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Microsoft Office for Mac

B

BenXiaoHai

macrumors member
Original poster
May 2, 2010
84
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Hey guys. I've been a mac user for almost 2 years and one thing I've noticed is the really slow load up for microsoft office (compared to windows version). It takes like seconds for the splash screen to come up (first load from a fresh boot) and more time to load the document, or even an new empty page. This is one of the major gripes I have with office, as the files open almost instantly on windows computers, even the really old ones.

I've just upgraded to the 2010 mbp last week and I was hoping for an improvement in load times, but it still feels sluggish. Any comments? Microsoft office 2008 btw
 
Microsoft Office is slow in OSX period.

Even with 4GB of ram and an SSD it's still extremely sluggish. It's sad when Photoshop CS5 opens faster than Word. I installed the 2010 Office Beta last week. It appears to have slightly improved speed, though it's not dramatic.

If you can, just stick with iWork. When I used my old MBP in college I always wrote my papers in Pages and just saved it as a word document before submitting them. My professors never had an issue opening them on their PCs.

However, if you need to spend a lot of time in Excel then I'm not sure what your options are to improve speed, aside from installing Windows in Bootcamp and just using Office on the Windows partition.
 
sn0warmy said:
Microsoft Office is slow in OSX period.
Even with 4GB of ram and an SSD it's still extremely sluggish.
Click to expand...
Maybe for you and some others, but not for everyone. I have 4GB RAM and it runs fine for me. Not sluggish at all.
 
BenXiaoHai said:
Hey guys. I've been a mac user for almost 2 years and one thing I've noticed is the really slow load up for microsoft office (compared to windows version). It takes like seconds for the splash screen to come up (first load from a fresh boot) and more time to load the document, or even an new empty page. This is one of the major gripes I have with office, as the files open almost instantly on windows computers, even the really old ones.

I've just upgraded to the 2010 mbp last week and I was hoping for an improvement in load times, but it still feels sluggish. Any comments? Microsoft office 2008 btw
Click to expand...

Microsoft Office for Mac is probably the worst piece of software ever made for OSX. It just DOESN'T work.
 
Office for Mac is terrible. I use OpenOffice instead and it works great. On the rare occasions that it chokes on a document someone sends me (usually an overly complicated Excel spreadsheet) I fire up Virtualbox and run Office for Windows.
 
bigcat said:
Microsoft Office for Mac is probably the worst piece of software ever made for OSX. It just DOESN'T work.
Click to expand...
That's funny, since millions of us use it without problems every day. Care to specify what doesn't work for you?
 
GGJstudios said:
Maybe for you and some others, but not for everyone. I have 4GB RAM and it runs fine for me. Not sluggish at all.
Click to expand...

It's all relative. Does Mac Office work? Absolutely. But it is definitely sluggish compared to iWork'09, for example. You cannot deny that.
 
sn0warmy said:
But it is definitely sluggish compared to iWork'09, for example. You cannot deny that.
Click to expand...

From time to time I open various Word and Excel documents in iWork just for kicks. Compatibility has gotten better with each version, but anything more complicated than a letter in Word or a few linked pages in Excel and I'd spend more time trying to fix the stupid formatting inconsistencies than I would reproducing the document from scratch.

Office (Mac) to Office (Windows) isn't perfect either, but the inconsistencies are much less severe.
 
Hmmm... perhaps I should be more specific. The loading of Microsoft Office is slow only for the first time after a fresh boot up. It improves dramatically for subsequent loading ups, even if I close it entirely (cmd q). However, it is still nowhere near the speed of windows compartment loading it.

Loving the mac, thats why I "upgraded" to this mbp from my iMac 20" last week. Nearly went down the pc path, but thought of too many cons for windows. This is my only gripe. Though not particularly serious, but irritating, whenever I compare it to Windows' version of loading times.
 
BenXiaoHai said:
...
Loving the mac, thats why I "upgraded" to this mbp from my iMac 20" last week. Nearly went down the pc path, but thought of too many cons for windows. This is my only gripe. Though not particularly serious, but irritating, whenever I compare it to Windows' version of loading times.
Click to expand...

