[Mark Valentine]

So my brother is planning on purchasing one of those $250 Samsung Google Chromebooks. Hes primarily going to be using it for college. Nothing too extensive plus hes planning on getting an external HD since the Chromebook only has 16GB flash HD. His question was if he could install windows office to an external hard drive and run it on the Chromebook. Any help would be much appreciated.

[Kebero]

There's no MS Office for Chrome OS.

[doomtuba]

He'd have to live with google docs. Not sure how the web office works on it though.

[12Danny123]

MS office is not compatible with Chrome OS. also Why doesn't he just get a Windows RT tablet???

[Mark Valentine]

Well his main reason for considering the Chromebook is because of the price tag. But yeah I was thinking the same thing that his only choice is to work with the Google Docs. Thanks a bunch for the fast response.

[12Danny123]

well just tell him to get a MS surface. and tell him that it has MS office preinstalled and is $399 and $25(I think) extra for a keyboard

[arrowrand]

SkyDrive, Outlook.com and the online version of Office all work perfectly well on the Samsung Chromebook.

As has been stated, no installed copy of Office will run on the Chromebook.

[Kebero]

The only problem with the web apps is no offline ability to work. At least with Windows RT, you can save docs locally or work with cached copies.

[arrowrand]

Google Docs has offline support. I'm not aware of any editing features that are disabled offline, but Docs and Spreadsheets both work offline for editing and creating new files.

[Kebero]

Suse Linux is working on an ARM version that can be loaded onto a Chromebook... That is something!

[ohgood]

So my brother is planning on purchasing one of those $250 Samsung Google Chromebooks. Hes primarily going to be using it for college. Nothing too extensive plus hes planning on getting an external HD since the Chromebook only has 16GB flash HD. His question was if he could install windows office to an external hard drive and run it on the Chromebook. Any help would be much appreciated.

For $250 he could get a used macbook off craigslist, and run any/everything he ever wanted. The battery will be nearly dead, but everyone at libraries is plugged in anyway.

Skip the new fancy things and get a solid performer.