04 ms office okay? or 08 a must for new mb?

[khunxhor]

should microsoft office 2004 work okay with a brand new macbook? or do I need the new 2008 version. I finally installed it (2004) on my mb and im having these problems.

-quits unexpectedly A LOT!
-says "microsoft office framework could not load" every time i open excel, word, or powerpoint....but program still goes through and works okay<as far as i know atleast

[skyrider007]

i have office 2004 installed in my mbp, it's been working pretty good. but i now prefer to use iWork 08 (much better).

[tip]

Never had those problems on my MBP.

The only annoyance is that it takes forever to load, as it's not Universal. Other than that, it works great. I do most of my word processing in TextEdit (Mac) or WordPad (Windows), though - I prefer lightweight editors.

[khunxhor]

i def. want to switch to iwork 08, but was afraid I wouldnt have time to get accustomed to it since im smack in the middle of a semester..:(

Do you think apple store will help me with this if i go?? Doesnt seem they like dealing w/ anything microsoft. Plus, I installed a friends copy, and don't want them making a fuss about that. (rules say you can only put it on 5 computers in the same household, right?)

thanks :D

[heatmiser]

I have office '04 on my MB. Like Leopard, the decision not to switch was based on not switching for the sake of switching.

[deniser]

2008 has some pretty useful extras like charts etc when I had a look on my friends. there seemed to be so many options don't think I'd get my work done.

I have tried 2004 version but switched back to iWorks

[tersono]

Personally, I avoid both like the plague.

NeoOffice..... :p

[khunxhor]

I have office '04 on my MB. Like Leopard, the decision not to switch was based on not switching for the sake of switching.

well, its not exactly for the sake of switching. I've worked w/ keynote before and loveee it compared to powerpoint. Didnt want to worry about getting accustomed to Numbers is why I didn't buy iwork. :)

was that a yes for the apple store question? :p

[skyrider007]

I have tried 2004 version but switched back to iWorks

iWork is the best! I'm no Apple fanboy but MS Office works best on a PC and iWork is obviously the best solution for Mac.

[xUKHCx]

iWork is the best! I'm no Apple fanboy but MS Office works best on a PC and iWork is obviously the best solution for Mac.

Tools for the job. iWork is not the best solution if you need to embed spreadsheets in text documents, create any sort of complicated spreadsheet etc. However if you don't need these things then Office is overkill. It is not about working best on the PC or best on the mac.

[skyrider007]

Tools for the job. iWork is not the best solution if you need to embed spreadsheets in text documents, create any sort of complicated spreadsheet etc. However if you don't need these things then Office is overkill. It is not about working best on the PC or best on the mac.

best solution for the majority of consumer, i just use Pages to type up my papers and Keynotes to do presentations. That's all. :) There's no need for me to be paying bill gates 4-5x the amount of iWork.

[xraydoc]

I really like Nisus Writer for word processing. Has plenty of features, its fast, doesn't use a lot of RAM, loads instantly and uses RTF as a native file format, so virtually any other app will open the files.

[jbg232]

I have to use office all the time to make presentations and word documents (not excel as much) and share my files with others (mostly pc users of office). I owned office 2004 and it was a joke with conversion errors. I have used office 2008 in the apple store and it is MUCH faster and appears to have more support for 1997-2003 office (which is what you should always save your files in because not enough people or computers have 0ffice 2007 with its xml support installed). When I got files from office 2007 users and opened them in office 2004 they looked hideously ill-formatted (words coming off pages in powerpoint, images not displaying, fonts were all different - ie a total freaking mess). Do yourself a favor and at the LEAST get office 2008 if you do any real office work and if you're serious I would run parallels or bootcamp office 2007 or office XP. Just my 2 cents.

[DizzyRose]

'04 was built for PPC processors. '08 is built for both.

Go with '08.

[Quillz]

best solution for the majority of consumer, i just use Pages to type up my papers and Keynotes to do presentations. That's all. :) There's no need for me to be paying bill gates 4-5x the amount of iWork.
4-5× the amount? $79 vs. $149? That's not even twice the amount, and note that the $149 Home & Student Edition of Office gives you three licenses, you'd have to pay $99 for multiple iWork licenses, making the difference only $50.

[skyrider007]

4-5× the amount? $79 vs. $149? That's not even twice the amount, and note that the $149 Home & Student Edition of Office gives you three licenses, you'd have to pay $99 for multiple iWork licenses, making the difference only $50.

Okay fine, I was exaggerating. But still MS stuff is more expensive here (85 pounds (Amazon UK) vs. 30 pounds (Apple HE) i paid for iWork). That's like 3x more expensive. And I only have one Mac, so I don't need 3 licenses.

[ETID]

I use Office '04 on my macbook and everything works great except for when Im transferring files to a PC version. Even though they are saved in a format that should work with PC all the pictures and diagrams come up blank on a PC declaring I need quicktime and a decompressor to view them. So if you use diagrams etc in Word an want to see them also on a PC its not very helpful. Does '08 do this?

This completely ruined my day, as all the printers in University library are running off xp.

