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Microsoft Launches Free 30-Day Trials of Office 2011

Tbf, everyone saying that iWork or open office or some other alternative is sufficient clearly doesn't use their macs for business where document sharing is a standard activity.

I'm a lawyer and clients and 99% of other lawyers all use windows with office.

If I can't open their documents with 100% compatibility and assurance that they will look the same on my screen as it did on theirs, and vice versa, i'd be screwed.

Actually, i'd just have to buy a windows notebook for work, and I don't like windows :( (Not for any ideological reason btw, I just freaking love my macbook and OSX. Windows is, to me, clumsy and unintuitive in comparison, and the hardware it comes on isn't as good, to me, as my unibody)
 
Ubuntu said:
What is, then? In regards to the Mac platform Office 2011 blows both Pages and Open Office out of the window. Critics will say its bloated especially when compared to Pages but the fact is it has alot more functionality and I prefer it to Office 2010 (for PC) as it actually seems to have some nice mac OS polish.

Have you even tried it?
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Personally, yes, but I like Office 2003 Professional the best out of any of them, wish MS would keep making it :(
 
iFanboy said:
Tbf, everyone saying that iWork or open office or some other alternative is sufficient clearly doesn't use their macs for business where document sharing is a standard activity.

I'm a lawyer and clients and 99% of other lawyers all use windows with office.

If I can't open their documents with 100% compatibility and assurance that they will look the same on my screen as it did on theirs, and vice versa, i'd be screwed.

Actually, i'd just have to buy a windows notebook for work, and I don't like windows :( (Not for any ideological reason btw, I just freaking love my macbook and OSX. Windows is, to me, clumsy and unintuitive in comparison, and the hardware it comes on isn't as good, to me, as my unibody)
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I agree. I really recommend people take advantage of this free trial and actually try out the program before judging it. I've not liked previous versions of Office for Mac but this one is really good in my opinion. Only thing I don't like is the price, but thankfully I'm a student.
 
troop231 said:
Personally, yes, but I like Office 2003 Professional the best out of any of them, wish MS would keep making it :(
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Mind if I ask why? I think overall (other than Office 2011 for mac) my favourite would be Office 2007 for PC. It had that ribbon that confused everyone but after I got used to it I quite liked it. Why 2003?
 
I'd love to use OpenOffice. However, most businesses use and expect their documents created by microsoft Office.

OpenOffice conversion filters aren't 100% accurate, and therefore clients aren't happy if they recieve documents mangled. Which often happens when converting slightly Office <-> Word. Therefore microsoft Office is required.

I don't particularly like previous versions of Office because they've been rather slow - the word on the street is positive for 2011, which can only be a good thing. Entourage is my pet hate.. its a pig. I'm hoping Outlook 2011 for mac is much better.
 
Or you could just buy iWork '09 for $60. I've used Pages '09 a couple of times now and couldn't find a darn thing I missed about Office.
 
Ubuntu said:
Mind if I ask why? I think overall (other than Office 2011 for mac) my favourite would be Office 2007 for PC. It had that ribbon that confused everyone but after I got used to it I quite liked it. Why 2003?
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I just grew up using that style of MSO for a long time and found that it saves me more time making docs.
 
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I am using the new office since September and its far better than the previous version. The compatibility with the win version is 100%, funcionality about 90% (Word, Excel).

However it still has some bugs - for example it was not able to install the first update (could not find the installed apps in Applications folder). Another bug that screws me every day in Word: when you start to add some text into existing paragraph, it does not keep the original font, but starts using Times New Roman... Does anybody else have such problems?
Dispite
 
By the tone of some of the remarks I had to see if this was another FOX news thread.

Office 2011 is really pretty good. Better than it's 2010 Windows counterpart even because you can disable the ribbon.
 
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I am using the new office since September and its far better than the previous version. The compatibility with the win version is 100%, funcionality about 90% (Word, Excel).

However it still has some bugs - for example it was not able to install the first update (could not find the installed apps in Applications folder!?). Another bug that screws me every day in Word: when you start to add some text into existing paragraph, it does not keep the original font, but starts using Times New Roman... Does anybody else have such problems?
Dispite such bugs, its functionality is still wider than that of Pages.
 
