Do you have to install Microsoft Office to get Word and Excel? Can you get them 'a la carte' so to speak?

No. It's all packaged together. You can choose to not install a particular part of Office but you can't just get one part of it by itself.

Unfortunately, if you need Microsoft products, you need to buy the whole bundle, though you can install only parts if needed. If you don't want to spend too much, try http://www.openoffice.org/ This is a free office suite, and should meet most of your requirements of word/excel.

You can buy them separately, but if you do,they will cost almost as much as the bundle anyway. Go to a store like Staples or Office Max, or try EBay.

Word and Excel (and the rest of Office for the most part) are available separately. Generally, though, they'll cost $200-ish each, versus buying the entire Office suite, which starts at $150 for the Student and Teacher Version (comes with Word, Ecxcel, Outlook, and PowerPoint) and can go up to $500 for the Professional version (Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Access, Publisher, Business Contact Manager). There are other versions in between, and depending on if you are a student or a teacher, you might be able to get a version at an academic price ($199 for Professional AE, for example). If you have a previous version, you might be able to buy an upgrade version which is much less than the full version prices. If you have any of the following installed on your computer you should be okay with buying the upgrade version: -Microsoft Office XP Office XP Developer, Office XP Professional with FrontPage, Office XP Professional Special Edition, Office XP Professional with Publisher, Office XP Professional, Office XP Small Business Edition, Office XP Standard -Microsoft Office 2000 Office 2000 Developer, Office 2000 Premium, Office 2000 Professional, Office 2000 Small Business Edition, Office 2000 Standard -Microsoft Office 97 Office 97 Professional, Office 97 Small Business Edition (version 2), Office 97 Small Business Edition (version 1), Office 97 Standard -Microsoft Works Works 6.0, 7.0, or 8.0 Works Suite 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, or 2006