I too prefer Microsoft Office 2008 over iWork '09. Sure, MSO isn't perfect but neither is iWork. I have them both installed on my computer and the only time I choose iWork over MSO is when I'm doing presentations. Keynote, IMO is better than PowerPoint. Other than that, MSO all the way.
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Office 2008 for the mac is JUNK
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In the grand scheme of things... who really cares how well it "flops" to and fro with Expose? (Sometimes I wonder about mac users and their expectations.)
In the real world where sharing complex documents that must be compatible with Office is expected... iWork sucks.
miles01110
macrumors Core
colourfastt
macrumors 65816
Never had that happen and I have MSO installed on all 3 of my Macs. Though I will admit I've heard that it's an uncommonly observed phenomenon.
My wife and I both have both Office '08 and iWork '09....she uses iWork almost exclusively, and I use it maybe 80% of the time.
Speaking purely from experience, I can attest to the fact that Office '08 is not a good 'daily driver' compared to iWork '09. I've used every version of iWork since it first came out ('04) and I started using it exclusively with iWork '08.
iWork apps have never crashed on me in all the years I've used them; Word '08 crashed on me Day 1 (yes, really)
Speaking purely from experience, I can attest to the fact that Office '08 is not a good 'daily driver' compared to iWork '09. I've used every version of iWork since it first came out ('04) and I started using it exclusively with iWork '08.
iWork apps have never crashed on me in all the years I've used them; Word '08 crashed on me Day 1 (yes, really)
I haven't really liked Office 08 that much either, but the last patch made it more tolerable. I think a Cocoa rewrite would be the biggest help now, so I could use my native spell checker with Word.
After evaluating iWork, it is ok.
I really like the interface. Too bad it is missing some critical functionality.
I did not like NeoOffice.
I really like the interface. Too bad it is missing some critical functionality.
I did not like NeoOffice.
roadbloc
macrumors G3
Use openoffice.org
- It's free
- Has the same GUI as Microsoft Office 2003 (windows)
- Very good compatibility (apart from powerpoint presentations which are a little dodgy)
- Cross platform. Available for any operating system and even some mobile phones.
http://www.openoffice.org/
- It's free
- Has the same GUI as Microsoft Office 2003 (windows)
- Very good compatibility (apart from powerpoint presentations which are a little dodgy)
- Cross platform. Available for any operating system and even some mobile phones.
http://www.openoffice.org/
elppa
macrumors 68040
Ive read some terrible things about Office 08. Ive been trying out the test drive with the latest updates and have been quite impressed.
OpenOffice is the one which stands out as a piece of junk to me, never really understand the appreciation for it. Especially the presentation component (impress that is ironic name if ever I heard one).
I dont think Microsoft does a bad job on the Mac with Office. 2001 and 2004 were both pretty decent. They had features in Word like the live word count which didnt make it to the PC until 2007.
The fact they are doing Outlook in cocoa is a fairly big commitment. That would be like Apple rewriting iTunes using .NET and WPF (not likely to happen anytime soon).
They also are officially supporting Safari 4 in Office Live, whereas Apple seems IE 8 not modern enough for MobileMe (even though it runs plenty of other web apps).
OpenOffice is the one which stands out as a piece of junk to me, never really understand the appreciation for it. Especially the presentation component (impress that is ironic name if ever I heard one).
I dont think Microsoft does a bad job on the Mac with Office. 2001 and 2004 were both pretty decent. They had features in Word like the live word count which didnt make it to the PC until 2007.
The fact they are doing Outlook in cocoa is a fairly big commitment. That would be like Apple rewriting iTunes using .NET and WPF (not likely to happen anytime soon).
They also are officially supporting Safari 4 in Office Live, whereas Apple seems IE 8 not modern enough for MobileMe (even though it runs plenty of other web apps).
Amigaman
macrumors 6502
So having to constantly search across multiple Expose screens for an errant Formatting bar doesn't bother you at all?
Ah yes, the standard "complex documents" generalization. Of course I couldn't possibly be doing anything more complex than writing letters to Grandma. Please. 🙄
colourfastt
macrumors 65816
Amigaman
macrumors 6502
Germwise, the only way to get decent compatibility is with Office 2008. Just make sure you have all the patches because the patches and service packs make it a much better program than the one the came on my disk.
I'm still surviving with Office 2001 (or whatever the last version to work on Mac OS 9 is). 🙂 The only problem are the occasional person who is silly enough to save their files as docx format.
After G
macrumors 68000
mhnajjar
macrumors 6502a
spaceballl
macrumors 68030
yes, it is... Many of us live in a docx world where perfect formatting is a requirement so I still need to use Word 2008. The good news, however, is that I NO LONGER NEED ENTOURAGE ANYMORE!!!!! Thank you, Snow Leopard!
