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Office Mac vs. Office PC : WORD

M

Macmanus

macrumors member
Original poster
I recently switched to the MBP.

Everything's fine. Except one thing. Office for Mac. It's pure crap compared to the PC version. How could they blow it so much ? Office 2007 is way more advanced than the Mac version. I don't know if someone wrote about this, but Microsoft, if you read this, please, it's a shame, change it. Why didn't they do the same version ???

Example : on the PC version, when I right-clicked on a word in a text, I could see all the format options (italic, bold, size of the character...). On Mac, it's the same old story, go into the menu, and then find what you want.

I'm really disappointed..
 
I actually don't mind Word 2008. I found it way more intuitive moving from 2004 to 2008 then going from 2004 to Word 2007 for Windows (which I used for a bit through Fusion).
 
Macmanus said:
I recently switched to the MBP.

Everything's fine. Except one thing. Office for Mac. It's pure crap compared to the PC version. How could they blow it so much ? Office 2007 is way more advanced than the Mac version. I don't know if someone wrote about this, but Microsoft, if you read this, please, it's a shame, change it. Why didn't they do the same version ???

Example : on the PC version, when I right-clicked on a word in a text, I could see all the format options (italic, bold, size of the character...). On Mac, it's the same old story, go into the menu, and then find what you want.

I'm really disappointed..
Click to expand...

Thats why the formatting palette is there, when you get used to that then you will find they missed out very little
 
The features are there, but are often accessed in a different manner.

I have gradually learned (and now prefer) keyboard shortcuts over contextual menus.
 
I do not agree that Office PC is better than Office:Mac!

I use Word every day. As the only one in my class i use a Mac.
All the other, who is using PCs, is whining about word.
When they see my word they are whining about why their office suck that much. i think we got a very nice office pack. 🙂

Though it suck that the dictionary always pop-up at the very beginning saying that custom dictionary doesn't work. :s

(Sorry for my english)
 
Keyboard shortcuts rule.

Once you learn them, you realize how cumbersome "right click" actually is.
 
I've got Office 2007 on my Win Machine and just recently ordered Office 2008 from Amazon. While Office 2007 is a great app, it took me quite awhile getting used to the "Ribbon" versus the older style menus.

Hopefully, I'll like Office 2008, menus or no menus on right click. I can tell you though... do not waste your money on iWork 2008. About the only app included in iWork 2008 that has any appeal to me is Keynote (vs PowerPoint) the others don't compare. (Just my opinion)

In the meantime - until Office 2008 arrives, I'm going to give either Neo Office or Open Office a try. Neo Office is donation-ware (minimum $5), Open Office is free. OO needs X11 to be installed first but if you're running Leopard it should already be there. Regards.
 
isn't neooffice just repacked OO?

and about office, I find that it's really slow. Atleast compared to it's PC counterparts. I bought iWork because I thought it was faster but it's really cumbersome to edit doc files with it. You have to export everytime. So I've been using Office 08. Still trying to figure out if it was worth the money or not. There is no question that it's better than 04. 04 was an utter pile of c_ap and was the reason I bought iWork.

It may be that I find it slow b/c my old MB doesn't have enough power to run it smoothly. I've never tried it, but maybe MBP users have a lot nicer time with it. I think it's a ok office app (I only use word and excel) for everyday use. But if you use office and still using 04, then I think it's a good investment. You don't feel like hitting your head against the wall everytime you use it.
 
I think Office '08 is an improvement over Office '04 but as you say it's no comparison to the Windows 2007 version. I have both and I find myself using 2007 a hell of a lot more to do my work through VMWare Fusion, it's the best Office yet. I pretty much just use '08 to open files and look them over, but not to write anything. And for the Ribbon haters, it literally takes less than a week to learn where everything is, it's not rocket science.

iWork is simply no match for Office, except for Keynote which is 10X better than PP.
 
Macmanus said:
Example : on the PC version, when I right-clicked on a word in a text, I could see all the format options (italic, bold, size of the character...). On Mac, it's the same old story, go into the menu, and then find what you want.
Click to expand...
I can certainly understand your personal preference, but more options showing up on right click menu doesn't make Word 2007 more advanced than Word 2008.

