i have windows xp pro on my laptop. the company i work for use excel
spreadsheets for data and i cant't use them. can i download excel from the
msn site and be confident its going to work.

I seriously doubt MS will give you Excel without buying it.
There is an Excel file viewer that lets you look at the file in an
Excel type interface, but you can do nothing with the data.

You could download Office 2007 beta and try using that. Just remember
it is a beta release with no type of support, but you have to tell them
of any issues you may run into. I do not know what kind of
functionality it has (what if anything that has been crippled or
disabled).

According to MS the beta is valid until sometime in early 2007
(February I think).

You could check with your MIS department to see if they have a site
license that would cover employees' machines (probably not likely, but
it may be worth the phone call).

Other than that, you will have to buy a copy.


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bgeier
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puzzled wrote:
i have windows xp pro on my laptop. the company i work for use excel
spreadsheets for data and i cant't use them. can i download excel
from the msn site and be confident its going to work.

I suspect you can, as long as you pay for it. You could download OpenOffice.

If you just want to read the files you can download an Excel viewer from -
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...displaylang=EN

If you want to read and write you will have to purchase either MS Office
(which includes Excel) or a stand alone Excel. Although Office is slightly
more expensive it does include Word which most users want anyway.

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions

"puzzled" wrote in message
...
i have windows xp pro on my laptop. the company i work for use excel
spreadsheets for data and i cant't use them. can i download excel from
the
msn site and be confident its going to work.

I am kicking myself, I have Open office on my machine (although just to
see what it is like), I should have suggested that.

Be warned though, Open office will read and write Excel Files, BUT if
there is any VBA code (macros), they probably will not work in Open
Office!
I am not 100% certain about the formulae in OpenOffice, but from what I
have seen they seem to be compatible, and more robust and stable than
Excel.
There are a few other differences too, most are minor and will not
effect how the file will look.

You can download it from http://openoffice.org

Paul Lautman Wrote:
puzzled wrote:
i have windows xp pro on my laptop. the company i work for use excel
spreadsheets for data and i cant't use them. can i download excel
from the msn site and be confident its going to work.

I suspect you can, as long as you pay for it. You could download
OpenOffice.


--
bgeier
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