Microsoft to Release Office for Mac 2011 in Late October

[sjoyf]

How does Mac mail 'suck'?

For me, Mail is unusable for one simple reason. When you create a rule in Mail, it is automatically "active" all the time.

In Entourage, you can create rules, make them "inactive", then manually apply them as needed. It is a simple matter of going to Message > Apply Rule.. and voila!

This is amazingly useful because you can apply individual rules based on your own assessment of a messages content.

I have been writing to Apple for years asking them to make this small improvement to Mail. If they would do it, then I could move my emails over to Mail and everything would finally be synced with my .me account. But alas, I am destined to stay with Entourage until Apple catches up with Microsoft.

I also like Excel, as there's a fantastic add on called Expander.

 

[srwdm]

Wow. That sounds like a show-stopper.

Times New Roman sucks ass, anyway. People only use it because they're lazy and don't know how to setup Styles.


BatchTASTER, you surely have no TASTE (and are also sloppily crude).

It so happens, BatchTASTER, that Times New Roman (TNR) is REQUIRED (you do know what that word means I hope) by many universities and high schools where Word for Mac is also extensively used.

Also, BatchTASTER, TNR is a famous text font (ever heard of the London Times) and although my favorite text faces are Robert Slimbach's Adobe Garamond and Carol Twombly's Adobe Caslon, as well as Bembo or a fine Baskerville, for simple word processors like Word for Mac, the FACT IS TNR IS OFTEN REQUIRED.

Also of note: Word 2011 beta 5 ALSO fails to kern a large number of other typefaces (many of which you've probably never heard of with your "lazy" playing with "setup Styles").

 

[MRU]

RE: Kerning problem in Word 2011 beta 5

Using Snow Leopard (10.6.4 latest version and standard English language) Times New Roman (TNR), the ubiquitous text font for papers, etc., DOES NOT KERN.

This problem also occurred with Word 2008 for Mac, but there was a work-around by deactivating all recent versions of TNR (supplied BY Microsoft) and only using the old (circa 1990-1992) version of TNR supplied by Microsoft for Word 2004 for Mac.

Apparently the old (1990-1992) version of TNR was a resource-fork tt font, and the newer "data-fork" tt fonts do not kern.

BUT, when this technique is applied to the present Word 2011 beta 5, only kerning of all-capitals is corrected (like AVARICE for instance). Kerning pairs like "Yo" and "We" and "r," and "r." are NOT corrected.

Thanks for filling me in. Like I said I had not noticed this myself but will try and replicate it with the beta I am using, and once replicated I will make sure it will be reported to connect.

That way I'm sure it will be addressed before release, especially if it was only introduced as a bug into one Beta version whereas previous never had the issue. It may be a case of 10.6.4 causing a little bit of a tizz too.

Looking forward to getting it in October

Thanks MacRumorUser....keep up the good work.

Do you happen to know if Outlook intergrates well with calendar?

Thanks guys.

Now syncing with iCal will need to be addressed before release as at the moment I am manually (exporting) doing so which is not ideal in any shape or form. I have requested full iCal sync and also syncing to external calendars such as Google Calender and Toodledo.

With 3 months before release I'm sure this will be sorted will keep you posted.

Somebody from Microsoft (Beta Testers included)

One simple suggestion, petition, make Hotmail sync compatible with the new Outlook.

Thanks

OK

 

[cutcopypaste]

Word 2008 for mac is one of my least favourite pieces of software I've ever used. It had nothing to do with the Windows version and managed to be worse than OpenOffice and iWork at the same time. Really unimpressive.
I'm glad they're using the windows interface this time around. Hopefully they will improve performance as it was utterly crap on 2008.
I probably won't bother with it. Wish they'd been kind enough to include OneNote, which is a pretty nifty program.

 

[stagmeister]

I just hope that it's faster. My mac has 4gb of ram and it crawls with Office all the time.

 

[srwdm]

Word 2011 beta 5 FAILURE TO KERN

To: MacRumorUser

I noticed the SAME problem in the beta 4 version and with earlier versions of Snow Leopard (which has built-in kerning—why would anyone want to turn kerning off is the question for Microsoft).

Apple's Pages word processor, of course, kerns perfectly on Snow Leopard and there is no switch to turn kerning on and off.

 

[binkmail]

Well, I love what they've done to Word and Excel. Like everyone, I use these a lot and am happy to see the great improvement over '08.

