can i download excel software for windowa xp pro?

[puzzled]

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.

[bgeier]

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.

[Paul Lautman]

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.

[Bill Ridgeway]

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" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>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.

[bgeier]

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

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.