http://www.osnews.com/story/16912/Office_2008_for_the_Mac_on_Its_Way Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:59:00 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://osnews.com/thread?200538 http://osnews.com/thread?200538 Let's be honest--on today's Macs, you're better off running Win-Office 2000/XP/2003 under Parallels than running Mac-Office 2004. Even on the PPC side, Mac-Office is vs. VirtualPC+Win-Office is at best a wash. You shouldn't have to run Windows on your Mac to get work done.

Office 2004 is inexplicably slow and clunky. PowerPoint--the only part I used regularly--was laggardly at opening even small, text-only presentations on my iBook. Add in some diagrams and things went down the toilet. Of course, if you copy-pasted images in Mac Office and then tried to open the resulting files in Win Office, you'd be in for a world of pain. It got so bad that I turned to converting everything to PDF (via Windows PowerPoint+CutePDF or just LaTeX+pdflatex) and using Preview to run the presentations.

With iWork 07 rumored to include a spreadsheet application, MacBU's got some actual competition this time around. Heck, OpenOffice.org is still unbearably slow and ugly, but not so much that Office 2004 is worth its price. I truly hope that MacBU gets their act together with Office 2008 and delivers a quality product that both matches (or exceeds) the usability of Office 2007 and fits with OS X. Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (eMagius) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?200554 http://osnews.com/thread?200554 Since the office suite wars are over, could it be that we're getting back to applications that work?

I haven't seen a version of MS Word that's been quick and light and stable since version 4 on System 6 on a Mac.

Hopefully, with MS Office 2007/2008, they've cleaned out the garbage and fixed the multitude of problems. The look is considerably different but will it work better?

We can all hope that they're actually learning from their mistakes. Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bousozoku) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?200563 http://osnews.com/thread?200563 Let's be honest--on today's Macs, you're better off running Win-Office 2000/XP/2003 under Parallels than running Mac-Office 2004.

Uhm, I am honest, and I like Office:Mac 2004 a lot/ It's interface is ten times better than that of the Windows version (and the Office 2007 ribbon is a million times better than both). Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Thom_Holwerda) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?200567 http://osnews.com/thread?200567 VBA support has been dumped in Mac Office 2008 which leaves me with 2003 for a while. Thu, 11 Jan 2007 00:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (nighty5) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?200580 http://osnews.com/thread?200580 http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2382 Thu, 11 Jan 2007 01:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (eMagius) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?200636 http://osnews.com/thread?200636 "Let's be honest--on today's Macs, you're better off running Win-Office 2000/XP/2003 under Parallels than running Mac-Office 2004."

No.

Long answer: It starts up in under 2 seconds on my MacBook, and runs perfectly, even through it is running under Rosetta (PPC emulation). Runin Office 2000/XP/2003 under Parallels involves running WinXP, wasting several hundred MB of RAM and all that while not gaining any interface advantages (the other way around, actually). Thu, 11 Jan 2007 04:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (PowerMacX) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?200716 http://osnews.com/thread?200716 NeoOffice is an OpenOffice clone for Mac OS X.
Anyone who thinks (s)he needs MS Office for Mac might first take a look at NeoOffice.
It may well suit all your needs.
Arguably, MS Office is somewhat superior (faster, for example), but is it worth the money for everyone?
Certainly not. Thu, 11 Jan 2007 11:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (h3rman) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?200758 http://osnews.com/thread?200758 You should add more RAM to your iBook, and you should have no problem using any of office's functions ;-)

Its not that I'm a big fan of this particulare software, but I have been using it, and so has my girfriend, and we both had success on iBook G4/512 and G4/1.25GB. And some of my files were pretty big. Thu, 11 Jan 2007 18:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Bob Slob) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?200810 http://osnews.com/thread?200810 http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=2382

Wow, that kind of looks like a Mac app! Thu, 11 Jan 2007 19:27:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bubbayank) Comments http://osnews.com/thread?200841 http://osnews.com/thread?200841 Looks like the ribbon won't make it to the Mac:

Like the 2007 Microsoft Office system and its new user interface with the Ribbon, Office 2008 has its own new UI that introduces Elements Gallery, a feature that emphasizes discoverability and gives users quick access to tools and Mac-specific features within applications in a visually appealing, simple way.

(Emphasis mine)

So it'll probably be 2004 + "Open"XML + Universal binaries + a few new features.
Not much more than the v.X to 2004 update, disappointing.

Edit: After looking at the screenshots here: http://www.tuaw.com/2007/01/10/microsoft-office-2008-screenshots/
It looks like a "halfway house" between the classic and ribbon interfaces. I actually like that idea better than the ribbon in Office 2007 (I have beta 2).Edited 2007-01-11 20:48 Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:43:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mallard) Comments