Question : Problem: Student buying a Mac Book - Advice

Hi all.

I am going to start University education from September (UK, England) so I was looking for a good laptop to buy. Having used MS Windows all my life I have decided that I am going to buy a Mac Book instead (as I want exposure to a Mac OS).

Having looked at the Apple Store online I found that they give special discounts to students in higher education. I have two parts to this question:

1) How do they determine that I am a student when I buy from the apple store?

2) Given that I'm buying a Mac Book, will it come with software such as Word, Excel, Powerpoint? What I mean to say is, if I buy the Mac Book and use some software like a Word Processor, will I be able to save it in a format that will allow me to open that document in Microsoft Word on an MS Windows based machine?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Answer : Problem: Student buying a Mac Book - Advice

I would assume the store will want to see your student card. You could also try to buy from your campus computer store.

My recollection is that MacBooks do not come bundled with word processing software. You might check the pricing for MS Office 2008 for Mac. I believe they have an educational price.

A free alternative is OpenOffice for Mac:  http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/