I'd recommend snagging a copy of the Office 2010 Beta and see how that bodes for you. I have noticed it has a bit more pep than 2008 did.

Keep in mind that the 2010 Beta has some inactive features (since it's still in Beta). For example, In Outlook, the "send/receive mail" and "mark as junk" buttons don't work yet.
 
BenXiaoHai said:
Hey guys. I've been a mac user for almost 2 years and one thing I've noticed is the really slow load up for microsoft office (compared to windows version). It takes like seconds for the splash screen to come up (first load from a fresh boot) and more time to load the document, or even an new empty page. This is one of the major gripes I have with office, as the files open almost instantly on windows computers, even the really old ones.

I've just upgraded to the 2010 mbp last week and I was hoping for an improvement in load times, but it still feels sluggish. Any comments? Microsoft office 2008 btw
Click to expand...

Is your Office 2008 up to date? SP2 made things much faster. Still nothing like the older Windows versions, but it was noticeably faster.
 
I'm pretty happy with Office 2008, but I only had to pay $9.95 for it under the home use program - so for $10 - it definitely exceeds my expectations. I'm also running off an SSD and will say that it "beach balls" much less frequent than my 15" 2008 model MBP for work.
 
My Office for Mac 2008 is performing fine, but for anything more serious I run Office 2010 Beta in Win 7 VM. I will say that the Office 2010 Beta (and Win 7) are overall performing very well. I am pleasantly surprised.
 
Office 08 is garbage, its so buggy and slow i can barely handle it. I wanted to stab someone when i bought it and found out that there was no VBA in Mac office 08.
 
load times are annoying, but if you just open it and keep the program active it's instantaneous :)
 
Works ok for me, and worked ok too on my late 2007 macbook. It just takes some time to open big power point presentations from time to time.
 
Yah, splash screen is sometimes annoying. I would say that splash screen duration is one of the worst features.
 
GGJstudios said:
That's funny, since millions of us use it without problems every day. Care to specify what doesn't work for you?
Click to expand...

1. Statistics package
2. Equations made on Office '07
3. Anything that utilizes VBA


Also try open a large word document, 20 + pages with equations tables and some graphics. Then choose print layout and maximize window (so you get two pages pr screen) and try scroll.

My C2D managed to scroll like 3-4 pages a minute.. felt like a 386 :p
The i5 manages a page or two more.. still very slow.

Also, word very often destroys your equations.
I save a different copy of the document every 30 mins when I work with huge documents, because sometimes it just tells me I'm out of HD space and can't save the document. This only applies to documents with many equations, but It happens at least once every time I work with documents that contains equations.
 
Freyqq said:
load times are annoying, but if you just open it and keep the program active it's instantaneous :)
Click to expand...

Yes, that is what I do. Just hide it until you need it. Unfortunately, MS Office programs do use CPU cycles when they aren't doing anything (so do most browsers). I'm hoping to scrape together enough pennies to pay for SSD on my next computer to solve the problem of slow startup of bloated programs.
 
What do you expect? Like Windows will make the Mac version as good as the Windows version.

Apple does the same with Windows. iTunes on Windows is biggest garbage I have ever seen together with Norton. :mad::mad:

I only use it because of my iPod. On Mac, iTunes is 100 times better.

So I probably don't think Microsoft will ever make Office as good as it is on Windows.
 
I just got my first Mac. I love it, but will have to stick to Office for a while. When Office 2011 releases I will buy that.

Where can I download a decent Office 2011 beta, so I do not have to buy and get used to Office 2008 first?
 
Ack said:
Office for Mac is terrible. I use OpenOffice instead and it works great. On the rare occasions that it chokes on a document someone sends me (usually an overly complicated Excel spreadsheet) I fire up Virtualbox and run Office for Windows.
Click to expand...

Same. I primarily use OpenOffice and keep MSOffice just in case. Only fired up MSOffice just once last year when OpenOffice came out with a bad update for me.

Really should try OpenOffice. It's free.
 
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