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I got a free trial two days after it was released.
Didn't get it through Microsoft though. ;) yarr :D

Also, I just bought it through HUP for $10.
Everything including Outlook.
 
roadbloc said:
2. Why on earth did it take m$ so long to release a trial version?
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I downloaded a 30-day trial of Office 2011 from Microsoft over a month ago and it already ran its course. Not sure why they're announcing it now. I didn't find it very fast on my early 2008 MBP...guess I need a new laptop.
 
Still waiting....

Hmmm, 30 days of not syncing your Outlook calendar to Ical/Ipod/Iphone..yeah!

I am sitting on the fence waiting, still on 2008, I did put 2011 on my mbp where I don't care about isync. It is nice, can't wait to put it on my MP when they add what they took out of 2008 :)
 
boonedocks said:
I downloaded a 30-day trial of Office 2011 from Microsoft over a month ago and it already ran its course. Not sure why they're announcing it now. I didn't find it very fast on my early 2008 MBP...guess I need a new laptop.
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I tried looking for it just this weekend. There was a link for the trial.. but just said "Coming soon" after clicking the link.
 
Excellent news

Wish they'd done this from the start. Would have saved myself the money. Warning: if you've used office for a while you may be disappointed by the loss of usability and lack of progress since 2004.
 
For those of you who haven't found a review elsewhere...

Microsoft 2011 is a moderate upgrade to 2008. There are new features, the apps load and run much quicker, the return of VBA is welcomed, and the interfaces are clean and intuitive. However, Outlook is essentially Entourage Web Services re-skinned a little. There still is no auto-archiving solution, you can't archive to PST/some sort of editable archive that behaves similar to PST, etc. There still isn't sharepoint integration, either. It also still suffers from identity/database corruption & rebuilding.

EagleFiler is an okay archiving solution for small/medium businesses. Corporations should look towards stubbing enterprise software.

The suite is touted for businesses, but it's lacking some core features it needs. But you won't find them elsewhere.

For personal use, and small group use, most of the iWork apps work fine. In a business setting though, you won't likely be able to get away from a Microsoft Suite.
 
Lucky for me my company gives everyone with remote access mcafee free and office for 9.99.

If you have to work remotely they give you a laptop with it preinstalled but those little IBM think pads suck
 
Stella said:
I'd love to use OpenOffice. However, most businesses use and expect their documents created by microsoft Office.

OpenOffice conversion filters aren't 100% accurate, and therefore clients aren't happy if they recieve documents mangled. Which often happens when converting slightly Office <-> Word. Therefore microsoft Office is required.

I don't particularly like previous versions of Office because they've been rather slow - the word on the street is positive for 2011, which can only be a good thing. Entourage is my pet hate.. its a pig. I'm hoping Outlook 2011 for mac is much better.
Click to expand...

Yes, compatibility is an issue.
Used many versions through 2004 and 2008 and Office X , never had a use for Entourage. Tried Outlook, there is better:)

Wish they would unbundle their stuff and you could just buy Excel and Word etc. That would show what people really use.

Checked out the FAMILY pack and who at MS is deciding that 3 is a normal family?

Only 3 users, 3 Macs allowed, ........cheap!

Mom, Dad and 2 kids is normal in my book.

Apple gives you a 5 user family pack for systems. Too lazy to look up iwork:)
 
I like Numbers better than Excel 2011 for original spreadsheets. I use Excel for parsing data and using filters or using pivot tables. I am glad Microsoft is allowing people to check it out for free. Office 2008 was a train wreck.

When will Microsoft copy Apple and use tables within a sheet concept that Numbers uses?
 
Guess they ran out of people willing to pay for the privledge to be a beta tester. This version should be fully baked in another year or so.

Fortunately, I bought mine through Amazon and was able to return for a full refund.
 
newagemac said:
If it's not on the Mac App Store, I'm not buying it. I don't want Microsoft scattering files all over my computer. :eek:
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I can't say about this version of Office, but Office 2004 was completely portable (aside from things like prefs files which are regenerated on first run), I could moved from one computer to another quite easily which allowed me to upgrade my machines very quickly (I can also vouch that this is the case for Office X - the previous version).
 
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