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Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac...Should I upgrade to 2011?

L

learnballer

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 9, 2010
10
0
Victoria BC Canada
Hey folks! I purchased Office 2008 for Mac from the Apple store at the end of August and as part of the Technology Guarantee, I'm eligible for a free upgrade to Office 2011.

Purchase a qualifying Office 2008 for Mac product between Aug. 1, 2010, and Nov. 30, 2010, and you will be eligible to download Office for Mac 2011 at no additional cost* when it becomes available.

My question is...should I do it? Does anyone have any experience or insight into Office 2011?

Also...I'm not sure if this should be a determining factor, but my purchased copy of Office 2008 came with three product keys. Apparently if I upgrade to 2011, I only get one product key. Big deal? I'm not sure.

Thanks for your help!
 
If you ever used Office 2007 it resembles that more, I personally like it 100% better than 08, 08 was too cluttered
 
I definitely recommend Office 2011 over the previous 2008 version. Some of my points below:

1. Visually and performance wise head and shoulders above Office 2008.
2. Nice clean installer (be sure to click customize and select what you want to install and leave out what you do not need).
3. Was hoping for MS Office Picture editor to make it over to Mac but alas no luck.
4. Cannot open MDI files from Windows which is a shocker seeing as this is MS Office.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Document_Imaging_Format
5. Outlook 2011 is a breath of fresh air but sadly it cannot sync w/ IOS devices is a major downer as this should be a "duh".
 
"5. Outlook 2011 is a breath of fresh air but sadly it cannot sync w/ IOS devices is a major downer as this should be a "duh". "

Outlook 2011 is only about half-baked....I'm considering going back to Entourage until at least one update to Outlook has been released.
 
fhall1 said:
"5. Outlook 2011 is a breath of fresh air but sadly it cannot sync w/ IOS devices is a major downer as this should be a "duh". "

Outlook 2011 is only about half-baked....I'm considering going back to Entourage until at least one update to Outlook has been released.
Click to expand...

Personally for me I prefer it more than Mail app
 
Sky Blue said:
yes, it's a good upgrade.
Click to expand...
I am not so sure about that. The issue I am seeing may be limited to my system but it is a deal breaker for me. I get a completely blank window :eek:when I click on the Font Color icon in either the Toolbar or the Ribbon (same icon, different location). Holding the cursor over the blank window will show the "hint" description of the color you are hovering over (of course I can't see the color, and "accent 1" is soooo helpful....:rolleyes:
This may be fixed in the non-corporate version to be released soon, but as it is, without the easy coloring of fonts without going to the format drop-down menu, I cannot consider buying a personal copy, as I need that function for quick editing. - Just deleted the whole suite, back to Office 2004, which is slow but it does work. A blank window is just so lame....Do they even test their own software on different models including the MBPs? My MBP has only the nVidea 9400 (M?) card, no 9600M. Anyone else seen this?
Edit: The issue with the blank window was resolved after I installed a non-corporate version. Um... Cause umknown.
 
Last edited:
just installed it, after 5min of use I think it is really worth the upgrade. Snappier and all the clutter is gone. Thank god!
 
I have an i5 MBP bought in May 2010. It came with Office 2008 Home and Student for free (offer from the shop).

Should I fork out additional cash and buy Office 2011?

My comments re Office 2008 for Mac:

- Excel: it sucks, I can't use it. At work I spent 90% of my time on Excel 97 (Accounting & fin analysis), well, at home I simply hate Excel 2008 for Mac. It's very slow, cluttered, utterly unusable compared to the 97 edition on PC
- Word: it's actually good. Seems very similar to the 97 Word version I'm using at work! It's fast and intuitive and the menus are where you expect them to be
- Powerpoint: good enough for me, don't use at home anyway
- Entourage: I don't use it.

So, given the above, should I basically buy the new version (seems that I can't upgrade?!?) for the next Excel? The 2011 Excel seems completely different from the 2008.

Thanks for reading.
 
parajba said:
I have an i5 MBP bought in May 2010. It came with Office 2008 Home and Student for free (offer from the shop).

Should I fork out additional cash and buy Office 2011?

My comments re Office 2008 for Mac:

- Excel: it sucks, I can't use it. At work I spent 90% of my time on Excel 97 (Accounting & fin analysis), well, at home I simply hate Excel 2008 for Mac. It's very slow, cluttered, utterly unusable compared to the 97 edition on PC
- Word: it's actually good. Seems very similar to the 97 Word version I'm using at work! It's fast and intuitive and the menus are where you expect them to be
- Powerpoint: good enough for me, don't use at home anyway
- Entourage: I don't use it.

So, given the above, should I basically buy the new version (seems that I can't upgrade?!?) for the next Excel? The 2011 Excel seems completely different from the 2008.

Thanks for reading.
Click to expand...

