I got a new MBP for Christmas, and need office for it. Is it worth it to pay the premium for 2011 when I can get 2008 for $60 less?
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Office for Mac-2008 or 2011?
- Thread starter Votekinky06
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I prefer 2008 because I prefer not to have the ribbon toolbar. If you don't need Outlook, there's not much that 2011 offers that you can't do with 2008.
Excel 2011 is leaps and bounds better than 2008 though. The ability to use the Visual Basic Editor is huge IF you are a big Excel user which is why I upgraded.
Agreed ... and you can minimize the ribbon to give it more of a 2008 look.
But, if you don't need Outlook or VBE, go with 08.
Thanks for the replies guys, exactly the kind of info I was looking for. I think I'm going to go for the '11 because xcel is a pretty crucial part of my job and my goal is to be able to use my macbook as a replacement for my work laptop
You'll be very pleased with your decision. I've got Office 2011 on my MacBook, but our work has all Office 2008. It - mostly Excel - is the worst.
People need to get over UI changes. I hover between indifference to preferring the 2011 setup.
Word 2011 is also much better, and much less prone to crashing, than 2008. I spend hours upon hours every day in Word, so I'm able to say this with confidence in my experience.
I can't bear Outlook 2011. I don't use Excel. I prefer Keynote 09 over PowerPoint 2011. So, for me, it's all about Word.
I can't bear Outlook 2011. I don't use Excel. I prefer Keynote 09 over PowerPoint 2011. So, for me, it's all about Word.
not really. you can minimize the ribbon, but there's no more Inspector toolbox, so you have to go menu-diving.
well, it's not really a change since it's the same as Windows now, but the Inspector was a much better use of space. screens have been getting wider and shorter...what's the sense in a ribbon at the top of the window? there's tons of horizontal space.
Do you have a student in your family? There are retail student versions but higher Ed ones are cheaper if you have a uni student in the house? Although the EULA forbids for profit work with the edu license, not that many people obey that rule.
Excel 2011 is much better than 2008, which caused me to go to boot camp and excel 2007 for several classes. Solver and VBA were the biggest issues against 2008.
Excel 2011 is much better than 2008, which caused me to go to boot camp and excel 2007 for several classes. Solver and VBA were the biggest issues against 2008.
I think your question should have a third choice: something else like iWork or OpenOffice.
I got Office 2011 for my wife through my company's home use program. I only paid 10 bucks and I still felt like I got ripped off. It took over her poor little Mac mini. There were 3 new icons in the dock and everything just got S L O W. Every time she tried to open a file that should have been associated with OpenOffice, MS Office would launch. MS Office installation corrupted fonts OpenOffice needed and I had to reinstall OpenOffice to get it working again.
There was a mishap where her HDD got wiped and I "forgot" to put Office back. She hasn't asked for it and I haven't volunteered. For one thing, I don't want to call MS on the phone to reactivate something I already paid for and activated once. It's not piracy, I'd just be putting it back after a HDD crash but no, I would have to go through activation again. Another reason I dislike office is that her machine came with Office 2004 trial which I believe is guilty of association stealing. Even after putting OpenOffice back on her machine, when she got email with MS attachments, she would get a popup saying Office 2004 couldn't launch because it was a PPC app. I had to drag Office 2004 to the trash to get it out of her face. These are just 2 of the reasons the Office 2011 DVD is down in the basement between the cat litter and the 78 rpm records.
As much as I dislike Office, if I had to use it, I'd go downstairs and dig up that 2011 DVD before I'd consider 2008. I deal with the ribbon all day at work and while I dislike it, I'm used to it. MS has a nasty habit of tweaks to their file formats so there is a greater risk 2008 would not be able to open a file correctly. Also the inability to run scripts makes 2008 a bit of a joke. The bottom line is I'm able to get away using iWork and OpenOffice for now but if I had to use MS Office, I'd use 2011.
I got Office 2011 for my wife through my company's home use program. I only paid 10 bucks and I still felt like I got ripped off. It took over her poor little Mac mini. There were 3 new icons in the dock and everything just got S L O W. Every time she tried to open a file that should have been associated with OpenOffice, MS Office would launch. MS Office installation corrupted fonts OpenOffice needed and I had to reinstall OpenOffice to get it working again.
There was a mishap where her HDD got wiped and I "forgot" to put Office back.
