[lagentium]

I have just purchased a Acer Aspire 5633WLMI laptop and am trying to work out what I need to do to install the above programs. Is it just a case of purchasing the discs from shop and installing? If so what is the best place to buy and what exactly should I be looking for?

It has Windows Vista Home Premium but not too sure what this is?!

[evilfantasy]

Why don't you check out http://www.openoffice.org/ before spending money on the MS Suite.
OpenOffice is a very popular replacement for MS Office Suite. And it is free.

OpenOffice is a free, Open Source alternative to MS Office with a Word compatible word processor, a complete Excel compatible spread sheet program and a Power Point like presentation software and drawing program and also allows to save to PDF file.

In addition, OpenOffice offers enhanced printing capabilities and options for direct connection with external email programs as well as form-letter management to send letters to addresses from a database.

OpenOffice.org writer - The powerful word processor
· The powerful word processor
· Wizards to produce standard documents such as letters, faxes, agendas, minutes.
· Styles and Formatting to put the power of style sheets into the hands of every user.
· AutoCorrect dictionary, which can check your spelling as you type.
· AutoComplete to make typing easy
· Text frames and linking for newsletters, flyers, etc..
· Table of contents, index for complex documents
· OpenDocument and MS-Word .doc format compatible


OpenOffice.org impress - Impress your audience
· Master Pages and Layouts simplify the task of preparing your materials.
· Complete range of Views are supported: Normall / Outlline / Slide Sorter / Notes / Handouts to meet all the needs of presenters and audiences.
· Easy-to-use drawing and diagramming tools to spice up your presentation.
· Slide show Animation and Effects to bring a presentation to life.
· Fontworks provides stunning 2D and 3D images from text.
· OpenDocument and MS-Powerpoint .ppt file format compatibility

OpenOffice.org calc - The full-featured spreadsheet
· Natural language formulas let you create formulas using words (e.g. "sales - costs").
· Hundreds of spreadsheet functions with built-in expert help
· Scenario Manager allows "what if ..." analysis at the touch of a button.
· Powerful graphics to extract the meaning from your numbers
· Pull in data from external databases with DataPilot technology
· OpenDocument and MS-Excel .xls file format compatibility

[PranX]

Hey lagentium

To add a little something to Evil Fs post...

When your using Open Office you will also be able to save files in Microsoft Office formats. (formats are the type of files you save) ((the Standard files produced by Open Office cannot be opened by Microsoft Office programs unless they have an add in) But it´s really no biggie to change the format when you save).

In that way you will be fully able to work alongside friends with Microsoft Office. Share documents and stuff like that.

It works about 100MB to download.

Cheers:

PranX