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carrollf

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 8, 2007
225
0
Ireland
Just received a mail from Apple asking me to pre-order Office 2008. Not sure what to do? Is it worth it? Has anyone used the new version? Whats the performance and productivity like?

The Home and Student Edition is €139 and seems to have all I would need. How is this licensed - as in - can anyone buy this version claiming to be a student?
 
God yes. Its a world of improvement especially if you have an intel mac. It will run natively instead of emulated through rosetta, and the interface is much nicer. The company release I was given (I'm not sure I'm supposed to be talking about this but I never signed anything) has some bugs but I'm sure that will all be taken care of before the it goes gold.

I get about 5 crashes a day using only Word, for example, if I open Apple's "Preview" application, Word will crash. I'm sure its fixed by release though :)

Home and Student is just as the name reads - its for HOME use or student use. You are eligible for the license so long as you are not using it in a commercial environment. All home users qualify. Also, depending on when you purchased Office 2004; you may be eligible for a free or discounted upgrade.
 
The company release I was given (I'm not sure I'm supposed to be talking about this but I never signed anything) has some bugs but I'm sure that will all be taken care of before the it goes gold.

Office:Mac 2008 has been gold since December 9th. It is being released to the public next week at MacWorld. I already got email confirmation that my copy (from the buy Office 2004, get Office 2008 for free promotion) will ship on January 28th. So if you're using a build from a month or less ago, the final copy is damn buggy.
 
Office:Mac 2008 has been gold since December 9th. It is being released to the public next week at MacWorld. I already got email confirmation that my copy (from the buy Office 2004, get Office 2008 for free promotion) will ship on January 28th. So if you're using a build from a month or less ago, the final copy is damn buggy.

After reading that you got your email about office2008, I decided to check on my status for both the BFD and the SSD. BFD check is in the post as of yesterday :). Phoned up the SSD people, and they are saying that I'm not even in the system!!!:eek:

I had to dig the certified mail receipt out to tell them the date I posted. I posted both the BFD and the SSD stuff in at the same time. They said they would try and sort something out. They better do! :mad::mad::mad:
 
After reading that you got your email about office2008, I decided to check on my status for both the BFD and the SSD. BFD check is in the post as of yesterday :). Phoned up the SSD people, and they are saying that I'm not even in the system!!!:eek:

I had to dig the certified mail receipt out to tell them the date I posted. I posted both the BFD and the SSD stuff in at the same time. They said they would try and sort something out. They better do! :mad::mad::mad:

Can you check your status for the SSD online?
 
will Pages/Keynote be able to open docx/pptx at MSO'08 launch? or will it receive an update, or will i need to get MSO'08?
i hope i don't have to resort to the last option :mad:
 
...it is microsoft

is 08 fully compatible with everything else?

though they introduce some features to make i more compatible to office 2007(graphic engine, xml format), it will not support VBA, which is just hillarious... There must be a billion macros out there, which will stop working the minute you install it.
 
though they introduce some features to make i more compatible to office 2007(graphic engine, xml format), it will not support VBA, which is just hillarious... There must be a billion macros out there, which will stop working the minute you install it.

Yeah, what's the deal with this VBA thing anyway? People are always complaining about it, but I've never seen a single example of a VBA script. Ever. Can someone give me an example of why this is important? When VBA was included, everyone complained that innocuous-looking Office documents contained malware written in the form of a macro, and now everyone's mad because it's not included.
 
... People are always complaining about it, but I've never seen a single example of a VBA script. Ever. ...
You make a very good point. For the vast majority of computer users, VBA is a malware-enabling technology. However, a small minority of users must deal with macro-enabled documents at work. Office 2008 will leave these users out in the cold.

As to why VBA was not included in Office 2008, Microsoft has stated that VBA is slated to be dropped. Office 2008 is a new version of Office which had to be written using a new [for Microsoft] development environment. Because VBA would soon be EOLed, MacBU decided not to port it to the new environment.
 
Looks like we get it this Tuesday.
 

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why do people use Office and not use a free program like NeoOffice, i mean, whats the difference?:confused:

I used to use neo Office. It's great for a little free ap (no emphasis on the little), but if I can get Office for cheap, which I should do if they sort themselves out, then why not. It is better in my opinion, and as I described in other threads, it has features that are missing from Neo.
 
Good news.

After long talks with the people at M$ a very nice lady, very very nice lady, took it upon herself to make sure that I would get sorted with my copy. And today, I got my email that my Office 2008 had been ordered. So all is well in K Land. :D

I do have to wait about a month for it though, which is a while, but at least I don't have to go over to Buffalo, and break someones legs anymore.

K
 
After reading that you got your email about office2008, I decided to check on my status for both the BFD and the SSD. BFD check is in the post as of yesterday :). Phoned up the SSD people, and they are saying that I'm not even in the system!!!:eek

They processed that rebate check pretty quick. From the day I put the required stuff in the mail to when I got the check was just barely over a month. kudos to MS for the quick turnaround.

Now to wait for the actual 2008 upgrade to arrive.
 
It is better in my opinion, and as I described in other threads, it has features that are missing from Neo.

Forget the features; just think about the speed. Even under Rosetta, Office is faster than NeoOffice. Actually to be honest I'm not sure what features Office has that NeoOffice is missing, but NeoOffice has the very useful ability to open almost all kinds of documents.
 
man, disappointed so far. i thought it was gonna be something similar to the Ribbon interface in Office 2007. but it's nothing close to that. the only good thing so far, is that it's native Intel so it "feels" better than 2004, but overall it's quites similar to 2004.
 
Word 2008 Query

I read in one of the reviews (sorry, can't remember where) that 'full mail merge' is only in the 'business edition' of Office 2008 (I imagine the reviewer meant the Standard or Media editions).

I use mail merge to produce address labels from time to time and would buy Office 2008 Home and Student Edition if it had this facility (Pages '08 does not, sadly).

If mail merge is missing from Word 2008, I'm certainly not prepared to pay over £300 for the Standard edition in order to get it. I shall have to continue to use Windows XP under VMware Fusion in order to run Office 2003 and Money, which are about the only reason that I need Windows.
 
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