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Question

Is Office 2003 compatible with Win 8.1?

Aug 8, 2014 9:24AM PDT

I would like to use Office 2003 with Win 8.1 instead of buying a product that I have to pay for yearly.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Sort of
Aug 8, 2014 9:37AM PDT

At the office we found there is one glitch with the clipboard but Outlook 2003 won't work until you install Office Service Pack 3. Hope this helps.
Bob

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Answer
Another option
Aug 8, 2014 10:01AM PDT

Another option is Office 2013 which definitely works with 8.1 and is a one-time fee. Or LibreOffice is another option. MS Office is better, but it's pretty easy to forgive a lot of shortcomings when something's free. For that matter, WordPad is probably more of a word processor than most people need and then there's also Google Docs which is at least usable in a pinch for a spreadsheet or presentation software. I pity people who have to use it on a regular basis because their company signed up for Google Apps, but if you just need to type the occasional letter or do a simple spreadsheet, it's functional.

I still think MS is missing out on a golden opportunity of selling access to Office 365 on much shorter time scales. Maybe someone only needs it for an hour or a day or week or a great one would be for a college semester or school year (K-12 or College). On a per hour basis the year would always be the best deal, but there are probably plenty of people who would be willing to pay a bit more per hour to only have to pay for a month or semester's worth.