She hasn't asked for it and I haven't volunteered. For one thing, I don't want to call MS on the phone to reactivate something I already paid for and activated once. It's not piracy, I'd just be putting it back after a HDD crash but no, I would have to go through activation again. Another reason I dislike office is that her machine came with Office 2004 trial which I believe is guilty of association stealing. Even after putting OpenOffice back on her machine, when she got email with MS attachments, she would get a popup saying Office 2004 couldn't launch because it was a PPC app. I had to drag Office 2004 to the trash to get it out of her face. These are just 2 of the reasons the Office 2011 DVD is down in the basement between the cat litter and the 78 rpm records. As much as I dislike Office, if I had to use it, I'd go downstairs and dig up that 2011 DVD before I'd consider 2008. I deal with the ribbon all day at work and while I dislike it, I'm used to it. MS has a nasty habit of tweaks to their file formats so there is a greater risk 2008 would not be able to open a file correctly. Also the inability to run scripts makes 2008 a bit of a joke. The bottom line is I'm able to get away using iWork and OpenOffice for now but if I had to use MS Office, I'd use 2011.
I think your question should have a third choice: something else like iWork or OpenOffice.
I got Office 2011 for my wife through my company's home use program. I only paid 10 bucks and I still felt like I got ripped off. It took over her poor little Mac mini. There were 3 new icons in the dock and everything just got S L O W. Every time she tried to open a file that should have been associated with OpenOffice, MS Office would launch. MS Office installation corrupted fonts OpenOffice needed and I had to reinstall OpenOffice to get it working again.
.
Most of us, can't use iWork or OpenOffice due to business reasons. My guess is if the OP is asking about which version of Office, then he has a need for the real thing for work purposes. Just my guess....
But as far as the Dock, yes it is annoying. It will add 5 or so icons to your dock, but a simple right click and selecting "remove from dock" will fix this...
As for OpenOffice files opening in Microsoft Offfice, you can set the preferences for file types to be opened by a particular program within OSX.
My only complaints about Office (whether 2008 or 2011):
1. Bloated. Takes forever to open the first time. It pushed me to upgrade my Mac Mini to an SSD since I use Office on it almost every day.
2. Excel is still single threaded so if you work with a lot of forumlas/macros, it can take a long time to calculate (even with an i# in your computer).
I probably won't upgrade past 2011 until #2 is fixed. #1 is what you have to deal with when dealing with Microsoft products.
We all love to hate Office, but if you need it, 2011 is way better than 2008.
The ribbon in 2011 can be completely turned off in Preferences, unlike the awful Office 2008 "Elements Gallery," which is always visible, even when collapsed.
I don't know, I've always preferred MS Office, but with the new iWork, Apple has come a long way. I just love versions and autosave, and right now I prefer Pages to MS Word. However, I have not used MS Office 2011, only 2008.
CanCan I copy & paste graphics from a web page into Word 2011?
On my PC with Word 2003, I can select an entire web page, including text and graphics, copy it, and paste it into a Word document. On My MacBook Pro with Word 2008, I select an entire web page, including text and graphics, hit "copy" and try to paste it into a Word document. All I get is TEXT, no graphics.
I had asked earlier about resolving this problem with 2008. The suggestion that I could drag the images to my desktop and then drag that to Word to get images in didn't work. I could select the web page, but it wouldn't drag over to the desktop. So I gave up and just turned on my PC when I wanted to paste a web page into Word.
But I'd prefer to use my Mac. Will the new Word 2011 allow me to cut and paste graphics from web page to Word document? or cut and paste from other sources? I also tried cutting and pasting from iPhoto to Word 2008, and that didn't work either. Will it work with iPhoto and Word 2011? Thanks.
On my PC with Word 2003, I can select an entire web page, including text and graphics, copy it, and paste it into a Word document. On My MacBook Pro with Word 2008, I select an entire web page, including text and graphics, hit "copy" and try to paste it into a Word document. All I get is TEXT, no graphics.
I had asked earlier about resolving this problem with 2008. The suggestion that I could drag the images to my desktop and then drag that to Word to get images in didn't work. I could select the web page, but it wouldn't drag over to the desktop. So I gave up and just turned on my PC when I wanted to paste a web page into Word.
But I'd prefer to use my Mac. Will the new Word 2011 allow me to cut and paste graphics from web page to Word document? or cut and paste from other sources? I also tried cutting and pasting from iPhoto to Word 2008, and that didn't work either. Will it work with iPhoto and Word 2011? Thanks.
