Love the Macbook Air, Need Microsoft Office !

I am looking to upgrade from my heavy and frankly, cheapo, laptop that is too slow. I want to buy a laptop that is smallish (13 inch screen or less) ,light and fast. I will be using it for internet surfing and switching between documents presentations etc. I am a physician, and will not be using the laptop for watching movies, gaming, or higher order computing. But, even for my simple use, I found the Pentium Quad Core HP laptop I had too slow.
I am drooling over the MBA but I really need to work with Office - Word, Powerpoint and Excel. I also need to use the laptop to connect with AV aids to give presentations. In my experience I have found people with Macbooks struggling to connect their computers to LCD projectors etc.Also, when exporting presentations from Keynote, the file looks weird when opened by PPT.
Though I have several Apple products, I am in a real quandry as to whether the MBA is the right choice for me. Does Office 365 work on Macs? Can you help me with your thoughts and suggestions? I am open to other brands and Windows based PCs too. I can afford a laptop that is in the general price range of the MBA 13 inch.
Thank you!

 

I am unable to answer which laptop to choose, however have you ever tried
the free program “openoffice” it will allow you to import microsoft docs
to it and offers very similar spreadsheet ,word processor type programs.
It's worth downloading and giving it a try,you just never know.

It runs on mac,window, linux machines.

Run it on the same machine you are using at present.
Here's a link:


http://www.openoffice.org/download/

 

If money is not a restriction... DELL have brought out this 13" laptop to compete with the Apple Air books

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/02/review-the-dell-xps-13-is-the-pc-laptop-to-beat/

 

I am surprised that there isn't a Microsoft Office for Mac users! I have just switched from Window to Mac, and struggle trying to adjust without Microsoft Office too.

OpenOffice was suggested to me and here in this thread, so I will have to get used to it and give it a try. Currently, I am using Google doc and spread sheet, and they are not so bad!

 

Moved away years ago from microsoft office ,NOW ONLY USE OPENOFFICE

 

There's quite a few free alternative office programs for mac

http://www.openoffice.org/porting/mac/

http://download.cnet.com/LibreOffice/3000-18483_4-75337652.html

http://download.cnet.com/Lotus-Symphony/3000-18483_4-10965856.html

 

Office 365 is available for ALL Apple/Mac Devices ! iPhone,IPod and iPad's as well as for Laptops & etc.

Go to the iTunes Store - there is/was an Icon for it on your Laptop.

I have recently bought an iPad Air and am running both WORD and Powerpoint on it.

IF you are using a 'standard' Mac Notebook/Laptop using OS X you can buy Parallels which will allow you to install Windows from your existing OFFICE DVD.

I hope this answers your questions.

 

Thank you for these links and I will have to check them out! I wished I was not hooked in to using Microsoft office alone way back when I was in college, and I am a creature of habit. Microsoft office was the only thing I know how to use. Time to re-train my brain!

 

You've probably discovered it yourself already, but just for everyone's knowledge, I own a Macbook Air and Microsoft Office is running perfectly on my laptop. The lack of Microsoft Office applications was initially a problem for me, but after asking a friend about it, I learned that Office could indeed run on a Mac OS. So, for anyone else out there having doubts about buying a Macbook, for fear of not having Office applications on your laptop, please don't hesitate. It works fine.

 

Update : I did go ahead and buy the MBA ! And got Office for Mac 2011. It works great and am thrilled with my Mac No problems with Word/ Powerpoint etc especially when giving presentations on PCs.

 

No worries! Microsoft Office is available for Mac based platforms as well. You should have no problem opening and exporting your files with a Macbook Air. I think if it is something you really want, then you should go for it! Also, since you said you already have other Apple devices, all of your data and media will sync throughout all devices!