Microsoft Updates Office for Mac 2011 With Office 365 Compatibility, Bug Fixes

Bug Fixes ALREADY?

Microsoft is a consistant company...there products are deeply flawed and untested until after the sale. No one checks the Geek work...its amazing. Can you imagine if they were in charge of NASA? We would have about 25 deaths in accidents due to "bugs" in the rocket software.

MacRumors said:

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Microsoft today released the 14.3.4 update for Office for Mac 2011, adding Office 365 compatibility in addition to a host of bug fixes. Previously, Office for Mac 2011 users had to uninstall Office for Mac and sign up for Office 365. Now, existing Office for Mac 2011 users can easily integrate their software with the subscription service.

The rest of the update addresses various bugs, including an issue where file names would change when saved to SkyDrive or SharePoint in Microsoft Word for Mac. The font Calibri Light was also added, fixing poor rendering of Office 2013 shared documents that used the font.

Other bug fixes include being able to coauthor a PowerPoint Web App session without being alerted to potential conflicts, an expiring token notification, and an issue where keyboard and mice commands would "lose control" during a PowerPoint for Mac slideshow. A full list of bug fixes can be found on the Microsoft Support site.

While Office 2011 for Mac is still being updated, a new version of Office for Mac may arrive in April 2014. This update to Office 2011 for Mac, which requires Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later, is available for free via Microsoft AutoUpdate or Microsoft's website.

Article Link: Microsoft Updates Office for Mac 2011 With Office 365 Compatibility, Bug Fixes

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Anyone had issues installing? I keep getting installation failed?

palmharbor said:

Microsoft is a consistant company...there products are deeply flawed and untested until after the sale. No one checks the Geek work...its amazing. Can you imagine if they were in charge of NASA? We would have about 25 deaths in accidents due to "bugs" in the rocket software.

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And the award for the person most overstating the issue goes to...

Michael Goff said:

And the award for the person most overstating the issue goes to...

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Overstated, yes, but not really all that inaccurate.

Of course, there are those who posit that MS leaves a healthy does of bugs and broken features around on purpose so as to fuel the drive to upgrade.

I don't entirely disagree with those folks - there are things that behave quite badly in MS products, Office included (both PC and Mac versions).

Office 365? No thanks. I dont want 365, I dont want Adobe 'Cloud' and I dont want Sim City.

Too many companies have started using 'magical' cloud terms as another way of enforcing DRM. Shove it Microsoft.

smithrh said:

Overstated, yes, but not really all that inaccurate.

Of course, there are those who posit that MS leaves a healthy does of bugs and broken features around on purpose so as to fuel the drive to upgrade.

I don't entirely disagree with those folks - there are things that behave quite badly in MS products, Office included (both PC and Mac versions).

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All software has bugs, all software will always have bugs.

We just don't see that many iWork updates because... well, no good reasons, I'll tell you that.

It'd be like if I said "At least Apple's internet offerings are consistent. Can you imagine if they were in charge of NORAD? It'd never be up and running!"

Also, anyone who thinks they have bugs "just to get people up upgrade" is a loon.

MUBiomed said:

They are really pushing this 365 issue. I hope they don't plan on pulling an adobe in 2014 because I won't pay the subscription. There are too many alternatives out there.

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I believe it's fairly clear that the current stand-alone versions of Office could be the last - or next to last. Could depend on how much pushback they get, but the enterprise market will probably go along as it's their bread and butter and the collaboration part's important in many biz settings.

As for Adobe, I guess I'll have to move to other programs or stick with the older version I have (tho' I might pop for PS 6 as my axe for the years to come - but while I read the stand-alone is still available, it's no longer listed on Adobe's site). There's some sense in it for pros making a living, but for hobbyists and part-time photogs like me, there are times I use it intensely, and then not for months.

And "not for months" at $50/month (once the promo expires), or $30/month for PS only, is freight I just can't see hauling, 'specially as I make no money for any of my photo work. I guess Adobe is saying "Elements is good enough for the likes of you."

But Lightroom's still listed as a product for now at least.

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Originally Posted by ALange

comparing office to iwork is like comparing ferrari to fiat punto. iwork can do basic , but office simply owns it with features.

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Roller said:

Not entirely true. Keynote, though not updated since 2009, still is better than PowerPoint in many respects. Apple does need to upgrade the iWork suite, though, or admit that it's dead.