Copying a web page does work in Word 2011. The layout is a bit messed up, but the graphics and links do come across along with the text.
It also works (and has always worked, as far back as I can remember) in Pages and TextEdit's Rich Text mode. Back in the Word 2008 days, a workaround was to copy it into TextEdit, save that, and open that up in Word.
I ended up getting 2011 home and business in a partial trade and love it. I really like the full screen option in word with no distracting menus around the page.
Ok guys, quick question that I'm hoping you've got the answer to; When I reply to an email in Outlook '11 every time I hit enter to start another line my font gets smaller. My emails look like an eye exam chart.
Transferring Web pages into Word 2008
Date: May 2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ginny View Post
On my PC with Word 2003, I can select an entire web page, including text and graphics, copy it, and paste it into a Word document. On My MacBook Pro with Word 2008, I select an entire web page, including text and graphics, hit "copy" and try to paste it into a Word document. All I get is TEXT, no graphics.
I had asked earlier about resolving this problem with 2008. The suggestion that I could drag the images to my desktop and then drag that to Word to get images in didn't work. I could select the web page, but it wouldn't drag over to the desktop. So I gave up and just turned on my PC when I wanted to paste a web page into Word.
But I'd prefer to use my Mac. Will the new Word 2011 allow me to cut and paste graphics from web page to Word document? or cut and paste from other sources? I also tried cutting and pasting from iPhoto to Word 2008, and that didn't work either. Will it work with iPhoto and Word 2011? Thanks.
Copying a web page does work in Word 2011. The layout is a bit messed up, but the graphics and links do come across along with the text.
This from interrobang:
It also works (and has always worked, as far back as I can remember) in Pages and TextEdit's Rich Text mode. Back in the Word 2008 days, a workaround was to copy it into TextEdit, save that, and open that up in Word.
__________________
Interrobang, I tried copying from Web page and pasting to Pages directly. It didn't work; only text transferred. So I then copied and pasted into TextEdit. Text and graphics transferred fine. Then I had to copy all that from TextEdit and paste into Pages. FINALLY, I was able to EXPORT from Pages into Word 2008. Thank you for your help/advice!! I really didn't want to purchase yet another software package (Office 2011) if I didn't have to.
Date: May 2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ginny View Post
On my PC with Word 2003, I can select an entire web page, including text and graphics, copy it, and paste it into a Word document. On My MacBook Pro with Word 2008, I select an entire web page, including text and graphics, hit "copy" and try to paste it into a Word document. All I get is TEXT, no graphics.
I had asked earlier about resolving this problem with 2008. The suggestion that I could drag the images to my desktop and then drag that to Word to get images in didn't work. I could select the web page, but it wouldn't drag over to the desktop. So I gave up and just turned on my PC when I wanted to paste a web page into Word.
But I'd prefer to use my Mac. Will the new Word 2011 allow me to cut and paste graphics from web page to Word document? or cut and paste from other sources? I also tried cutting and pasting from iPhoto to Word 2008, and that didn't work either. Will it work with iPhoto and Word 2011? Thanks.
Copying a web page does work in Word 2011. The layout is a bit messed up, but the graphics and links do come across along with the text.
This from interrobang:
It also works (and has always worked, as far back as I can remember) in Pages and TextEdit's Rich Text mode. Back in the Word 2008 days, a workaround was to copy it into TextEdit, save that, and open that up in Word.
__________________
Interrobang, I tried copying from Web page and pasting to Pages directly. It didn't work; only text transferred. So I then copied and pasted into TextEdit. Text and graphics transferred fine. Then I had to copy all that from TextEdit and paste into Pages. FINALLY, I was able to EXPORT from Pages into Word 2008. Thank you for your help/advice!! I really didn't want to purchase yet another software package (Office 2011) if I didn't have to.
Just a thought - If you like writing in a distraction free environment, have you thought about a text editor? I love iA Writer and it is on the Mac App store for less then $10. It has a great one sentence focus mode and beautiful UI. It supports Markup and you can easily export into Word after. I use it a lot to draft blog posts. Other great aspect about iA Writer is it was one of the first 3rd Party Apps to support iCloud documents for seamless sync between your Mac and an iPad.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ia-writer/id439623248?mt=12
