Macbook writing (1 Viewer)

[freddienonose]

I need a new laptop, my former model having suffered an accident while crossing a river in Ethiopia the other week. I know, I know...

Anyway, I was thinking about getting a macbook. The only thing is I'm working as a writer at the moment and have been hired to spend the whole of next year writing a book. So, what's the story with word processing?

I looked at the Microsoft stuff but Office is 600 quid and Word itself is 300. I'd use the Apple stuff but I'd probably need cross-compatibility for emailing to editors etc. And I'm very comfortable with Word at this stage.

Anywhere I can get it cutprice?

The Apple seems reliable which is why I'm attracted. That true?

Any advice much appreciated.

It seems I only ever use Thumped these days to get IT help....

 

[pete]

Use openoffice 2 instead. It's free, like, and almost 100% compatible with Word*.

http://www.openoffice.org/dev_docs/source/sys_reqs_20.html

* slight exaggeration. It's compatible enough, though.

 

[HMD]

I GOT ONE OF THE MACBOOK PROS a while ago and it's great. If you need windows for anything(like games) you can setup a partition to run it.

 

[ernesto]

or download microsoft office for Macintosh. for ahem...free.

 

[freddienonose]

Partition? That's right over my big stupid luddite head..

Where can I do the "ahem" downloading then?

Jesus, why did I drop out of my computers degree after two months...?

 

[Theseus Mock]

you could use LaTeX (pronounced lay-tech) for the Mac http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/ Everything looks real pretty once compiled from latex.

Whose autobiography are you ghost writing?

 

[ernesto]

Partition? That's right over my big stupid luddite head..

Where can I do the "ahem" downloading then?

Jesus, why did I drop out of my computers degree after two months...?

torrents.
download a bit torrent client.
go to a torrent site (Eg torrenteactor.net, piratebay.org etc)
download the torrent image
drop it into the client window
wait until download completes.

use 'Open Office' as Pete suggested in the meantime.

 

[freddienonose]

Whose autobiography are you ghost writing?

It was a fairly sudden commission...

 

[1000smurfs]

sorta related
this is a sweet little app for puttin finger to keyboard:

http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/product/writeroom

 

[Goff]

sorta related
this is a sweet little app for puttin finger to keyboard:

http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/product/writeroom

Jasus, that takes me back. Remember when things looked so... simple?

I miss those days. Reminds me of the WP I used to use on my Atari. I think it was called ProText (?) Really powerful.

 

[THRILLHO]

One word of warning: the Macbook keyboard is a little unusual and takes some time to get used to. I personally can't use it for an extended period of time without getting sore or frustrated. Don't know if the Macbook Pro keyboards are the same.

On the software side: find someone who works for Microsoft. Or find someone who knows someone who works for Microsoft (you're on the internet already, so that knocks at least three people from your degrees of separation from people who work in Microsoft). They can pick up a copy of Office for Mac for super-cheap. Like EUR25 cheap.

 

[Anthony]

If you're hating the macbook keyboard just plug in a USB keyboard of your choice.

 

[pete]

On the software side: find someone who works for Microsoft. Or find someone who knows someone who works for Microsoft (you're on the internet already, so that knocks at least three people from your degrees of separation from people who work in Microsoft). They can pick up a copy of Office for Mac for super-cheap. Like EUR25 cheap.

There's a new version of Office for Mac coming out next year, but it's not looking good - the existing version is a port of a Power PC coded port of a version of Office which is a few years old, but at least it's compatible with macros from PC versions. The new Intel specific version won't be.

 

[potlatch]

One word of warning: the Macbook keyboard is a little unusual and takes some time to get used to. I personally can't use it for an extended period of time without getting sore or frustrated. Don't know if the Macbook Pro keyboards are the same.

On the software side: find someone who works for Microsoft. Or find someone who knows someone who works for Microsoft (you're on the internet already, so that knocks at least three people from your degrees of separation from people who work in Microsoft). They can pick up a copy of Office for Mac for super-cheap. Like EUR25 cheap.

Got a Pro there a few weeks ago. The keyboard takes a little getting used to, but it's pretty much the same as an average laptop KB and nearly full-size. I still think I'm going to get an external keyboard for when I know I'm writing for a few hours.

Pissed off that the latch to open up the screen is broken already, though. Fuckin poxy. It'll take 10 days to get it back from Mactivate. Unless anyone has any ideas.

Office X is poxy, but it's still better than NeoOffice or OpenOffice at the moment, I reckon. But they'll definitely do the job. No way to get them to insert proper apostrophes, though, which annoys me.