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Microsoft Launches Mac Office 2008

I love it. I had to try out the beta to see if it was worth the money, and had been using that for a few months so I am already used to it.

Word is great - I love the new interface. Excel, I like the interface but I hate how the text box at the top is above the main window and isn't attached.

I hate applications that have detached tools - I want everything to be in place and secured, so when I resize the window, I don't have to drag a toolbox out of the way.

In terms of loading - it takes an annoying while to load, but if I quit it, then load it again it loads almost instantly (1-2 seconds).

Worth the money though.
 
Quillz said:
Microsoft is phasing VBA out of Office in general, regardless of platform.
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Well, they stopped selling VBA licenses, but they've included compatibility in Office 2007. You're right though - their long-term goal is a migration to .NET-based languages.

I take the MacBU at their word when they say that porting VBA to Intel would have been a massive endeavor that would have substantially delayed Office 2008. Eric Schwiebert's post on the subject has been linked to before; the idea that there was some directive from outside the MacBU instructing them to deliberately omit this functionality in order to hurt Apple is tinfoil-hat lunacy. He's also stated that they're continuing to examine ways to implement macro support - they know as well as we do that AppleScript is only a stopgap solution, and an incomplete one, since cross-platform compatibility means that an Excel 2007 user can send a script/macro-enabled spreadsheet to an Excel 2008 user with confidence (and vice-versa), and we're nowhere near that at present. Now that the grind of getting their stuff over to Xcode and making everything Universal is gone, I'm sure they have time to focus on solid improvements.
 
thebassoonist said:
i'm pretty excited to check it out, especially since i will get it for free.
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I got it for free as well... Well I didn't get the whole office program, but I got a new black MacBook for Christmas, and a friend of mine put new programs on it; three of the new programs he put on my MacBook were Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, ad Microsoft Powerpoint; and the icons of these three programs are the same as they look on the front box that Jobs showed at the MacWorld 2008 Keynote.
:apple:
 
hmm, Solver is missing. was it written in VBA?
Goalseek is missing as well. Goalseek is a very simple function. it should be included in Excel code.
what's going on?
 
jodders said:
Silly question I think,but should office come with Access?
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not on the mac, there's never been a mac version.

on the PC it's only in the professional version so it's not core suite but the reality is it sucks majorly anyway. yes it would be useful to have it so you could write / use it cross platform but beyond that it's horrible and there are better things out there on both PC and mac platforms.
 
I've been using Word 2008 and Powerpoint 2008 these past few days, buying Office 2008 on preorder from Amazon.

First thoughts: The load time of Word is annoyingly slow, but Powerpoint loads alot faster.

The GUI is beautiful. A real achievement. My workflow has been really streamlined already. Word seems a little snappier now, and so it should! Powerpoint in particular is stunning, snappy, and streamlined.

There is no typing lag like there was with 2004/ Rossetta, which is enough for me really. Perhaps the biggest difference is this really feels like a piece of mac software now. I look forward to the updates!

Mooey
 
Changed to this thread......more appropriate to my question....

I have moved my questions/comments from another thread to this one as it is more appropriate....

As a newcomer who does not comprehend the more technical details in this thread, please forgive me if my question about Office 2004 and Office 2008 seems redundant or naive.

I am waiting to purchase my first Mac for a possible MBP refresh; if nothing happens by the end of January, I'll make my purchase regardless. (Running a Dell Inspiron 8500 on its last legs... and I won't bore you with the reasons for the MBP...)

In anticipation of my Mac, I purchased Office 04 in time to be able to upgrade to Office 08 for only the shipping charge. Of course, since I do not own my Mac as of yet (husband thinks I'm crazy to buy software prior to computer), I haven't opened my Office 04 to send in the UPC, etc., for the "free" upgrade. But if I am to get the upgrade I need to open the Office 04 and send in the proof of purchase, etc., postmarked by Feb. 14.

So, what would be your recommendations? (I use a PC with Word at work but want a Mac---) Should I just return the Office 04 and stick with iWork once I make my purchase? Keep Office 04 and send for the "free" Office 08 since I probably won't see a 'deal' like this again? If I keep Office, should I (or can I) install Windows on my Mac so that Word will perform better?

