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First Screenshots of Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Surface
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1) Cocoa, so hopefully better performance and less weird buginess
2) Ribbon interface. I am indifferent on it, but I HATE having to search all over the place on both PC AND Mac due to the wildly different UI's. MS is sticking with it in Windows; I think they should keep it the same cross-platform, so bring on the ribbon. To the ribbon haters: it is not going away. If you want a more "Mac-y" experience, use iWork. The rest of the planet uses Office and I need to too.
3) VBA. VBA. VBA. Finally. This is probably one of the biggest reason people are still using 2004, seeing as some companies rely heavily on this, not to mention I HATE writing Applescript for Office when I already know VBA.
[edit] oh, and 4) The formula bar is anchored again. I hate chasing that d*mn thing around, moving it away from things it is covering, having it stay when I move a window, etc. That is just poor UI design.
To me it looks pretty much the same, the ribbon isn't really that noticeable and I doubt the features are gonna be that advanced, making it worth the likely $200+ upgrade
Don't know if it ran on CPM. I had a summer job in 1986 or so writing dBase apps on DOS for an oil company.
I can understand peoples scepticism when it comes to vertical space. First we're undergoing a change to the 16:9 widescreen format that takes some pixels, then you have the Apple menubar at the top and the dock at the bottom. If you now put all the controls in a ribbon above the text your space is getting even smaller.
However, the problem is not that different to the PC Version and there is a very good workaround for this problem. You can just hide the ribbonbar with Ctrl & F1. After a few Days of Use you do that automatically. I even put this shortcut onto one of my Mousebuttons. I find it to be far better than rearranging the pallette all the time - unfortunately it is never in the right place. Due to the nature of the ribbon compared to the pallette it is much easier to find stuff you don't use all the time.
I am actually one of these nutters that has to have the whole text, idealy very big, right in front of me, so I want to use all the space my Display gives me, horizontely and verticaly - so this is the solution for me.
After a few month "beta"testing the Office 2010 PC Version, I really hope the Mac Version is gonna be as good. I wrote with it, calculated stuff and powerpointed the heck out of it - never missed a beat.
However, the problem is not that different to the PC Version and there is a very good workaround for this problem. You can just hide the ribbonbar with Ctrl & F1. After a few Days of Use you do that automatically. I even put this shortcut onto one of my Mousebuttons. I find it to be far better than rearranging the pallette all the time - unfortunately it is never in the right place. Due to the nature of the ribbon compared to the pallette it is much easier to find stuff you don't use all the time.
I am actually one of these nutters that has to have the whole text, idealy very big, right in front of me, so I want to use all the space my Display gives me, horizontely and verticaly - so this is the solution for me.
After a few month "beta"testing the Office 2010 PC Version, I really hope the Mac Version is gonna be as good. I wrote with it, calculated stuff and powerpointed the heck out of it - never missed a beat.
University project. Which needs Access. It's a pain in the arse I admit, but seeing it for Mac would be nice.
I have to use Access for a university project too; it really is a pain in the arse. I ended up just installing XP in a VM using VirtualBox and installing Office in that. I tried Wine/CrossOver, but it just wasn't working for me.
I'm pretty sure everyone will throw rocks on me for saying this, but...
Yay for ribbons!
I can't stand having to either go deep in the menus looking for something or having the palette that blocks my view or having a very incomplete tool bar because there are not icons for everything i'd like to have.
Ribbons provide a perfect solution IMHO... I had a Word and Office class at school and I have to say that it is what switched me to the ribbons. It's very rare, but I think that Microsoft is right on this one...
Yay for ribbons!
I can't stand having to either go deep in the menus looking for something or having the palette that blocks my view or having a very incomplete tool bar because there are not icons for everything i'd like to have.
Ribbons provide a perfect solution IMHO... I had a Word and Office class at school and I have to say that it is what switched me to the ribbons. It's very rare, but I think that Microsoft is right on this one...
Ugh, the interface looks horrible. What's with all the differently colored bars and the hideous icons? The Windows version has a much more elegant design. This looks like it was designed by amateurs. Blegh.
Too bad, because I really prefer MS Office over Open Office or iWork in terms of features and functionality. I think I'll stick with Open Office, though.
Too bad, because I really prefer MS Office over Open Office or iWork in terms of features and functionality. I think I'll stick with Open Office, though.
I am looking forward.
Office (specially Word) has always been an amazing product for me, whether I used it on Windows or on Mac OS X. I am used to write longer texts (term papers, writs) and I just couldn't think of writing those on another Application (maybe open office?).
The fact that the Mac section of Microsoft has decided to rewrite Office in cocoa is a true pleasure. This shows me that MS is willing to seriously developp for the mac.
Office (specially Word) has always been an amazing product for me, whether I used it on Windows or on Mac OS X. I am used to write longer texts (term papers, writs) and I just couldn't think of writing those on another Application (maybe open office?).
The fact that the Mac section of Microsoft has decided to rewrite Office in cocoa is a true pleasure. This shows me that MS is willing to seriously developp for the mac.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Microsoft is actually not a bad company to work for. It is listed at 50 in Fortune's Top 100 of Best Companies to work for. Guess where Apple is in that list? - It's not IN the list.
Apple has not held a position in the top 100 employers list since 2006, despite having reached 337th place in Fortune's Global 500 rankings, and the number one position in the most-admired list.
In Office 2007 for PC the ribbon is good at some things, but notably not for making quick changes to simple things like text size etc. In Office 2008 for Mac it was half implemented and so not really good for anything.
