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Office for Mac 2011 - It's Amazing!

Hellhammer

Hellhammer

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
I've got the pleasure (thanks to Tristangage) to get my hands on the retail version of Office 2011. Yes, it's the retail version, not beta. I know it's not being released for another month.

I haven't had much time to play around with it as I got it today but so far, the experience has been nothing more but positive. The apps feel very responsive. Actually, it feels like I'm using Office in Windows 😱 Outlook seems to be pretty equal to the Windows version.

I don't know what to test so please ask if you have anything on your mind that I could try. I've included a screenshot of every app, feel free to take a look!
 

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Thanks for sharing those, Hellhammer! I can't say I'm excited about Office 2011. One primary reason is the new ribbon toolbar. I've had enough experience with that on my wife's 2007 version. It takes forever to find basic commands that used to be so quick to find. I think they've ruined the UI with the ribbon. But that's just my opinion. I haven't seen anything exciting in the new version to overcome that negative, so I'm sticking with 2008 for now.
 
Personally, though being a long-time mac user, I pretty much like the ribbon interface in the windows version and found it very intuitive to work with it.

Hellhammer, could you maybe check if the new Excel for Mac gives us the same sorting and filtering abilities as the windows Excel has since version 2007 (or maybe even 2003?).
For me this is a killer feature when working with huge amounts of data and one thing I am really missing about the currenty Excel as well as Numbers. To be honest, I don't know anymore how anyone can live without this feature. 😉
 
Do you happen to be familiar with iWork '09? If so, how does it compare with the new Office Suite? I'm just trying to decide whether to buy Office or wait for iWorks '11 in January.

P.S. I just got back from a week in Helsinki--you live in a wonderful city!
 
So lucky! Can you please confirm there is VBA support again in 2011? I have significant amounts of VBA modules in Excel that are hoping so.

Thank you!
 
How's the load time? Office apps on Windows load pretty much instantaneously. In OS X it takes a couple bounces...at least for 08.
 
One small "feature" of Word for the Mac that I really miss in Pages is how the zoom level adjusts when you drag the corner to resize a document window. Could you confirm if that is still the case in this version? Would be grateful to know because it's not the sort of thing they advertise!
 
They're all pretty instantaneous.


FourCandles said:
One small "feature" of Word for the Mac that I really miss in Pages is how the zoom level adjusts when you drag the corner to resize a document window. Could you confirm if that is still the case in this version? Would be grateful to know because it's not the sort of thing they advertise!
Click to expand...

No, zoom level stays the same.
 
Canubis said:
Hellhammer, could you maybe check if the new Excel for Mac gives us the same sorting and filtering abilities as the windows Excel has since version 2007 (or maybe even 2003?).
For me this is a killer feature when working with huge amounts of data and one thing I am really missing about the currenty Excel as well as Numbers. To be honest, I don't know anymore how anyone can live without this feature. 😉
Click to expand...

I tried my best to find the "filter" function. Is that what you're looking for? Sorry, I'm newbie with Excel 😱

nyttkuva20100923kohtees.png


Kashchei said:
Do you happen to be familiar with iWork '09? If so, how does it compare with the new Office Suite? I'm just trying to decide whether to buy Office or wait for iWorks '11 in January.
Click to expand...

I've used Pages and Keynote. I haven't had that much time to play with them but at least Word seems very good, so similar to the Windows version. Hard to say about PowerPoint but IMO it has always been worse than Keynote. I'll tell more when I've had more time to test them 🙂

miles01110 said:
How's the load time? Office apps on Windows load pretty much instantaneously. In OS X it takes a couple bounces...at least for 08.
Click to expand...

They open almost immediately for me. Possibly even faster than iWork '09. Anyway, much better overall performance than '08 had, been very pleased with the performance so far. And no crashes so far 😛

DTF said:
Have you tried any programming with Excel and macros?
Click to expand...

Sorry, I haven't. I have no use for Excel nor Numbers and absolutely zero knowledge how to use them 😱
 
GGJstudios said:
Thanks for sharing those, Hellhammer! I can't say I'm excited about Office 2011. One primary reason is the new ribbon toolbar. I've had enough experience with that on my wife's 2007 version. It takes forever to find basic commands that used to be so quick to find. I think they've ruined the UI with the ribbon. But that's just my opinion. I haven't seen anything exciting in the new version to overcome that negative, so I'm sticking with 2008 for now.
Click to expand...

+1

I still use 2003 at work, when I come home to use 2010 (windows) I can't stand it! It looks ugly and takes me twice as long to find things - change isn't always good!

Just got my first Mac so I might get a copy of office 2008 on fleabay, or maybe just stick with open office😕
 
GGJstudios said:
Thanks for sharing those, Hellhammer! I can't say I'm excited about Office 2011. One primary reason is the new ribbon toolbar. I've had enough experience with that on my wife's 2007 version. It takes forever to find basic commands that used to be so quick to find. I think they've ruined the UI with the ribbon. But that's just my opinion. I haven't seen anything exciting in the new version to overcome that negative, so I'm sticking with 2008 for now.
Click to expand...

Google Ribbon Customizer version 2 beta. Very stable, allows you to do almost anything to the 2007 ribbon. (well, you can make new tabs, can't alter the built-in tabs much) Work has apparently been dropped on Customizer since Office 2010 has some customization built-in.
 
The reason I often used Pages over Word ('08) is because Word just took so damn long to load. I'd try and take notes in class and would miss the first few points because Word was still loading. However I am very impressed with the speed of Word 2011. It's fantastic, it just opened on my modest whitebook in pretty much 1 second, I barely even got to look at the splash screen this time! (it took a while the first time due to updating fonts and stuff) I haven't had time to look at any other apps, but if they feel as responsive, and look as good, as Word, then I'm sure I will be very impressed.

At the moment, I agree with GGJstudios. I'm not a fan of the Ribbon. However I will eventually get used to it so I won't start complaining about it.

Send me a PM for more info 😎😉😎 If you catch my drift.
 
Canubis said:
Hellhammer, could you maybe check if the new Excel for Mac gives us the same sorting and filtering abilities as the windows Excel has since version 2007 (or maybe even 2003?).
Click to expand...
What features are those? The sort-by-color? Nothing else has changed that I've seen in 2007.
 
Hellhammer said:
I tried my best to find the "filter" function. Is that what you're looking for? Sorry, I'm newbie with Excel 😱

nyttkuva20100923kohtees.png
Click to expand...

Thanks for trying to find what I am looking for! 🙂
Based on the screenshot you've attached, it looks like they've added what I want. It looks a bit different in the windows version, but at least some features like sorting/filtering "by color", "by icon" seem to be implemented, according to the screenshot.

Thanks! 🙂
 
JAT said:
What features are those? The sort-by-color? Nothing else has changed that I've seen in 2007.
Click to expand...

I am trying to attach a screenshot of the Windows Excel 2007. Unforunately it's in German but it should be okay to get an idea.

Excel 2007 Filterfunktionen.JPG
 
GGJstudios said:
Thanks for sharing those, Hellhammer! I can't say I'm excited about Office 2011. One primary reason is the new ribbon toolbar. I've had enough experience with that on my wife's 2007 version. It takes forever to find basic commands that used to be so quick to find. I think they've ruined the UI with the ribbon. But that's just my opinion. I haven't seen anything exciting in the new version to overcome that negative, so I'm sticking with 2008 for now.
Click to expand...
Agreed. All I see here is a giant, jumbled mess.
content
 
The ribbon is completely collapsible though, right? Can you make it so only the title bar is showing, like Pages? I like my vertical space.
 
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