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks in advance!
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basqarl said:
So, what would be your recommendations? (I use a PC with Word at work but want a Mac---) Should I just return the Office 04 and stick with iWork once I make my purchase? Keep Office 04 and send for the "free" Office 08 since I probably won't see a 'deal' like this again? If I keep Office, should I (or can I) install Windows on my Mac so that Word will perform better?

Any help would be appreciated! Thanks in advance!
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I think you'd be crazy not to open '04 and get the rebate, especially as you probably can no longer return it.

I'm sure Word '08, running natively, will be faster than Word '04, running emulated, even given Microsoft's propensity to bloat their code. That said, '04 runs fine on my (slower) two year old Intel iMac, so it would work for you, albeit not as fast as '08. I see no reason to install Windows to run Word.

However, if I were you, I'd install Office '08, as it will surely, in the long run, be a better bet than '04, and the price is right.
 
....sorry for my naivety...

Thank you so much for your quick response!

I do not yet have my MBP :D (as per my previous post) so I cannot install anything yet. I purchased Office 04 through Newegg and can still return it (unopened), so the question is, is 2008 even worth it or should I stick to iWork? I do need Excel, which I do not currently have even on my ancient Dell 8500.

And, does having Windows have anything to do with how well Office for Mac runs? (Is that even a viable question? In otherwords, would this program even run on Windows installed into Mac?)

Again, sorry for the naivety.

jsw said:
I think you'd be crazy not to open '04 and get the rebate, especially as you probably can no longer return it.

I'm sure Word '08, running natively, will be faster than Word '04, running emulated, even given Microsoft's propensity to bloat their code. That said, '04 runs fine on my (slower) two year old Intel iMac, so it would work for you, albeit not as fast as '08. I see no reason to install Windows to run Word.

However, if I were you, I'd install Office '08, as it will surely, in the long run, be a better bet than '04, and the price is right.
Click to expand...
 
TheMacPotato said:
erm no it costs just $130 for a home user. iWork is not a fully fledged office suite. Sure slag of MS as much as you like, MS word is the industry standard.
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Well it sure does everything I have ever needed and more and what's funny is I am in the "Industry" and I haven't had Microsoft Office or Word for years and some how I get along just fine, better actually thanks to a beautiful interface and simplistic beautiful design :)
 
Kilamite said:
In terms of loading - it takes an annoying while to load, but if I quit it, then load it again it loads almost instantly (1-2 seconds).

Worth the money though.
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It seems to me this is because parts of it is still in the RAM, in the form of "Inactive" memory.
This is a feature of OSX therefore it is also true for every apps, not just MS Office 2008.
I opened Word and Excel, then close them without quitting. I then use some other programs for awhile. When i need to use Word again, my mouse becomes a beachball for about a minute before i can use it. I only conclude that Word takes about a minute to load itself into the RAM
 
phuong said:
It seems to me this is because parts of it is still in the RAM, in the form of "Inactive" memory.
This is a feature of OSX therefore it is also true for every apps, not just MS Office 2008.
I opened Word and Excel, then close them without quitting. I then use some other programs for awhile. When i need to use Word again, my mouse becomes a beachball for about a minute before i can use it. I only conclude that Word takes about a minute to load itself into the RAM
Click to expand...

I have Word X on my main hard drive and it used to take a long time for it to load. But as I have continued to follow the updates of OS X, the times for Word to launch kept getting shorter and shorter. My G4 Digital Audio 466 is 7 years old this month and I am running OS 10.4.11. From the time I click on the Word icon in my dock until I can start typing on a new blank Word X document is 4 seconds.

I have Word 2004 on an external firewire drive, but I have not checked the launch time for it.
 
i'm sorry i thought we were talking about Word 2008. i must have been in the wrong topic.
 
phuong said:
i'm sorry i thought we were talking about Word 2008. i must have been in the wrong topic.
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I'm sorry also that you are so sorry. How would you know that Word 2008 was slow unless you had something to compare it to. If you have nothing to compare it to, then how do you know it's slow? Being slow is a relative thing. If all previous versions of Word took at least 5 minutes to load/launch, then if Word 2008 took 2 minutes to load/launch, then wouldn't it be relatively fast compared to previous versions of Word?

So you can go back to being sorry or realize this is a comparative topic between different versions of Mac Office.
 
