing is ...I notice I've downloaded the 32 bit version ,should I have gone for 64 ?
I don't understand these things ...I think our laptop is quite a high specification thingy as DS uses it for gaming ...
Also ..it doesn't appear to include Excel ?
southeastra ,does yours ,am I not looking correctly ?

"I notice I've downloaded the 32 bit version ,should I have gone for 64?"

It depends on which version on Windows you have.

If you do have a 64-bit version of Windows then the 32-bit version of Office will still run on it and to be honest you probably wouldn't notice any difference in running the 64-bit version.

So 32-bit was probably the right thing to do.

A quick but of hunting confirms what I thought, Microsoft recommend the 32 bit version of Office 2010 even for 64 bit systems unless you're working on absolutely huge spreadsheets.

"If you?re trying to decide between 32-bit and 64-bit Office, you should ask yourself what your needs are. Are you an Excel power user working with huge amounts of data? Do you need to work with file sizes greater than 2 GB? If so, then you would benefit from 64-bit Office being able to utilize more memory. If not, we?re recommending 32-bit Office 2010 as the default installation on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows mainly due to compatibility with existing 32-bit controls, add-ins, and VBA"

blogs.technet.com/b/office2010/archive/2010/02/23/understanding-64-bit-office.aspx

Thanks Badgers - I'm sure my son's Chemistry A level coursework can't be that complicated that it needs a 64 bit application .
Still not sure if he needs Excel tho ,which I don't think we have .
But presuming this version of Word has enough bells and whistles to cope ...

"But presuming this version of Word has enough bells and whistles to cope"

It should do, you'd have to be working on genuinely huge documents to have a problem with the 32 bit version.

And even then the 64-bit version would only help if you have a supporting Operating System and enough memory in it to make a difference.