I also want to love Outlook. But the lack of sync to iCal (to sync to iPhone) is killing it for me. Also, it seems I can't decide to save my calender (and Notes) to an imap account, for iPhone usage. If Outlook were to integrate with the iPhone, I'd be on board a 100%, if only because it's a refreshing change of pace from the Mail.app most Mac users have been sort of forced to use. (Don't get me wrong, I like Mail.app, but feel it's being kept too 'easy to use' at times..)

 

[MRU]

To: MacRumorUser

I noticed the SAME problem in the beta 4 version and with earlier versions of Snow Leopard (which has built-in kerning—why would anyone want to turn kerning off is the question for Microsoft).

Apple's Pages word processor, of course, kerns perfectly on Snow Leopard and there is no switch to turn kerning on and off.

Just got notice a new beta is ready for me to download. I will report back later after I have done so.

Also I don't think it's a case of turning it on or off it could be a bug with the way Office is accessing it's fonts, or those stored within the macs own 'font book'.

 

[MRU]

Well, I love what they've done to Word and Excel. Like everyone, I use these a lot and am happy to see the great improvement over '08.

I also want to love Outlook. But the lack of sync to iCal (to sync to iPhone) is killing it for me. Also, it seems I can't decide to save my calender (and Notes) to an imap account, for iPhone usage. If Outlook were to integrate with the iPhone, I'd be on board a 100%, if only because it's a refreshing change of pace from the Mail.app most Mac users have been sort of forced to use. (Don't get me wrong, I like Mail.app, but feel it's being kept too 'easy to use' at times..)

Yep it needs full iSync support for iCal and our iDevices, to make it the productive app it so wants to be.

Will report back if new version changes anything.

 

[binkmail]

Great! I guess we'd all love to hear about any improvements

 

[snugharbor]

It depends on what you are using "Outlook" for. Outlook IS NOT simply an email client, something that most of the posters here don't even seem to be aware of. It's a full blown information manager used in conjunction with corporate exchange servers. When mated with a corporate database I can find address/phone books, company SOPs, schedules, historical job data, OEM manuals, and policy information.

I'm sure there's other standards but with companies with exchange, Outlook is the way to go (Just as Notes works well with Domino servers)...

I totally agree. Outlook is not just an email program. If I just sat around at home iMail would be just fine with me but I need the collaborative features of Outlook. In addition, there are information assurance issues and generally less costly to go through the certification process with a wider used application.

 

[MRU]

Great! I guess we'd all love to hear about any improvements

Update.

No difference in this incremental update in regards to syncing. It will do mobile me isync with the address book, so hopefully this gets fully sorted sooner rather than later.

At the moment it means I still use iCal over Outlooks calendar though.

I have submitted a ticket on this issue.




___

Kerning with Times New Roman.

Still does not kern properly - I again have submitted this issue to Microsoft connect bug reports.



____

Loving the new Document Connection appplication though

 

[batchtaster]

Those of you talking about Office 2011 without actually knowing about Office 2011 might want to start here:

http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/outlook
http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/excel
http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/word
http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/powerpoint

 

[binkmail]

Those of you talking about Office 2011 without actually knowing about Office 2011 might want to start here:

http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/outlook
http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/excel
http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/word
http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/powerpoint

These links require passwords. Though, I suspect a lot of people on here actually do have experience with the new Office...

 

[timothy632]

Office 2011 Beta 5

I have been experiencing a black screen when running powerpoint slide in Beta 5. Can anyone confirm?

 

[howie777]

Office 2011 for Mac

Re Office 2011, Powerpoint, Word and Excel looks great improvements on Office 2008, but Outlook how do you import Ical and Address Book, I cannot see a import option, this can't be true surely?

Also will Outlook 2011 be able to sync with Mobile Me this is a must.

Mobile Me is fantastic across my Iphone, Ipad and Macbook Pro, I like the new Office 2011, but I hope Outlook 2011 keeps me synced!

 

[howie777]

Syncing

Can you sync with Ical and Address Book in Outlook 2011 and will it work with Mobile Me?

 

[Karvel]

The one thing that I really love about Mail is having RSS feeds in the sidebar - does Outlook have this kind of feature?

 

[srwdm]

TO: MacRumorUser

MacRumorUser:

Thanks for you diligence regarding KERNING PROBLEMS with Word 2011 betas and for reporting the problem.

Let us all HOPE it will be fixed (if it is fixable) by the announced October release.

