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First Screenshots of Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Surface

LMAO.

Microsoft looks like they are designing something for kids.

What a mish-mash of colors and disorganization amongst wildly different UI layouts.
 
So tired of 'updates'. I've been paying for Microsoft Office for Mac for years and years. I'm confident Office 2008 will 'work' for more years.....I do not plan to 'update' again.

If and when I do finally get a new word processor, I'm moving to iWork !!!
 
I wonder if it will finally open files as fast as it did back in 1989? Jeez, Word 11 takes longer to open a one-page doc than Final Cut Pro takes to open a 90-minute feature.

Pa thet ic

It's *word processing* for gawd sake.
 
There seem to be a lot of people who don't realize you can hide this stuff in every version. Ribbon, floating palettes, etc.

The real issue with the Office 2007 ribbon was always that it was not adjustable to user specs. (3rd party software allowed for it) That is supposed to be fixed with Office 2010, but doesn't seem to be that way in Office 2011. THAT is a problem.

If v2011 brings ribbon modification and VBA that matches the Win version, I will probably fulfill my threat to just change to a Mac at work. They'll never even notice.
 
I have used Office 2007 at work a lot and have grown to love the ribbon. I would agree that there is some repetition going on with the palette, toolbar, and ribbon, but hopefully some of them can be turned off/hidden.

The icons are a little cartoon like and not "professional" looking. The toolbar does not seem to mesh with the new look of the ribbon.

I look forward to the new version of office and will probably be updating so I have a unified look when moving from my work PC with Office 2007/2010 to Mac Office 2011.
 
tatonka said:
I think it looks great. It is a great thing that they finally unify the UI's and hopefully they will get rid of that f****** toolbox-hover-window as well.

For a regular desktop screen, the size of the ribbon is not really an issue (27" anyone?). You are still left with more room than you need and the ribbon simplifies work flows a lot. I thought it was stupid in the beginning, but having tried it, I think it is a great invention.

T.
Click to expand...

Not everyone has a 27" screen. The most popular mac is the 13" MacBook, and this interface simply destroys the screen real estate left for the document.

I'd be fine with the ribbon if it were vertical, rather than horizontal. As it is now, it eats up way too much horizontal space, especially with the toolbar. (What is the point of having a toolbar *and* a ribbon?)

So no, don't get rid of my "f****** toolbox," because it's the only thing that works well with widescreen displays. I wish MS would take Apple's hint and adopt something THIN, like Page's Format Bar. They need to realize that the important part of the interface is the actual document, not the freaking ribbon.
 
A few points here, just for the record ...

I wouldn't treat screenshots of questionable provenance, that were taken months before release, as the final say on what's coming in Office:Mac 2011. :)

There have been a bunch of questions about the MacRibbon, so I'm going to point to one of my blog posts about it: Why is Office:Mac getting the Ribbon? One of my colleagues has a blog post in the MacBU team blog, Mac Mojo, has some more details about it as well welcome to the new Office 2011 user experience.

VBA is definitely still coming in Office:Mac 2011. Specifically, it's version 6.5; more details here: Q&A: Is Visual Basic returning to Office:Mac?

Microsoft's naming scheme for years is like that for cars: if it's released in the first half of the year, it gets that year; if it's the second half of the year, it's the next year. Thus, we're releasing Office:Mac 2011. Since we generally release 6-8 months after Office for Windows, it means that we end up with a different year for our name.

Regards,
Nadyne.
 
nadyne said:
A few points here, just for the record ...

I wouldn't treat screenshots of questionable provenance, that were taken months before release, as the final say on what's coming in Office:Mac 2011. :)

There have been a bunch of questions about the MacRibbon, so I'm going to point to one of my blog posts about it: Why is Office:Mac getting the Ribbon? One of my colleagues has a blog post in the MacBU team blog, Mac Mojo, has some more details about it as well welcome to the new Office 2011 user experience.

VBA is definitely still coming in Office:Mac 2011. Specifically, it's version 6.5; more details here: Q&A: Is Visual Basic returning to Office:Mac?

Microsoft's naming scheme for years is like that for cars: if it's released in the first half of the year, it gets that year; if it's the second half of the year, it's the next year. Thus, we're releasing Office:Mac 2011. Since we generally release 6-8 months after Office for Windows, it means that we end up with a different year for our name.

Regards,
Nadyne.
Click to expand...

Will you finally make it so we don't have to use the stupid floating palette if we don't want to? Right now there are a bunch of functions that seem like they can only be performed with that thing. To unlink a header is an exercise in frustration.
 
From MS blog:

Our single most important decision for the MacRibbon is that we're still going to be a good Mac citizen. Our menus, not to mention the standard toolbar, stay. We knew that one concern that our users have is the availability of vertical screen real estate. As such, we quickly made the decision that our MacRibbon should be collapsible

I wish ppl would READ first and then post comments!

Anyhow I’m glad I’ll be able to hide it away. That’s all I can ask: clean and efficient way with standard Mac menus.
 
mabaker said:
From MS blog:

Our single most important decision for the MacRibbon is that we're still going to be a good Mac citizen. Our menus, not to mention the standard toolbar, stay. We knew that one concern that our users have is the availability of vertical screen real estate. As such, we quickly made the decision that our MacRibbon should be collapsible

I wish ppl would READ first and then post comments!

Anyhow I’m glad I’ll be able to hide it away. That’s all I can ask: clean and efficient way with standard Mac menus.
Click to expand...

