The Perils of Microsoft

Yesterday I was in a panic. When I opened Word for Mac it said there was an update, did I want to download it? I gave the okay and it took a while but finally it did. But before the update could take place, I would have to close the program, so I did. Once the update was finished, and I tried to open Word for Mac I got a window that said I needed to enter the product key again, they didn't match.

What?

None of my documents would open. Panic set in because now I'm use to the Mac system, sort of and thought this thing is suppose to be bug free. I figured because I got this from Mexican Monkey,  there was no software to look for a  product key and I was fucked. I started to look what it would cost for my own version of Word for Mac and it was a little over a hundred for an 08 version like the one that was on it. Okay, I thought I can deal with that and wondered what the 2011 version would cost and looked that up. It's about sixty bucks more, that's the cheapest I could find.

But in looking at the comments made by people who bought the newer version they were not happy. People reported difficulty in installing, getting Microsoft to recognize the program as valid and worse of all, destruction of files, turning longer work into a series of asterisks. Not good.

One person made a comment about Oracle having an office for mac program that was free and that it worked well. So I went to the Oracle sight and downloaded their version of office. It works just fine.
Not as polished as Word but all the bells and whistles are there and in some ways easier to deal with. For free.

You can donate and I plan to once I know that it will do all the things I  need but I'm amazed that there is a program like that out there. I'm very happy with it, so far and it opens all of my documents without a problem.

Mexican Monkey is sending me a 2011 version by email. I shudder to think about it.