1. Purchase Home version of MS Office. It's cheap for what you get.
2. Download Openoffice. Works well and is free.
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Microsoft Office 2008 Update Brings Speed Increases and New Features
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1. Purchase Home version of MS Office. It's cheap for what you get.
2. Download Openoffice. Works well and is free.
I haven't noticed much of an improvement since SP2. Granted I'm running it on a PowerBook, but it still seems awfully bloated for what I need. It's a shame they can't just strip it down to the bare essentials for most people. I would be surprised if I use 10% of Word's features. And I haven't touched PowerPoint since trying out Keynote. What a world of difference!
I did the Office 2008 software update 12.2.0 the other day, and haven't been able to open Word since! Powerpoint and Excel launch fine, but when I try to open word I get a message that says that Word has encountered a problem and needs to close. Any suggestions on how to fix it? I'm using a macbook with OS 10.5.7, and I need word to get my work done!!
What the hell, I just realized that my files weren't compatible with the Windows version of Office!
Just got back to Office 2004. Microsoft is obviously regretting (Their software, their OS, they're overall intelligence...)
Just got back to Office 2004. Microsoft is obviously regretting (Their software, their OS, they're overall intelligence...)
Looks like somebody made an oopsie.
Microsoft confirms Office SP2 can't read Win-created files
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Microsoft is recommending that Office 2008 users who upgraded Service Pack 2 should remove it and roll back to an earlier version. The update, released last week, disables Office for Mac applications' ability to open files in the Open XML format (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) created by Office 2007 for Windows. Microsoft offers these options, amoung others:
Remove Office manually, reinstall Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac from the original installation media, and then upgrade to Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.9 Update. Do not upgrade to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 2 (12.2.0) from Microsoft AutoUpdate
Microsoft confirms Office SP2 can't read Win-created files
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Microsoft is recommending that Office 2008 users who upgraded Service Pack 2 should remove it and roll back to an earlier version. The update, released last week, disables Office for Mac applications' ability to open files in the Open XML format (.docx, .xlsx, .pptx) created by Office 2007 for Windows. Microsoft offers these options, amoung others:
Remove Office manually, reinstall Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac from the original installation media, and then upgrade to Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.9 Update. Do not upgrade to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Service Pack 2 (12.2.0) from Microsoft AutoUpdate
I swear these types of compatibility gaffes are just too silly to not be by design.
You seem to be quoting from something, but I'm not sure what you're quoting from. Can you provide a citation?
Regardless, let me clarify what is happening, since this statement isn't accurate.
We have an issue where a very small number of users are unable to open some XML-based files. It is emphatically not the case that Office:Mac users are unable to open all files that were created by Office 2007 for Windows.
The vast majority of users aren't impacted by this -- if they were, this thread would have rather different content.
In this thread, there's only been one person who has commented on it, and I haven't noticed any other threads on MacRumors where users have run into this issue. Most of the users who are impacted by this issue are able to open some, but not all, of the files that were saved in the new XML-based file format. We're actively working on fixing it right now.
If you have XML-based files (.pptx, .xlsx, .docx, etc) that you are unable to open, please PM me. If possible (and I know that it isn't always possible, if your files have personal or confidential information in them), I'd like to get a copy of any affected files that you might have. Additionally, please send me as many details as you can about the lineage of the file: which version of PowerPoint/Excel/Word was used to create the file, any versions of PowerPoint/Excel/Word that were used to edit the file, whether the file has ever been edited by third-party applications, whether you had originally saved the file in the old binary format (.ppt, .xls, .doc) and then converted to the new XML-based format, etc.
If you are impacted by this issue, there are a few workarounds that you can try so that you can access your documents. We're actively working on a fix and working on getting it out as soon as we possibly can, but of course we want you to be able to get to your documents in the interim. The article above suggests uninstalling, reinstalling, and only patching up to 12.1.9 and not installing SP2 until we have a fix. That is the last resort. For other potential solutions, check out our help topic here.
As always, if you have any questions about this, feel free to respond to this thread, PM me, or contact me via twitter.
Regards,
Nadyne.
Thanks for that! I got to read the full article there, which provides some more details than what you quoted here. I'm not sure if they're taking the quote from someone here out of context or if the person here didn't provide full details, so I'll try to do that here.
The basic issue is that there's one particular piece of the file that is either missing or malformed. This could happen in a few ways. Sometimes it's that an older version of Office for Windows missed writing that part of the file. Sometimes it's that an older version of Office:Mac didn't write out that part of the file. This sometimes happens when converting a binary file (.ppt, .xls) to an XML file (.pptx, .xlsx). Sometimes the part of the file is there, but it's malformed.
As we work to resolve this issue, there are two things that we're working on. One is automatically fixing files that have this issue. The other is determining exactly how this issue came into being in the first place, so that we don't have to fix the file behind the scenes. That's why I've been asking for affected files and details about their lineage, since it's details about the lineage that help the team figure out where the issue was introduced and how to fix that underlying problem.
One of the work-arounds for this issue is to open an affected file in Office 2007 for Windows that has been updated to their SP2. Their SP2 can automatically fix affected files.
Regards,
Nadyne.
The basic issue is that there's one particular piece of the file that is either missing or malformed. This could happen in a few ways. Sometimes it's that an older version of Office for Windows missed writing that part of the file. Sometimes it's that an older version of Office:Mac didn't write out that part of the file. This sometimes happens when converting a binary file (.ppt, .xls) to an XML file (.pptx, .xlsx). Sometimes the part of the file is there, but it's malformed.
As we work to resolve this issue, there are two things that we're working on. One is automatically fixing files that have this issue. The other is determining exactly how this issue came into being in the first place, so that we don't have to fix the file behind the scenes. That's why I've been asking for affected files and details about their lineage, since it's details about the lineage that help the team figure out where the issue was introduced and how to fix that underlying problem.
One of the work-arounds for this issue is to open an affected file in Office 2007 for Windows that has been updated to their SP2. Their SP2 can automatically fix affected files.
Regards,
Nadyne.
We released Office 2008 12.2.1 today, which addresses this issue. You can get it through any Office app by going to Help -> Check for Updates, or you can get it from our downloads page.
We've got a lot of servers, and it takes time for the bits to get out to all of our servers, so sometimes you might not see it immediately when you check for updates. You can either try again later or just do the direct download. Either way, you're getting the same bits.
For more details about the update, including instructions for updating for those of you who rolled back to 12.1.9, you can check out my blog entry.
Regards,
Nadyne.
We've got a lot of servers, and it takes time for the bits to get out to all of our servers, so sometimes you might not see it immediately when you check for updates. You can either try again later or just do the direct download. Either way, you're getting the same bits.
For more details about the update, including instructions for updating for those of you who rolled back to 12.1.9, you can check out my blog entry.
Regards,
Nadyne.