And it's funny you missed the point that was made here. As I read the links, the MacBU is implementing the ribbon wrong and just adding it as an extra feature making the UI very noisy. The huge search field is one bad guy here. Stick it in the ribbon where it belong and we have saved 2 lines of buttons that should be in the ribbon already.

Now in the image at the Mac Mojo blog we have at least commands in 2 places, not 1. Don't forget to add osx upper meny to the calculated space. Now it is just an extra extra command line. It's a mess.

I for one don't want to collapse the ribbon, I want to use the ribbon as my primary interface but that is not first priority, instead it is to make it go away. The goal of the project group is wrongly stated thus giving us the wrong result. Strange.
 
I have used the ribbon on a PC and I found it confusing and pointless. I use Word to write text so all these extra 'features' are completely wasted on me, and I don't want the adverts for these 'features' taking up screen space.

I managed to set up Word 2008 as simplistically as possible, but there are still many elements of the UI that are just distracting, it's all visual clutter. My main annoyance was the fact that the ribbon is not removable, merely collapsible.

wordui.png

I don't mind all these new features being implemented, I understand that everyone else uses them, but I would just like the option to remove everything I don't need from the UI. EVERYTHING. It's probably the OCPD in me, but I just can't stand these extra bits everywhere.

I have the toolbar for any formatting functions I use, and that is enough. If I need something specific then the drop down menus are better to find that function because the menus are text based, not stupid interpretive icons.

I like the Mac OX because of it's simplicity. Office seems to overcomplicate things that could probably be easily overcome.
 
The only thing I miss from my PC days is outlook. I miss having read receipts, I miss the all in one integrated cal and inbox. It was nice. If they finally have outlook then it will be worth investing in....for me anyway.

Don't forget these are early screenshots and i presume there is a lot of work that needs doing to it.
 
TiborP said:
I use Word to write text so all these extra 'features' are completely wasted on me, and I don't want the adverts for these 'features' taking up screen space...

I would just like the option to remove everything I don't need from the UI. EVERYTHING. It's probably the OCPD in me, but I just can't stand these extra bits everywhere.
Click to expand...

You need a texteditor not a wordprocessor. There are several that are free and very good, some even included in os x from the start. Get tools that works for you.
 
Cougarcat said:
Not everyone has a 27" screen. The most popular mac is the 13" MacBook, and this interface simply destroys the screen real estate left for the document.

I'd be fine with the ribbon if it were vertical, rather than horizontal. As it is now, it eats up way too much horizontal space, especially with the toolbar. (What is the point of having a toolbar *and* a ribbon?)

So no, don't get rid of my "f****** toolbox," because it's the only thing that works well with widescreen displays. I wish MS would take Apple's hint and adopt something THIN, like Page's Format Bar. They need to realize that the important part of the interface is the actual document, not the freaking ribbon.
Click to expand...
I like office 2007, I prefer office 2007. I use office 2007 on my mac under bootcamp more than either office 04; office 08 or iwork. If they bring greater parity across the platforms for this piece of software I think that's a fantastic thing. Bring it on and quick I say.
 
aurichie said:
There will be full PST support in Office 2011.

You can also turn the ribbon off if you don't like it.
Click to expand...

My interpretation is there will be "import PST" functionality. This is hardly "full PST support". I would equate full support with the ability to simply "open" a PST file. For example, on the PC side I can open and view the contents of a PST file without having to import the contents. The distinction might seem small, but I assure you it is not.

I do hope I'm mistaken.
 
Meh.Familiar buttons and menu commands just shuffled and buried in different places in a "ribbon" :rolleyes:
 
PDF is a mess

tmuller said:
If you really wanted to standardize on a document exchange platform, it should have been PDF, which is a Portable Document Format, that doesn't rely on a specific application to view or edit it.
Click to expand...

Viewing, yes. Editing, not so much. PDF was designed to be the “final form”. Even today this is true. Once information is put into PDF it can never easily be editied again. PDF does a very poor job with the semantics implied by the visual formatting.

With an internal PDF-based workflow, an organization can manage these problems. But when it comes to importing and exporting PDFs to the outside world, forget it. Making things worse, PDF (by design) hides these kind of defects. At least with a .doc files if some idiot puts page numbers in by hand it is blatantly obvious!
 
It's true that the PST function does not open PST files. Unfortunately, it imports them. It will also not recognize the older PST file format. It gives some Unicode error. The PST files it does import, always returns a message not everything could be imported. So you don't really know what you'r missing unless you do a complete compare. That sounds like fun.

Additionally, there are no read receipts as far as I can see. It is only a beta version.... so hopefully they'll be incorporating some of these items.

The other crappy part is the email are saved a .eml file format instead of .msg files. So it's not exactly the same as what the PC needs to be truly compatible. I'm pretty sure Outlook Express will launch if you try to open a .eml file.

I don't even care to test it right now.
 
I am extremely impressed with Office for Mac. Office has always been a thorn in my side. Finally PST support!!!! I also love how it integrates into the OS well. I am happy so far with the Beta can't wait for the full release.

Currently I am doing PST to RGE conversions to save things. All I can say is Import PST only option is a hell of a lot better than No PST support.
 
I have Mac Office 2008 and that will hopefully be all I need. I only got it for my wife and I to use for Office docs so we wouldn't have to mess around with conversions, etc.
 
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