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Office 2004 or 2008?

E

EMILinator

macrumors member
Original poster
I recently went on amazon.com to check out microsoft office for mac..

office for mac 2008 got an average 3 stars with plenty of negative comments.

office for mac 2004 got an average 4 stars with plenty of positive comments.. and its cheaper.

should i just go with the 2004 version?


i dont really want to run boot camp and windows to run office. too much money. cuz i still gotta get XP.. 😎
 
2004 is still a very good product and is stable

if you need Visual Basic support, you should stick with 2004
although MS has stated they will bring it back in the next version, it is missing in 2008

i have not seen anything compelling in 2008 to warrant the upgrade

Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
 
Ditto that. I still use Office 2004 and am very content with it. It is more stable than 2008, based on issues a lot of the '08 crowd has reported, and I always have iWork '08, NeoOffice and Open Office to use/fall back on.

Keep in mind, the only thing that '04 will not give you is the ability to open & manipulate files created in Office '07 (PC) or '08 (Mac) as they are saved in a different format by default. Any of the other productivity suites three can open those files for you, though. I think you'll do just fine with Office '04.
 
Achiever said:
Ditto that. I still use Office 2004 and am very content with it. It is more stable than 2008, based on issues a lot of the '08 crowd has reported, and I always have iWork '08, NeoOffice and Open Office to use/fall back on.

Keep in mind, the only thing that '04 will not give you is the ability to open & manipulate files created in Office '07 (PC) or '08 (Mac) as they are saved in a different format by default. Any of the other productivity suites three can open those files for you, though. I think you'll do just fine with Office '04.
Click to expand...

oh thats good to know! 🙂
but what do you mean by "other productivity suites three" ??
 
Great Dave said:
I dig 2008. I think it is a worthy update!
Click to expand...

Me too in a way. I mean, I used the other one for 3.5 years. It's so nice to have something fresh.

I think the 2008 version has a great feel, plus I was paid in the end to get it with all the rebates and upgrade promotions.

However, I will say, the speed of it is a bit ridiculous.
 
Also, Microsoft will eventually release an update for the Office 2004 apps that will allow them to read the 2007/2008 formats. (It has been around for a long time for Office 2003 on Windows.) Right now, a converter for some of the formats has been posted on Microsoft's site.
 
I'm sticking with 2004 for now, mostly because 2008 is slow as molasses on my PB. And I *HATE* the stupid elements bar because you can't hide it and it limits your vertical space.
 
I have been working with Office 08 for about a month or so and I must say that I am pleasantly surprised with it. I use Word mostly, and it has a much better feel to it -- much more "Mac-like". In fact, it seems to me that the MacBu took a look at Pages and decided to copy the interface to a large extent.

I haven't had any stability issues (yet), and with the new update Word seems to be a bit snappier on my Mac Pro. I will say that the whole of Office 08 runs like molasses on my PowerBook (1.33 Ghz G4 with 1.5 GB RAM). YMMV.

All in all, I think 08 is superior to 04. At least with 08 one gets the impression that M$ did something to make it more of its own program -- I always thought 04 was just a rehashed version of Office v.X.
 
'08 is certainly better after the release of the service pack, but calculation in Excel is still ridiculously slow - over a minute in workbooks I'm working with right now, where '03 and '07 on Windows take 5 seconds ... I haven't tried them with 2004.

I quite like the new graph stuff in Excel '08, easy application of colours, styles, and some actually good looking effects - and also better compatibility with 2007. I just wish they had let the formula bar dock into the window - and yes, the elements bar is annoying.
 
I too prefer Office 2008.
I have used it since it's release & went back to 2004 just for old time's sake & used it for a few days. Yes it loaded quicker but I really couldn't wait to get back to 2008.

Although I do have one issue with it. Since I put the SP1 in, when I open some of my previously saved Word files. it opens them with a Blank page.
I tested them with Word 04 & the text was there.

Anyone else had the happen & any ideas on how to fix it?

Cheers
 
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