I have recently built a new home PC and bought a mac laptop. I am looking to purchase office 2011 for mac and Office 2010 for Windows, but paying for both software packages seems a steep price to pay when essentially its the same software package (I only need Word, Excel and powerpoint) and its only for home use.

So I've been reading up on licensing and I was curious - If I purchase Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac (home version, with Word, Excel and powerpoint) and get the version that has 3 licenses/keys, can I use 1 license for my Mac and one liscene for my Windows based PC (to license Office 2010, specifically Word, excel and powerpoint)?

Aside from asking someone else who's actually tried it, I think you'd have to ask AM directly. Somehow I doubt it, as the programs are completely different (eg you can't actually run Mac Office on a Windows PC) and, unless you're planning to use Wine on the Mac (or run Windows on it) so that you can run the PC version of Office, you'd need to obtain copies for both platforms.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]