Roy said:
I'm sorry also that you are so sorry. How would you know that Word 2008 was slow unless you had something to compare it to. If you have nothing to compare it to, then how do you know it's slow? Being slow is a relative thing. If all previous versions of Word took at least 5 minutes to load/launch, then if Word 2008 took 2 minutes to load/launch, then wouldn't it be relatively fast compared to previous versions of Word?

So you can go back to being sorry or realize this is a comparative topic between different versions of Mac Office.
Click to expand...

Precisely.

There's no point having a thread unless you discuss what's better/worse than 2004 and other products (like iWork).

I find it really helpful as I don't have Office 2008 yet, so it's good to get some opinions.
 
once you get used to the ribbon in the new office it really is easier to use than word 04 and a much needed improvement.

It just takes getting used to. Kind of like how a lot of people when they first start using OSX think it is worse than windows but once they get used to it and adjusted they start seeing all the pluses it has over windows.
 
Roy said:
How would you know that Word 2008 was slow unless you had something to compare it to.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry are you high? The person i answered to said that it took him long time to load Word. Then he quit it, and reload again, and it loaded faster. I told him that that was likely a feature of the OS, not the Apps itself. Although I could be wrong. So before you jump me please take a few seconds to look at what you are responding to.

Now you want me to compare, I compare for you.

Let's talk about WordX.
WordX is PPC. It takes 4 seconds to load.
Word08 is Intel. It takes over 1 minutes to load

let's talk something off topic here. something memory hungry.
Photoshop CS3 loads instantly.
So does Lightroom.
Word08 loads in over 1 minutes.

Word07 also loads instantly, although it is under Fusion.
Word07 has Ribbon and VBA.
Word04 loads in about a minute. It has VBA.
Word08 doesn't have VBA.

So i conclude that Word08 is slow.
However i can't conclude yet if it is worse or better than other versions. This takes time.
 
phuong said:
I'm sorry are you high? The person i answered to said that it took him long time to load Word. Then he quit it, and reload again, and it loaded faster. I told him that that was likely a feature of the OS, not the Apps itself. Although I could be wrong. So before you jump me please take a few seconds to look at what you are responding to.

Now you want me to compare, I compare for you.

Let's talk about WordX.
WordX is PPC. It takes 4 seconds to load.
Word08 is Intel. It takes over 1 minutes to load

let's talk something off topic here. something memory hungry.
Photoshop CS3 loads instantly.
So does Lightroom.
Word08 loads in over 1 minutes.

Word07 also loads instantly, although it is under Fusion.
Word07 has Ribbon and VBA.
Word04 loads in about a minute. It has VBA.
Word08 doesn't have VBA.

So i conclude that Word08 is slow.
However i can't conclude yet if it is worse or better than other versions. This takes time.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the comparative information. Very interesting.

BTW, "High on Life".:)
 
gescom said:
I think Office gets better with every release. It just takes a bit to learn the new features.
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Where's the feature that allows you to run basic regressions or any of the other functions that data tools analysis tool packs allowed you to do in previous releases of word? They are pretty common and important functions that appear to be left out.
 
I installed office 08 on my 2.33ghz MBP with 2gigs of ram and it's significantly faster than office 04. I don't know why it's slower for you guys. The apps open quickly:

-Word: 5 seconds to open

-Excel: 4 seconds

-Powerpoint: 8 seconds

by contrast, office 2004:

-Word: 8 seconds

-Excel: 5 seconds

-Powerpoint: 6 seconds

In addition word is quicker at opening large documents, also scrolling through them has become smooth as butter, compared the the choppy and laggy scrolling of the old one. Backspacing (holding) has become smooth as butter as well, and so has general tasks like highlighting large texts and changing fonts. Toolbars are faster. An example (in leopard) would be the spotlight in Help, which is instant, compared to 2004 which was very slow and laggy. Also opening many documents at once is much much faster. Finally the applications quit faster too, pretty much instantly. The whole thing feels much faster, like in windows.

My only complaint is the text curser in word, which still lags a bit, but not as much as before. Also 08 seems to use more ram than 04 (judged based on one blank document), which is a bit annoying but not much.

overall I could barely use Office 2004, and Office 2008 is significantly better in speed at least.




it's all good.
 
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