Microsoft Mac Business Unit wrote Office to comply with Mac UI (although not quite all the way) and Apple does not recommend Mac applications from burying lots of options to the right mouse button. That said, Word 2008 is missing few features from Word 2007, but it also adds some tricks of its own.
 
chscag said:
Hopefully, I'll like Office 2008, menus or no menus on right click. I can tell you though... do not waste your money on iWork 2008. About the only app included in iWork 2008 that has any appeal to me is Keynote (vs PowerPoint) the others don't compare. (Just my opinion)

In the meantime - until Office 2008 arrives, I'm going to give either Neo Office or Open Office a try. Neo Office is donation-ware (minimum $5), Open Office is free. OO needs X11 to be installed first but if you're running Leopard it should already be there. Regards.
Click to expand...

Uhh, no, NeoOffice is free and open-source. They accept donations (as does OpenOffice.org) but it's by no means mandatory. It's the same code base as OpenOffice.org repackaged for OS X so it doesn't use X11. They're working on a native aqua version of OpenOffice.org, which is in beta right now, but until they have that working, go with NeoOffice.

Oh, and just to throw in my one $0.02 again to the original poster:

Don't waste your money on MS Office. iWork is much better usability-wise. Yes, if you need 100% compatibility, there's no good replacement for MS Office. However, if you only need 99.9% compatibility, there's no arguing with the iWork + NeoOffice combination, which is the best of both worlds, really. Pages is a much more usable and elegant word processor than Word, and it's worlds better at page layout, as well. Keynote absolutely blows Powerpoint away. Numbers is still lagging behind Excel as far as functionality goes, but it's fine for most spreadsheets, and as a statistician, I use much more powerful programs for graphs anyway 😉
 
It may not be mandatory,but it wont be freeware for ever if people don't make donations,what do you think helps pay for development etc, fresh air ?
 
neil321 said:
It may not be mandatory,but it wont be freeware for ever if people don't make donations,what do you think helps pay for development etc, fresh air ?
Click to expand...

That's true, I'm just correcting the misconception above, that OpenOffice was free while NeoOffice was a $5 minimum to use. That's not true. Both are free and open-source, and both accept donations.
 
kuwisdelu said:
That's true, I'm just correcting the misconception above, that OpenOffice was free while NeoOffice was a $5 minimum to use. That's not true. Both are free and open-source, and both accept donations.
Click to expand...

Ok yep miss read your previous post,in the end it's down to your conscience,personally i think NeoOffice is
well worth a $5 donation just for windows compatibility even if it is on the ugly side
 
nutmac said:
I can certainly understand your personal preference, but more options showing up on right click menu doesn't make Word 2007 more advanced than Word 2008.

Microsoft Mac Business Unit wrote Office to comply with Mac UI (although not quite all the way) and Apple does not recommend Mac applications from burying lots of options to the right mouse button. That said, Word 2008 is missing few features from Word 2007, but it also adds some tricks of its own.
Click to expand...

I think you nailed the right problem here, congrats. It's not Microsoft who got it wrong, it's Apple. Do you have the source of this information ?

Obviously, a vast majority of people don't want to learn a zillion shortcuts when you can have all of them under your right arme.
 
Macmanus said:
I think you nailed the right problem here, congrats. It's not Microsoft who got it wrong, it's Apple. Do you have the source of this information ?
Click to expand...

Also wrong. Proof? Pages has those options on the right-click menu. As well as the toolbar. Apple UI suggests the user never *have* to use the right-click menu, not that it can't have useful options if one so chooses.
 
Macmanus said:
I think you nailed the right problem here, congrats. It's not Microsoft who got it wrong, it's Apple. Do you have the source of this information ?
Click to expand...
Search for the source at Apple Developer Connection web site if you are so inclined. Until recently, all Macs came with one button mouse. So don't you think it's natural for Apple to recommend not tying too many options to the right mouse button?

Like I said, Word 2003 for Windows did not have many many formatting options on right mouse context menu. I don't know why Microsoft decided not to include options folks like yourself to the right mouse button, but I just don't think having more options (found elsewhere) on the right mouse button makes that application more advanced than the other.
 
I re-check Pages, but I dont' recall having all those options. Plus the European " " are absent, you only get English ones, so you have to learn another shortcut ! A Deal-breaker for me.

I've found the info, but I know a lot of people just prefer the ribon system and the right-click options, it's not more advanced, it's much more fun to work.
 
I always get some problems from mac excel to windows excel. font, format etc. Im no sure about word tho. My speculation would be that font problems might still there.
 
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