I just upgraded to Mountain Lion and now I cannot use any of my office '04 programs. I realize that upgrading to office '11 will probably solve this, but do i have to upgrade through microsoft or is there a way to do it through the app store?
MacBook (13-inch Late 2009), OS X Mountain Lion
Office 2004 Applications Won't Work in Lion
You must have Office 2004 which is a PPC-only suite and will not work in Lion. You need to upgrade to Office 2011 - Mactopia - or you can try the freeware suite, Libre Office, that is functionally similar to Office 2007 for Windows except it works on Lion.
You may want to consider as well:
These two suites are similar to Libre Office but not as current or as well-supported:
And, then there is Apple's iWork suite:
Pages - word processing and layout
Keynote - presentation
Numbers - spreadsheet
Each can open and save Office compatible files. They may be purchased separately via the Mac App Store for $19.99 each.
(Access to the Mac App Store requires Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or higher and an Apple ID.)
Office 2004 Applications Won't Work in Lion
You must have Office 2004 which is a PPC-only suite and will not work in Lion. You need to upgrade to Office 2011 - Mactopia - or you can try the freeware suite, Libre Office, that is functionally similar to Office 2007 for Windows except it works on Lion.
You may want to consider as well:
These two suites are similar to Libre Office but not as current or as well-supported:
And, then there is Apple's iWork suite:
Pages - word processing and layout
Keynote - presentation
Numbers - spreadsheet
Each can open and save Office compatible files. They may be purchased separately via the Mac App Store for $19.99 each.
(Access to the Mac App Store requires Snow Leopard 10.6.6 or higher and an Apple ID.)
Office is not on the App Store, sorry. Office '04 consists of Power PC apps. Support for this was dropped in 10.7, did you skip that version or were unaware about the incompatibility?
I skipped 10.7
okay that helps, thanks! how similar are the iWork suites to microsoft office?
PowerPC programs need Rosetta to work in an Intel Mac, and Rosetta was dropped in Lion. Update it to 2011 or use one of the applications that Kappy wrote
Similar, but IMHO, better. And Pages, Keynote and Numbers can read and write Word, PowerPoint and Excel files.
If you are unable or unwilling to upgrade to Microsoft Office 2011, you can still run Office 2004 inside of Parallels 7 with Snow Leopard (and Rosetta) installed:
[click on image to enlarge]
Full Snow Leopard installation instructions are here:
I agree with SJF0123. Pages and Numbers are better than MSO (can't speak for Keynote, as I've never used it) at 1/5 the cost or better.
I primaraly use Open Office, however, as I used it as a Windows user and am familiar with it. V3.4 fixed a lot of compatibility issues with MSO files, as well.
You can open and modify Word 2004 files in Text Edit, so long as you keep the preference for Rich Text Format.
Using office '04 with Mountain Lion?
