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Office 2011 will have versions, full screen and auto save!

Sensamic

Sensamic

macrumors 68040
Original poster
Mar 26, 2010
3,145
779
Hey everyone.

Microsoft has just published a blog post on their mactopia website stating that Office 2011 will take advantage of the new features of Lion. The update will come in months, so patience :D:D:D

http://blog.officeformac.com/more-news-on-office-for-mac-2011-and-mac-os-x-10-7-lion/

I was not completely sure they would do this, but its great to see confirmation. Office 2011 will be great with these new features, even resume (although I think this already works).

I had my doubts, but after playing with versions for a couple of hours I understand it better, especially thanks to the "delete all previous versions" feature, which I thought it was not possible.

Anyways, great news for everyone that uses Office instead of iWork (which I also tried today and didn't really like it).
 
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can we have background scrolling and pinch to zoom first? been waiting for those for years.
 
Sky Blue said:
can we have background scrolling and pinch to zoom first? been waiting for those for years.
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Sorry if I misunderstood you, but by background scrolling do you mean being able to scroll a document when it is not in focus? Because I just tested it with a document in '11 for me, and it works.

I totally agree with the pinch to zoom though. This isn't the same, but if you hold down control and scroll up/down you can also zoom in/out. This only works if you haven't already mapped control + scroll up/down to the standard OS X zoom function.
 
Sensamic said:
Anyways, great news for everyone that uses Office instead of iWork (which I also tried today and didn't really like it).
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How I do understand you. :)
I am on the Mac for over 4 years now. Long story short: I need Office, but have not liked the 2008 version. Could not get to work with iWorks. Office 2011 is somewhat better, still unreliable on my machine.

NOW, since a month or so, I got restarted on iWorks ... and well, guess what: I am starting to prefer it over MS Office big time. I guess there is some learning curve, but once you get it, it seems reasonably fair (and stable!!). :)
 
karohan said:
Sorry if I misunderstood you, but by background scrolling do you mean being able to scroll a document when it is not in focus? Because I just tested it with a document in '11 for me, and it works.
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Just tried it in Excel 14.1.2 and it doesn't work.
 
Thanks for the info, I was thinking of upgrading to Office, but with this I will save my money
 
I'm glad they'll implement these features...but office has never been my favorite. I would prefer to use texedit over word any day.
 
Tutorer said:
Works for me, too. With the mouse scroll wheel and the trackpad I can scroll documents in Excel when it is in the background.
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Same here. Works all round - the initial 2011 version of Word didn't support it but they changed that with an update, and there was much rejoicing.

Great news that they will add in support for the fancy new features. Maximising the window sizes in the current versions just doesn't stick properly. Something to look forward to.
 
MartiNZ said:
Same here. Works all round - the initial 2011 version of Word didn't support it but they changed that with an update, and there was much rejoicing.
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Unfortunately, it still doesn't work in Excel when you have the same document open in more than one window.

EDIT: Actually, it just plain doesn't work between windows in Excel. Excel windows will scroll from another app, but you can't scroll background Excel windows while in Excel.
 
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I just switched to pages a week or so ago. It'll take a while to transfer all my files (well over 400 with MathType equations that don't like to migrate) but I've liked pages better. I've had far less problems with Pages than with MS 2008 and 2011 and I can't imagine how much slower it will be if it keeps constantly saving my work all the time.
 
timotay89 said:
I just switched to pages a week or so ago. It'll take a while to transfer all my files (well over 400 with MathType equations that don't like to migrate) but I've liked pages better. I've had far less problems with Pages than with MS 2008 and 2011 and I can't imagine how much slower it will be if it keeps constantly saving my work all the time.
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Have you noticed any functional limitations of Pages (compared to Word)? I know Excel is far better than Numbers, and many people prefer Keynote to Powerpoint, but what's the status on Pages vs. Word functionality-wise?
 
karohan said:
Have you noticed any functional limitations of Pages (compared to Word)? I know Excel is far better than Numbers, and many people prefer Keynote to Powerpoint, but what's the status on Pages vs. Word functionality-wise?
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Sorry it took a while to respond.

There is less stuff you can do with Pages. One thing that will keep me from transferring everything is the lack of a double underline. It can also be difficult to get used to using the inspector part of it. However, overall I like pages much better. It opens and closes faster than word and seems to be much more stable as well. In the month or so that I've been using pages, it's never crashed on me.

Also, while word 11 will be getting autosave, resume, and versions sometime in the future, pages has it now. That's a big deal when you're a college student typing up papers all the time.
 
I really hope there is a way to disable auto-save / versions, otherwise I'll have to abandon Office. Something like auto-save would have completely kneecapped me when writing my dissertation, causing all sorts of inadvertent data loss. Apple must realize that some people like to be able to open a file and not have any possible change automatically saved without their consent or knowledge. With a 35+ MB Word file with graphics, automatically saving a new delta version every single time a key is pressed will be absolute murder on performance: Word 2011 will be back to performing like Word 2004.
 
Riemann Zeta said:
I really hope there is a way to disable auto-save / versions,
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I think apple needs to add the ability to turn off auto-save (add in save as again) and versions. Sadly I don't think that will happen. Like with all the other issues people are having. I highly recommend going to http://apple.com/feedback and post your thoughts.

I recall when apple unveiled 10.0 they killed off the apple menu but after a large amount of hue and cry, apple relented and added it back in (though crippled compared to what it did in os9)
 
timotay89 said:
Also, while word 11 will be getting autosave, resume, and versions sometime in the future, pages has it now. That's a big deal when you're a college student typing up papers all the time.
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You do realize that it has this feature already, it's just not tied to the OS, right?
 
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I realize that Office has its own auto-save like implementation, but it is not as obtrusive as Apple's. It records recovery information, but still allows the user to control the saving process. Save-as still exists and it is possible to open a file and NOT save the changes. With Apple's OS-level implementation, you absolutely have to change how you work, or else your files will changed without your consent or knowledge.
 
I hope MS removes Save As from Office from Mac just to drive home the point that Apple ISN'T all that when it comes to usability and ux.
 
Riemann Zeta said:
With Apple's OS-level implementation, you absolutely have to change how you work, or else your files will changed without your consent or knowledge.
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This is the bit that I abhor above all else. I often open spreadsheets containing my finances and make changes, usually midway through the month as I work out how much money I have left before pay day. Once I know, I close them without saving, so that at the start of the next month, I can update them with my salary for the coming month and my bills. Apple's approach would require me to create temporary copies and have me overwriting files I don't want to change. It's still the one thing likely to have me go back to SL.
 
You could just undo the changes before quitting... I realize it's still a change to workflow, but it wouldn't require making a template.
 
The annoying thing about the new SP1 update for 2011 is that it ties Outlook 2011 into Exchange 2010 only, it works for 2007 servers but once you install SP1 you can't create rules anymore if you're connected to a 2007 server :)
 
mobtek said:
The annoying thing about the new SP1 update for 2011 is that it ties Outlook 2011 into Exchange 2010 only, it works for 2007 servers but once you install SP1 you can't create rules anymore if you're connected to a 2007 server :)
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SP1 is pretty old :confused:
You couldn't do rules with 2011 before SP1 anyway.
 
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