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Agreed that Keynote is the gem of the "apparently abandoned step-child suite." Percentage of time I prefer Pages (mostly because of wanting compatible docs I can share easily without multiple copies and flawed translations to docx): 0. Ditto for Excel v Numbers.

Time I prefer to build my own presentations in Keynote over PP: 100%.

palmharbor said:

Microsoft is a consistant company...there products are deeply flawed and untested until after the sale. No one checks the Geek work...its amazing. Can you imagine if they were in charge of NASA? We would have about 25 deaths in accidents due to "bugs" in the rocket software.

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When I moved from XP to Vista I stopped having any problems with bugginess. Sure, it felt half-baked and lacked luster (or rather, exceeded in it), but it ran just fine.

Yes, I do mean Vista.

Michael Goff said:

Also, anyone who thinks they have bugs "just to get people up upgrade" is a loon.

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FYI - I've seen it done several times in my career now, both in consumer applications and specialized, non-public software.

It does happen.

Deal with it.

smithrh said:

FYI - I've seen it done several times in my career now, both in consumer applications and specialized, non-public software.

It does happen.

Deal with it.

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Go ahead, point me to the Microsoft software that you're referring to.

in real companies, EG;ones with more than 100 employees, there is no replacement for Office. Even Office 2011 on a Mac is not 100% there.
The "other" office suites do not support the advanced features of Excel or Exchange. For example, there is no client aside from Outlook on a PC that can edit Distribution Lists on an Exchange server. This has me firing up VirtualBox so I can run Office 2003 to do a Job that Google Docs and Office 2011 can not do!

I am glad to see this update to 2011 though. While it is far from perfect, I like 2011 over the native Apple apps, which kind of err on the side of simplicity. It's also kind of ludicrous that they break out what Outlook does with one program into 4 separate applications. Mail, Contacts, Calendar and Reminders.

jc1350 said:

MS Office and Office: Mac are written by two different entities within MS and they don't share resources from what I've read. The Mac version is written by the Mac Business Unit, a bastard step-child of MS. The MBU has it's own developers and development schedules. However, I do wish the MS mother-ship (as I call it) would combine so that we have feature parity. But the cynic in me says that is exactly the point. MS doesn't want feature parity so it can push Windows over Mac OS.

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True, and they could easily do it with Office for Windows by getting mainsoft and using the same code base; they did it in the past with Internet Explorer and Outlook Express for Solaris and HP-UX so I don't see why they couldn't use mainsoft again and deliver a feature complete implementation of the Office for Windows code base and delivering a 100% compatible version on Mac - the technology is there but alas as you noted the will power isn't there for political reasons.

Regarding the subscription issue someone else raised - Adobe was the one who decided to get rid of perpetual licences and it was Microsoft who said that it was too early for it and that they (Microsoft) would wait at least a decade before doing that. The reason has little to nothing at all to do with piracy and more to do with having a reliable re-occuring revenue stream rather than having massive spikes every few years when a new product is released. It makes perfect sense and Apple is focusing on doing that with their Apple TV subscription model, the cut they take from AppStore sales etc. so that profits can be harmonised a lot easier over the year rather than massive peaks and troughs between the release and refresh.

Regarding Adobe, it has always been a PITA for them trying to convince people to regularly upgrade so the subscription benefits some and annoys others. For businesses it is a stable out going cost rather than having to deal with a massive cost coming down the pipe every 18 months - it means that Adobe can release regular updates and upgrades with customers receiving them throughout the year rather than trying to scrunch them all up in a single big product release. Those whom they screw over are the enthusiast and ones who like using Creative Suite on a casual basis and maybe do a few cash in hand jobs but don't generation enough or any cash to justify the expense of an on going cycle of cash leaving them wallet each month. For me I was in that category and decided to move to Hype and Pixelmator but honestly I don't think me and people like me not using Adobe products are really going to affect their bottom line.

Regarding Microsoft though, they would really have to improve the next version of Office to convince me to move back again - for all the faults of iWorks, it is cheaper for people like me to go iWork and deal with the lack of some features than paying up the NZ$425 per copy for Office Home & Business (one copy per computer, no longer the old deal of getting 2 licences at a cheap price). I have to admit though the $165 per year is tempting but Microsoft would have to prove via action that they're not only going to clean up Office for Mac but they're also going to bring up timely updates that justify the yearly licence fee.

chrfr said:

Same goes for Office 2010 for Windows and Office 2011 for Mac.

