Mac Users: Help for the Feeble-Minded, Please.

[Smarmie Doofus]

Keeping in mind the "spirit of the season" as it were, let me ask a couple of "dumb" questions.

I wanted to add MicroSoft Word to my 3-y.o. Mac Pro laptop. ( I think it's 10.8 OS)

My friend told me I must download Mavericks OSX first. ( First of all, is this correct?) Don't worry, she said, it's free. So I went to the online Mac store , located the free download button and clicked it.

That was about 5 hours ago and the screen still says it's "Downloading". There's no indicator to confirm that this is true.... like an icon or window gradually filling up which usually means that something is actually "going on". In this case, the installation of Mavericks OSX. So... should I wait this out?

And how does one put Microsoft Word on this machine?

Does it require a trip to the Mac online store?

A trip to the actual store?

Can I have a disk sent to me?

Is my friend even correct that I need Mavericks first?

Remember... it's Xmas... and be gentle. Think of the baby Jesus... ferchrissakes!

[NV Whino]

1. Have patience, Grasshopper

The Mavericks download takes forever.

No, you didn't need Mavericks before getting Word, but... the older Word that would work on 10.8 will not work on Mavericks. So, it's possible that the newer Word would not have worked on 10.8.

I'm finding you can't buy just Word any more. You have to buy the whole Office suite.

You can buy and download online, and I think you can still order a disk. But I'm not sure on that.

[Auggie]

2. Hey NV Whino …

couldn't Smarmie Doofus use Apple's Pages? It's supposedly compatible with Word. And only $19.99 at the App store.

[NV Whino]

3. Pages is good for really simple straight forward stuff, but...

I wanted to put one of my client's books on Kindle. I copy and pasted from InDesign (did the hard copy in InDesign) to Pages and then found I can't link titles in contents to poem titles. I have to export to Word, then have to go back to my old computer with Word 10 (unless I bite the bullet and plunk down more money for a Word/Office upgrade) and do the linking. Also, Pages won't support odd sizes. So, the yoga book I'm working on will have to remain in InDesign.

Fortunately, in spite of dire warnings, i have found (so far) CS4 will work with Mavericks.

The object of getting a new computer and going with Mavericks and Pages was to get away from Adobe. Sigh, maybe one day.

[RoccoR5955]

4. For that matter

One could use Open Office, or Libre Office, which costs nothing, nada, nil, zilch, zero, and takes the place of the ENTIRE Mi¢ro$oft package!

These are definitely compatible with Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and have versions for Windoze, Mac, AND Linux!

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. Turns out it started to "really" download ( or install) right after I posted this yesterday.

( Who do you know?) That took about another 5 hours.

I didn't plan on all my data being lost... and all my settings being changed .... so I'm going to the (actual) Apple store today to 1. get a new power cable ( this will be #3 on this laptop) and 2. to have THEM install MS Word. And 3. To see if they can help me w. regard to the lost data.

I knew I didn't know what I was getting into but it always seems even more complicated when you actually get into it.

Anyway... thanks. So, I will actually need a new version of WORD ( probably) w. this new Mavericks dealie.

I had a feeling.

[winstars]

8. What data did you lose??? nt

[Smarmie Doofus]

12. Pretty much everything.

That is... "everything" that was stored: i.e. in documents, photos, desktop...etc.

Also.... all internet settings ( inclu. DU and all bookmarks and favorites) and ids and passwords with the weird exception of Netflix.

Apple Store guy couldn't establish why they were wiped. But did confirm that they WERE.

Some of the docs I can recover.... the ones that I emailed as attachments to people. They're searchable in the 'mail sent" bowels.

But I have to do that one-by-one.

[winstars]

13. WOW! That suck bigtime. Sounds like you don't have any other devices that have this data...

like an iPad or iPhone or in the cloud. I have read that we should always back up our data before major updates, I often don't and have been very lucky I guess.

For future reference, maybe someone here could explain to me how having a backup of your pre-Mavericks settings and data could then be added back to your system. For instance, how would one transfer your bookmarks from a backup to the new operating system???

I seem to know a lot about Macs, having had one since 1998 but I also seem to have large holes in my knowledge...

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. For the past couple of new Macs, I've restored them from a backup disk

I have a backup hard drive with a humongous capacity that I back up my computer to regularly.

When I buy a new computer (last spring I bought a Macbook Air for travel), I simply plug it into the backup drive and select (I forget exactly how) Restore from Backup or something like that.

Within an hour or so, I have the older computer reproduced, complete with the appearance of the Desktop.

[cbayer]

5. This doesn't really answer your question, but I really like Open Office.

It's free and has so far been compatible with everything else I use.

I haven't found anything Word can do that this can not.

It you are not that stuck on it being Word, you might want to check it out.

[Smarmie Doofus]

7. Thanks. If WORD doesn't work out....... I'll bite the Apple. n/t

[loudsue]

9. I've been trying to figure out what to do too.

I'm about to go back to school (I'm an old lady) and the classes are mostly online, but I need word & excel, which I don't have on my Mac. How does Open Office work?

[cbayer]

10. Open Office is a free program.

You can easily download it from their site:

https://www.openoffice.org

It has both a word program and an excel type program that are almost identical to Microsoft word.

It is easy to use and has been very stable on my computer.

I think it would probably suit your needs.

Congratulations on going back to school! There is nothing quite like new learning to keep one young.

[loudsue]

11. Thanks, cbayer! Going back to school is exciting, but ooooooh so scary!

I'll go check out Open Office. Thanks for the link!