However the Mac version did have the excellent formatting palette, meaning ironically it had the best UI of the two. The formatting palette allows users to make simple changes quickly and intuitively, avoiding the ribbon's menu surfing, and making better use of [landscape] screen real estate.
I am relieved that the Word screen shot shows they have retained it! Lets hope it stays the default- the ribbon takes up far too much room and is best suited for charts and shapes.
However the Mac version did have the excellent formatting palette, meaning ironically it had the best UI of the two. The formatting palette allows users to make simple changes quickly and intuitively, avoiding the ribbon's menu surfing, and making better use of [landscape] screen real estate.
I am relieved that the Word screen shot shows they have retained it! Lets hope it stays the default- the ribbon takes up far too much room and is best suited for charts and shapes.
I am SO bummed that they aren't giving OneNote a shot on Mac. There is no great alternative to it. Tons of students use OneNote, and tons of students use Macs. So why not combine them? I'm not even a student anymore but I use OneNote (via Crossover) for business use. I love it, but would love it even more if I didn't have to run Crossover to use it! Come on Microsoft GIVE US ONENOTE!!!
I know I'm easily confused, but...Microsoft has given us, from top to bottom:
The Mac menu,
Icons,
Word menu (tabs for ribbon)
Icons and pallets in the ribbon,
and...
Formatting pallet
Four duplicating design elements. Sheer genius, I say
And thanks for eating up precious vertical screen real estate.
The Mac menu,
Icons,
Word menu (tabs for ribbon)
Icons and pallets in the ribbon,
and...
Formatting pallet
Four duplicating design elements. Sheer genius, I say
And thanks for eating up precious vertical screen real estate.I guess my feelings come from being an eclectic computer user. For what it's worth, I'm indifferent to the PC/Mac debate, however, having grown up on Windows machines, I find myself tilted towards the PC side in most things I do.
Regardless, I am not a fan of Pages, or Numbers for that matter, and I am all too happy about this upgrade. I was thrilled when Microsoft pushed for the ribbon interface, a UI that would, essentially, visually group tools into task-centric tabs. If all I want to do is type up a report, I need only stay on the Home tab and never have to deal with drop down menus. It's like a pallet. All the tools I need are right there and I need only click on what I want. It saves a lot of time, believe it or not.
Then, when I'm done with the document and I want to get a little more creative, I switch over to the Page Layout tab and, once again, everything is there.
I'm just glad that Microsoft is going with coherence in their Office line.
Regardless, I am not a fan of Pages, or Numbers for that matter, and I am all too happy about this upgrade. I was thrilled when Microsoft pushed for the ribbon interface, a UI that would, essentially, visually group tools into task-centric tabs. If all I want to do is type up a report, I need only stay on the Home tab and never have to deal with drop down menus. It's like a pallet. All the tools I need are right there and I need only click on what I want. It saves a lot of time, believe it or not.
Then, when I'm done with the document and I want to get a little more creative, I switch over to the Page Layout tab and, once again, everything is there.
I'm just glad that Microsoft is going with coherence in their Office line.
Office 2007 was version 1 and office 2010 is version 2 and a much better version of ribbon. Palettes takes too much space and time to work with. They are in the way and no two users place them alike.
Good lord, Outlook is ugly. Those icons look like they were pulled straight out of Cheetah. Or Puma. Whatever the decade-old hideous first iteration of OS X was called.
Can't they invest in some designers to make this stuff LOOK good?
Can't they invest in some designers to make this stuff LOOK good?
It looks horrendous.
Office 2007 for windows is actually nice to use - as long as you don't try and use any other program. I had a few months of having to search for things (fields - apparently you need to go to 'insert quick part' on the toolbar - yup - that made sense). Also dialog boxes change depending on if you are editing a document as a .doc or a .docx.
It is a lot quicker to use office 2007 under virtualisation on Mac than it is to use the native version.
It should be possible to design a version of office that works the same way on the mac as it does the PC, but uses mac conventions and mac formatted dialogs and alerts.
Numbers also has one killer feature that excel doesn't - you can put line breaks and tabs into forumulas - this makes complex formulas a breeze as you can actually give them structure rather than all being on one line.
Office 2007 for windows is actually nice to use - as long as you don't try and use any other program. I had a few months of having to search for things (fields - apparently you need to go to 'insert quick part' on the toolbar - yup - that made sense). Also dialog boxes change depending on if you are editing a document as a .doc or a .docx.
It is a lot quicker to use office 2007 under virtualisation on Mac than it is to use the native version.
It should be possible to design a version of office that works the same way on the mac as it does the PC, but uses mac conventions and mac formatted dialogs and alerts.
Numbers also has one killer feature that excel doesn't - you can put line breaks and tabs into forumulas - this makes complex formulas a breeze as you can actually give them structure rather than all being on one line.
It's definitely a big step in the right decision. Now if only Apple woud follow suit for iTunes on Windows...
Is only Outlook going to be Cocoa or is the entire suite going to be cocoa? I hope it's the latter.
That's what I want to see.
That way when I change over to my mac at home after working on the PC's at work I don't have to re-learn everything.
It's MS Office. Some sort of uniformity would be nice.
Irrespective of what people think of Office in general compared to to the iSuite on apple, It's the default format that work is done in. And sorry iWork is just not compatible. I personally have had many many compatibility issues with items I've been working on. Mind you I also have many compatibility issues working between PC office and 2008 Mac office.
Compatibility and uniformity are the biggest issues at stake here people.
Well this time they will be released the same year
I guess they want to keep the naming uniformity...