My advice to Microsoft would be to get rid of any "kerning switch" on their FONTS menu and just have kerning automatically ON. (I understand kerning is automatic in Snow Leopard. And that is how it should be so that there is no interface of turning it on or off. The kerning pairs in a font should be accessed automatically.)

It appears that Word has an innate problem in accessing these kerning pairs in a wide variety of standard typefaces, many of them (like Times New Roman) supplied BY Mircrosoft, when run on Snow Leopard.

But Snow Leopard has been out for a while, and there seems to be no excuse for this kind of performance in Word for Mac.

 

[MRU]

I have been experiencing a black screen when running powerpoint slide in Beta 5. Can anyone confirm?

Seems to be working for me. Can you elaborate further ?

Can you sync with Ical and Address Book in Outlook 2011 and will it work with Mobile Me?

iCal sync is not supported as yet in Outlook 2011 however I am confident it will be in the final release.

Re Office 2011, Powerpoint, Word and Excel looks great improvements on Office 2008, but Outlook how do you import Ical and Address Book, I cannot see a import option, this can't be true surely?

Also will Outlook 2011 be able to sync with Mobile Me this is a must.

Mobile Me is fantastic across my Iphone, Ipad and Macbook Pro, I like the new Office 2011, but I hope Outlook 2011 keeps me synced!

Address book / contacts is supported in current Beta.

As I have outlined earlier iSyncing is still not fully there. The workaround at the moment is to export your iCal files and import into Outlook and vice versa. This will as I say be rectified i am sure before final release.

The Mac team know about it from on going testing and feedback and I'm sure iCal, iSync and syncing to our iDevices (iPad & iPhone) are very important for productivity.

MacRumorUser:

Thanks for you diligence regarding KERNING PROBLEMS with Word 2011 betas and for reporting the problem.

Let us all HOPE it will be fixed (if it is fixable) by the announced October release.

My advice to Microsoft would be to get rid of any "kerning switch" on their FONTS menu and just have kerning automatically ON. (I understand kerning is automatic in Snow Leopard. And that is how it should be so that there is no interface of turning it on or off. The kerning pairs in a font should be accessed automatically.)

It appears that Word has an innate problem in accessing these kerning pairs in a wide variety of standard typefaces, many of them (like Times New Roman) supplied BY Mircrosoft, when run on Snow Leopard.

But Snow Leopard has been out for a while, and there seems to be no excuse for this kind of performance in Word for Mac.

Your welcome, and thank you for the kind feedback.

The Mac team are actively watching macrumors so I'm sure all your constructive points are being investigated by what seems to be a dedicated mac team over at Microsoft.

We have to remember it is a beta, if anyone else is testing this unofficially but has spotted anything please let me know and i shall investigate and if I can replicate the issue - i will report it through Microsoft Connect.

If it helps get a better end product for all it's worth the effort.

 

[junniemartin]

I can't wait to try this one on.

 

[jbellanca]

I hope it doesn't take too long for this to appear on our corporate home use program...

+1 I just emailed them this morning to ask when it'll be available. Will let you know when I get a response back.

 

[jbellanca]

+1 I just emailed them this morning to ask when it'll be available. Will let you know when I get a response back.

Just got the answer back:

Thank you for contacting the Microsoft Home Use Program online store. 

We understand that you would like to know when will the Office 2011 for 
Mac be available through the Home Use Program.

The Home Use Program only offers the most current release of Microsoft 
Office available to our customers; Office 2008 for Mac is still 
considered the most current release for version of Office for Mac 
computers to date under the Home Use Program. [B]However, the availability 
of Office 2011 for Mac will take place in January 2011.[/B]

We appreciate your interest in our products and your patience regarding 
this matter.

Sincerely,
Juvic A.
Microsoft Home Use Program online store
Customer Service
hup.us@digitalriver.com

 

[Stinkypalm]

Thanks guess that answers it, I can stop checking everyday

Just got the answer back:

Thank you for contacting the Microsoft Home Use Program online store. 

We understand that you would like to know when will the Office 2011 for 
Mac be available through the Home Use Program.

The Home Use Program only offers the most current release of Microsoft 
Office available to our customers; Office 2008 for Mac is still 
considered the most current release for version of Office for Mac 
computers to date under the Home Use Program. [B]However, the availability 
of Office 2011 for Mac will take place in January 2011.[/B]

We appreciate your interest in our products and your patience regarding 
this matter.

Sincerely,
Juvic A.
Microsoft Home Use Program online store
Customer Service
hup.us@digitalriver.com