I totally agree with you on the Excel for Mac. Compared to the pc version it does "suck!". However, at first, I wasn't too thrilled with the Ribbon on the Excel for pc. So, maybe it needs more time. The others are okay. Also, I don't use Entourage.
 
Its nice to hear people say the clutter is gone. I hated that about 2008. I use pages 99% of the time as I like it much more but for school my professors sometimes give us heavily formatted papers that I have to fill out in MS Office.
 
parajba said:
I have an i5 MBP bought in May 2010. It came with Office 2008 Home and Student for free (offer from the shop).

Should I fork out additional cash and buy Office 2011?

My comments re Office 2008 for Mac:

- Excel: it sucks, I can't use it. At work I spent 90% of my time on Excel 97 (Accounting & fin analysis), well, at home I simply hate Excel 2008 for Mac. It's very slow, cluttered, utterly unusable compared to the 97 edition on PC
- Word: it's actually good. Seems very similar to the 97 Word version I'm using at work! It's fast and intuitive and the menus are where you expect them to be
- Powerpoint: good enough for me, don't use at home anyway
- Entourage: I don't use it.

So, given the above, should I basically buy the new version (seems that I can't upgrade?!?) for the next Excel? The 2011 Excel seems completely different from the 2008.

Thanks for reading.
Click to expand...

Excel 2011 is a completely different animal compared to the 2008 version.
  • Excel 2011 is very fast
  • Not cluttered at all
  • Finally loads up in full screen
  • Has macro support back
  • And over all is just a much nicer experience

The new Word is also much faster and less cluttered than the 08 version, much of it is greatly simplified and doing simple things is simple.

Powerpoint 2011 is looking like a good contender for Keynote, there is nothing significant ether way.
 
natekettles said:
I don't know why you asked this question...of course you should upgrade..especially since your upgrade will be free of charge!
Click to expand...

I've been using Office 2003 forever! Upgrading to 2008 was a big step for me :)

Part of my dilemma that hasn't been commented on yet is that my purchased copy of Office 2008 came with three product keys. Apparently if I upgrade to 2011, I only get one product key. Is this a big deal? It appears I can only install 2011 on one machine. Does anyone know if this is true?
 
learnballer said:
Also...I'm not sure if this should be a determining factor, but my purchased copy of Office 2008 came with three product keys. Apparently if I upgrade to 2011, I only get one product key. Big deal? I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

Although there's only one key now, it can be activated on three computers.
 
learnballer said:
Hey folks! I purchased Office 2008 for Mac from the Apple store at the end of August and as part of the Technology Guarantee, I'm eligible for a free upgrade to Office 2011.

Purchase a qualifying Office 2008 for Mac product between Aug. 1, 2010, and Nov. 30, 2010, and you will be eligible to download Office for Mac 2011 at no additional cost* when it becomes available.

My question is...should I do it? Does anyone have any experience or insight into Office 2011?

Also...I'm not sure if this should be a determining factor, but my purchased copy of Office 2008 came with three product keys. Apparently if I upgrade to 2011, I only get one product key. Big deal? I'm not sure.

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...

I had the same deal for the free upgrade ... works awesome and yes the one key is good for the Family Pack ... I say upgrade already ... cheers :cool:
 
It's a worthy upgrade. I don't like encouraging people to spend without reason, but really, this one is worthwhile.

My only disappointment is as mentioned above. Outlook won't sync with MobileMe. Someone at MS deserves a good slapping for that.
 
I love it, far better than 2008 - I choose not to use Outlook (much prefer using mail and ical personally, gave it 2 weeks but no go for me)

The interface is far better in 2011 plus the computability is much much better with everyone else.
 
If it won't sync with Mobile Me...

Does it sync ok with iphone via ical. Have a Data Daemon fatal error thing currently with Entourage. I hoped the upgrade may also eradicate that??
 
It's an awesome upgrade man :) far better than 2008. I haven't had too many problems with it at all. As far as for syncing with iPhone, you're always probably just better off to use iCal. I myself haven't actually tried syncing anything with it yet. I just use iCal and it works just fine :)
 
If you work exactly as MS want you to, you'll probably like Office 11. Apparently it's faster than Office 08, but that's not exactly difficult.

If you are used to the sluggish speed of Office 2004, you may be disappointed by how slow Office 2011 is. In many cases it would appear to be slower, even on a new machine.

If you like to work on two (or more) documents side by side on a laptop, you won't be able to access some of the functions that used to be available to all open windows in the Formatting Palette because the buttons simply get cut off the ribbon (the new frustrating way to access features with many more clicks than before). There is apparently now way to enable the vertical formatting palette so you'll have to use the software one window at a time, or stick to 2004 or, if you don't mind the software working really slowly, 2008.
 
In my experiences, Office 2011 is about the same if not slower than 2008, which blows. Another M$ mistake, what a surprise. Word docs take forever to load and I've tried everything to speed it up, but sadly nothing works. It's really an individual experience and less of what people say.
 
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