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Actually not true, although the names suggest it. Office 2010 came out in june 2010, and Office 2011 came out in october 2010 (according to Wikipedia). But I believe that's rather exceptional.

cookiesnfooty said:

Anyone had issues installing? I keep getting installation failed?

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Yes, I had that too and came here to see if anyone else had. Have you found a cause/solution?

Padaung said:

Yes, I had that too and came here to see if anyone else had. Have you found a cause/solution?

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Don't you have small /tmp? I've got /tmp located in RAM and thus intentionally pretty small (192MB) and some updaters such as this one require much larger /tmp space so I always temporarily resize it when running such updaters.

Apple has an Opportunity Here - Let's Hope They Take It

I installed a trial version of Office 2011 that also included Office 365. Now the stand alone apps that came with it seem fine. They are half a step behind what I see from Office 2013 but not much. Now when I looked at Office 365 - I noticed the online applications are no where near as feature rich as the stand alone offerings and have less capability than say Google Docs (for example the Google Spreadsheet has pivot tables - not so with online version of Excel). More importantly - the online storage and management of files is actually more clumsy than what Google or even iCloud offers.

Apple can achieve a huge leap here if they did a few things in their next round of offering updates:

1.) Update all iWork to enhance and improve feature set to be more competitive to MS Office. Specifics - Numbers - Increase column and row capacity to at least 300,000 rows with full column compliment. Implement pivot tables, and multi-level filtering and improve library of formulas and functions. Combine that with Numbers better chart and presentation capabilities and you have a winner.

2.) Update Pages to include more features and standardization of templates. It is almost there with regards to Word. So not as much work to do here.

3.) Revise iCloud storage to allow for development of file folders to be more like Google Drive. Apple currently has a nice seamless integration with cloud storage - this small improvement could do wonders. Also allow the storage of non-iWork files like MS Office files and others.

4.) Integrate all three iWork products so you can reference a numbers table in a Pages or Keynote document. Link them together.

These few relatively modest changes would greatly enhance Apple's presence in the business world. They just need to invest some resources here - its not like Apple is short of money or software engineers.

ecowood said:

Don't bother with this crud. Go for iWorks instead.

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Can't be serious, most corporations use Word - in my world, iWorks won't cut it.

thejadedmonkey said:

Their words are "within a decade". Read more here before you bash Office 2011 for being some subscription only abhorrent piece of software.

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Read what I said before you (apparently) accuse me of saying I think Office 2011 is subscription only. I know it's not. I own a license (that I bought...once).

My complaint is with subscription-only models, which your link only confirms that Microsoft seems to think is the future, despite their plans to offer both right now. I disagree, primarily from a TC"O" perspective.

Flags disappeared from Outlook 2011

I hate starting out on a new forum with an issue but here we go After the update all my flags in Outlook are gone! Weirdly even after adding new ones straight after syncing with IMAP these are gone as well. Interestingly they appear fine on my iPhone and on one of the PC's in our office.

It's not a server issue as I've tested this with our business one, GMail and Yahoo. Has anyone came across it yet?

The mess-up process is simple: Add Follow Up Flag to an e-mail -> Sync with server fetching mail -> Flag's gone from Outlook (and syncs on all other machines connected to this account).

Go Microsoft.

So happy they fixed the bug where you couldn't email a distro list you created without expanding all the emails.

Seeing a hang in Outlook w/14.3.4 now. Anyone else? UI spin locks... then releases 30-60 seconds later. I see things like this in the system.log when it happens:


Quit Outlook, no more hangs. Start Outlook, hangs randomly come back. No plugins, no trouble before this.

Thoughts?

Flags in Microsoft Outlook are disappearing

The flags for Outlook emails are disappearing after installing the update. When going back to reflag the emails the flags will disappear again after a few minutes. Very frustrating.

selection bug?

I use Word a lot in translation work, and have had a election issue for a while, appeared sometime after the last or the one before last update.
Trying to select a word or phrase will not always work, either using a magic mouse or trackpad. The cursor just stays at the insertion point. If I double click that word, or any other word, then the selection process works, but of course that brings me right out of "work" mode and into "wwwwWTF Microsoft!" mode
interrupting any present chain of thought.
This issue is intermittent and hard to reproduce, but it happens a lot, and I cannot associate any other action or condition to it. So stumped! Not
Any ideas?

The instant Pages integrates the specifics of French typography, I'm dropping Word forever.