[Hankster]

I've been trying to find 04 for cheaper than 08 but can't. When I hit the stores both 04 and 08 cost the same! I can't believe it! I'll probably get 08 from Amazon since in the end certain docs won't open on PC without it :(

[jemeinc]

I'm not jumping up to Office '08 because it's just overkill for me, but Office '04 - actually just Word- isn't very stable on the powerpc computers I run it on.. Word will often times just quit the first time I launch a document.. After the initial attempt it opens fine.. Strange, but it's more annoying than anything so I just deal with it.. I'm not a heavy word user, so it's no biggie..

[InSaNeCyAnUr]

I had Office 04 and I switched to 08 when I bought Leopard. I like it more and it's faster. Plus there are a lot of extra things, and you can get the Student version for around 150$ which has 3 licenses (can instal on 3 computer). I think it's a really good deal because you'll have it for around 4 years. 150$ for 4 years seems pretty low to me.

I do have iWork 08 too, but if your friend doesn't have a mac, you can export it to a .doc format, but you loose all the fun stuff of Pages, so you better have just made it in Office. Plus, you CAN'T send Pages documents, because it's not just a document, it's a bunch on stuff in a package content (like an application).

[khunxhor]

I do have to say im a bit overwhelmed. Thanks for all the input! I think I'll just buy the upgrade to office '08. I have been using ms office for like ever and see no good reason in changing now.

what jbg232 said totally threw me off......why in the world wont it open with an older ms office???? if changing it is as easy as backspacing the "xls" and typing ".doc" i wont care....but then again, that means you cant open it with your own mac later.....? :(

why cant i just take my mb into the apple store and ask them to fix my current ms office 04? :)

[Hankster]

I had Office 04 and I switched to 08 when I bought Leopard. I like it more and it's faster. Plus there are a lot of extra things, and you can get the Student version for around 150$ which has 3 licenses (can instal on 3 computer). I think it's a really good deal because you'll have it for around 4 years. 150$ for 4 years seems pretty low to me.


You can get '08 for $129.99 with no tax and free shipping from Amazon.com :cool:

[Full of Win]

I know this may sound condesending but have you updated it with the latest service pack? This added all sorts of stability for me. I know there is a 99% chance you have done this, but on the off chance you have not, I thought I would throw it out there. I'd link to it but I'm on my iphone...

[agojes]

should microsoft office 2004 work okay with a brand new macbook? or do I need the new 2008 version. I finally installed it (2004) on my mb and im having these problems.

-quits unexpectedly A LOT!
-says "microsoft office framework could not load" every time i open excel, word, or powerpoint....but program still goes through and works okay<as far as i know atleast

Have you tried to update the office?
To make it 11.3.9?

Dunno if it's going help with your situation. But might as well try? :)

[InSaNeCyAnUr]

You can get '08 for $129.99 with no tax and free shipping from Amazon.com :cool:I live in canada;) Which changes the shipping to canada to 50$, which is completly stupid. So I bought it at school.

[khunxhor]

okay so I went ahead and downloaded the updates for ms office 04. i had to do 11.3.5 all the way to 11.3.9 one by one....and it fixed my problem!!!! (so far atleast).:D:D:D:D


Thanks soooo much. I was totally oblivious to updating it-something that a lot of you think of as extremely simple.:o

Anyways, after doing all this updating, do I need to do a disk cleanup?? A technician at my school who works with macs told me I should do that anytime I update or download anything. Is this true.

Thanks again!

[Quillz]

Okay fine, I was exaggerating. But still MS stuff is more expensive here (85 pounds (Amazon UK) vs. 30 pounds (Apple HE) i paid for iWork). That's like 3x more expensive. And I only have one Mac, so I don't need 3 licenses.
Uh... £30×3=£90, so no, it's not quite three times as expensive. You sure love exaggerating.

[skyrider007]

Uh... £30×3=£90, so no, it's not quite three times as expensive. You sure love exaggerating.

60 quids more for office is still a lot of money. just use your office and be happy and let me use my iwork.

[agojes]

okay so I went ahead and downloaded the updates for ms office 04. i had to do 11.3.5 all the way to 11.3.9 one by one....and it fixed my problem!!!! (so far atleast).:D:D:D:D


Thanks soooo much. I was totally oblivious to updating it-something that a lot of you think of as extremely simple.:o

Anyways, after doing all this updating, do I need to do a disk cleanup?? A technician at my school who works with macs told me I should do that anytime I update or download anything. Is this true.

Thanks again!

Glad you got your problem fixed :D:D

[heatmiser]

So I went and installed '08 this morning, and it's just a nicer-looking version of '04. Frankly, the Windows version ('07) is far better than the Mac version. Two of the great features there that aren't in the OS X port are the zoom slider in the lower-right hand corner and the hovering palette that appears whenever you highlight text, allowing you to change fonts, sizes, alignment, etc. No idea why they couldn't port these to '08.

[ZacUSNYR]

I hate 07 and I hate 08 equally heh Simple from the stand-point of I have no effing clue where they moved everything too - also people who save in word and excel in 07 Format (.docx, .xlsx, etc)

I have 08 - it runs well - getting more ram helped a lot with it.