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Office 2004 for Mac or Office 2007 via Parallels?

T

twomiracles

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 30, 2006
195
0
I have to have Parallels on my MBP because I do web development and must have IE on my machine. I'll be running XP Pro on it. I own a copy of Office 2004 for Mac, which I have been using on my MacBook, but I actually have access to a license for Office 2007 for Windows and wonder if it's better than 2004/Mac...any thoughts?

Thanks!
Kathy
 
Why not install both and see which you like best?

Yes, I would say Office 2007 is "better" in that it's more up-to-date and most likely contains more functionality. Although 2004 may contain everything you need, in which case it would suffice (and then you'd still have that "Apple feel."
 
This is just my opinion, but I run Office 2K4 on my Mac Pro and Powerbook. On the off chance I'm on XP in Fusion, I have Office 2K3 loaded. I've tried Office 2007 on the Windows side and, quite frankly, I just don't like it. Office 2K3 and 2K4 Mac just "feel" more at home to me. Just my 2 cents....
 
Where I work at, the computers in the office that need Windows have Office 2004 for Mac, and Windows 2003 for Windows on XP in Parallels. I haven't heard lots of good things about Office 2007/2008 yet.
 
The UI to Office 2007 has some advantages once you get your head around it. When I first switched to the mac 2 years ago I loaded up 2004 but never came to like it. It seemed somehow lost, not really Mac software, but not really windows either. I find that 2008 has more of a mac feel then 2004. I was using 2007 in Parallels prior to 2008 coming out and for the most part it ran pretty well. Excel would lock up Parallels (or maybe Parallels would lock up Excel) every so often. The only downside was waiting for Parallels and office to load. The UI in 2007 is a pretty significant departure from 2003/4, and 2008 for that matter. I got to like it once I understood why it was laid out the way it was, but a lot of people prefer the old UI.
 
I have (thanks to an incestuous deal between my IT group and MS) Office 2003, 2004, 2007, and 2008 all on the same Intel Mac. (The Windows versions are in VMs.)

I like 2004 best of them all, and 2007 least of them all. 2007 does have some features not found in any of the other versions, but the toolbar-centric interface is too cluttered. 2004 is the smoothest to work with. 2008 just seems like added baggage on top of 2004 (Except for Entourage, which is much improved in 2008).
 
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