iwork or MS Office
- Thread starter MrMoonX
- Start date
Is office 2008 really bad?
I have been using iWork for basic things and it seems ok. I use Office on windows at work and so was thinking of maybe getting it for mac so I could use it at home. Not sure whether to or not now
Is there a demo/trial you can download from microsoft just to test it out?
I have been using iWork for basic things and it seems ok. I use Office on windows at work and so was thinking of maybe getting it for mac so I could use it at home. Not sure whether to or not now
Is there a demo/trial you can download from microsoft just to test it out?
Only really gained support on Intel? Open your eyes, man - there is tonnes of improvement.
It's buggy, but just as buggy as Office 2007 on Windows is.
Rich
Another vote for NeoOffice. Its fine for my moderate use (Uni), only issue is its (slightly) slow doing graphs etc in Calc (Excel equivalent).
It's constantly updated so any bugs you find will be fixed within a couple of weeks usually.
It's constantly updated so any bugs you find will be fixed within a couple of weeks usually.
If 2007 is buggy I haven't discovered them yet. Office 2008 has shoved the bugs in my face and made then quite obvious.
Do you want to go into the improvements or just tell me to open my eyes? It loads slower than 2007 on Windows, and doesn't really bring anything new to the table, whereas 2007 took the gamble of redesigning the menu system totally, and it paid off.
The #1 objective of the Mac version of Office should be total compatibility with the Windows version - without this you might as well use anything that can open .doc files. By removing VBA and having different ways of processing images stored within files Microsoft ignore the only "must-have" reason for buying the product.
The biggest slap in the face is Exchange support, so many people thought 2004 was just a blip and that with another four years of development Mac users would finally get a level of Exchange support that they haven't had since Outlook 2001. Once again, this hasn't happened.
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Firstly - the redesign...well look at it - it IS redesigned! they did it across the board with 2007 and 2008, obviously to get a standardised look!
Secondly - Bugs in 2007 - I'd say the major one that became apparant to everyone in our comp sci deptartment last year when people were writing there dissertations was the "I am just gonna stop running spell checker" bug that happened all the time. I haven't come across anything bad in 2008 at all yet, although I imagine there is some problems.
Thirdly - Look at the standard and special media versions both clearly state " Microsoft Server Exchange Support" I don't use this, but surely they are doing what you say they don't?
For the big percentage of the population Office 2008 is fine, Far better than iWork - And I don't think i've seen one messed up document yet.
Rich
The redesign of the Mac Office isn't the ribbon, it still relies on nested menus. The "fake-ribbon" is just for picking a style, and takes up far too much space while it's doing it.
Bugs in 2008, where shall I start? I'd say the most obvious one is that none of the underlined blue text in the interface actually does anything when clicked on. For years we've been taught that underlined blue text is a hyperlink, but in Office 2008 apparently having a phrase such as "Preferences dialog box" presented in this way actually means "go and find it yourself". Then there's the utterly broken interface in Entourage where navigating between the Calendar and Inbox can break the buttons unless you do it in the correct order. These are basic things that should all have been picked up before release.
Please try and use their "Exchange support" before claiming that I'm wrong. It is not a MAPI client like Outlook is. It relies on using Web Access, yet somehow manages to support even less.
This overview explains it well:
http://www.macworld.com/article/131730/2008/01/msftexchange.html
Bugs in 2008, where shall I start? I'd say the most obvious one is that none of the underlined blue text in the interface actually does anything when clicked on. For years we've been taught that underlined blue text is a hyperlink, but in Office 2008 apparently having a phrase such as "Preferences dialog box" presented in this way actually means "go and find it yourself". Then there's the utterly broken interface in Entourage where navigating between the Calendar and Inbox can break the buttons unless you do it in the correct order. These are basic things that should all have been picked up before release.
Please try and use their "Exchange support" before claiming that I'm wrong. It is not a MAPI client like Outlook is. It relies on using Web Access, yet somehow manages to support even less.
This overview explains it well:
http://www.macworld.com/article/131730/2008/01/msftexchange.html
How Microsoft can call it an Exchange client with those glaring omissions is a joke.
They removed the support for VB instead they've inplemented AppleScript.
So the whole idea of portability between the platforms is screwed and now doubt the whole AppleScript implementation is screwed too. They'll blame AppleScript for the lack of uptake and then release a version of with VB for 2009 that everyone will re-purchase.
So the whole idea of portability between the platforms is screwed and now doubt the whole AppleScript implementation is screwed too. They'll blame AppleScript for the lack of uptake and then release a version of with VB for 2009 that everyone will re-purchase.
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That's Apple fault because MS had to follow the design principles set out by Apple that meant the ribbon was off the cards. Also, the VBA thig is not that big of a deal because MS are dropping VBA completely when they move to the next version of Office becuase they aren't porting it to a 64bit code base.
I wonder what all the VB programmers are going todo?? Hopefully curl up in a ball and shrivel up.. Nasty, despicable - bleugh!
I suppose it will be C#
My point is that the only real reason to use Office on the Mac over one of the many alternatives that can open Office documents would be for 'native' support. Having things which you can put in a document on Office 2007 which don't work when you open it on the Mac makes that reason disappear.
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They aren't dropping VB just VBA. VBA is special implementation of VB inside Office and a few other MS apps. VB .Net remains unaffectected
Then click the lozenge and hide it when you aren't using it.
Fair play they sound like annoying bugs, but nothing less than what I came across in 2007, I am just getting across that on the Mac platform there still isn't anything that is close to 2008 at all. Both 2008 and 2007 have there glaring issues.
Please don't get bitchy with me when I was only pointing out that it does say "Exchange Support" on the product specification - I wasn't claiming you were wrong, I mearly pointed out that it said it did something you said it did not, Exchange is not something I use.
Rich
My hopes are dashed!
I use the "Exchange Support" fine.
Do you honestly miss many of the things missing?
PST files are bad practice m'kay. The whole point of exchange is to keep mail on the server, not the client machine.
The only native choice on the Mac for exchange is OWA 'light' or Entourage 2008. Of which Entourage wins hands down
Do I miss not being able to set server rules using Entourage? Yes, it's a pretty basic thing. Do I miss being able to read the notes I've made in Outlook or in OWA? Well, yes again. The same applies to tasks. These are not basic features which are missing by any stretch. But above all I miss being able to connect to Exchange servers which aren't running Outlook Web Access - there is no way to use Entourage with Exchange unless OWA is enabled - it doesn't even support the far more useful RDP over HTTP for remote access.
If I have to have Safari tuned to OWA while using Entourage then I might as well save myself the money and just use that.
If I have to have Safari tuned to OWA while using Entourage then I might as well save myself the money and just use that.
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Do you really mean 'RDP over HTTP' or 'RPC over HTTP(S)' as it supports the latter.
All in all I believe that Entourage fills the gap needed for Exchange support on the mac, its far from perfect but if you honestly want full Exchange features you need the product that was designed for it, Outlook, on the operating system it was designed for, Windows!
If I was paying for Office 2008 I'd probably moan more but since its on the MVLS, I'm not.
My mistake, I assumed as it was working fine for me it was using it. However a bit more research proves as it simply uses WebDAV and not MAPI it has no reason to use RPC.