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Software : Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition
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Rating: 
- Not perfect but...
I read reviews and checked out the mactopia site so I knew what I was getting. I was trying to decide between iWork and MS office because of the better pricing on iWork. At my office I use office 2007 on a pc and I needed to be able to continue working on Word documents at home. Office 2008 for Mac allows me to do this but because it lacks support for VBA some functions do not work on the mac product. It is a minor annoyance that I work around and the same goes for Excel. In the end it allows me to easily create study notes and write great looking documents that are easy to read. iWork says that it is compatible with Office but after trying the demo and using it to open word documents it could not carry over a good amount of formatting. MS office for Mac gets the job done for me with relative ease and no compatibility issues between office 2007 for pc and 2008 for mac as long as I say away from VBA (data analysis add-ins, word's equation editor) in the PC version.
Coming from windows I was confused on what entourage is. After using it, Entourage is just iCal, address book, and Mail combined in one program that also allows you to create projects. Projects allow you to create a calendar with items only related to that project, invite others to collaborate, create notes and link documents related to a particular project. For home use i have not found this very efficient so I stick to the native mac apps.
After installing this I have not noticed my iMac preforming any differently that before. The only issue I have noticed so far is when I have an office program open and I switch spaces in leopard. Sometimes the program will switch spaces when I try to return to the space I opened it in. i think it has to do with the tool box which contains the formatting options, so i just close it before i switch spaces.
Rating: - Has its problems, but good overall
I have mixed feelings about this version of Office. On the positive side, I feel that the graphical capabilities are outstanding. The first day I worked in Word 2008, I created a very visually satisfying piece of Smart Art for my communications class, with little to no experience doing this before. Also, from my limited usage of the feature, I think the publishing layout view is very useful.
Now for the not-so-positives... I know not everyone is a fan of it, but I miss the ribbon interface from Office 2007 for Windows. I wish they could have created a preference where you could select the standard or ribbon view. In my opinion, the ribbon was the most significant interface update since word processors went WYSIWYG in about 1988. I loved that I could hover the mouse over the ribbon area, scroll up or down to pick my menu, select my command, and have the menu remain. This makes repetitive (but not identical) formatting and document creation tasks an absolute breeze.
Also, unless I am missing something, there is no way to use the mouse scroll-wheel to zoom in and out of a document. In previous versions (and many other mac text editing/word processing apps), a Control-Scroll was the absolute easiest way to zoom in and out. In fact, I never realized how often I was zooming my document until I got this version and wasn't able to in the same manner.
Finally, why does the formatting palette float instead of anchor to the window? It drives me nuts that the tool palettes seem to almost operate independently of the applications themselves. Again, refer to my opinion on the omission of the ribbon interface to understand my frustration.
Rating:
- Ok Product but why bother?
The single best thing about the Mac version of Office 2008 compared with the PC version of Office 2007, is that users aren't burdened by the Tool Bar Ribbon that radically changed the interface for PC users.
The second best thing is that this Student version comes with 3 licenses that allow you to put it on 3 Different machines.
Anyone who is familiar with Office already, will like this product, and it does make exchanging files with someone who is using Office 2007 easier, since it is compatible. That would be about the only reason I would get this product.
The other drawback from an email standpoint, is that Entourage (The Mac version of Outlook) on this version can not connect to an Exchange server, so forget about using this with any corporate email account that runs Exchange on the backend.
Overall the program functionality, and operations haven't changed much from previous versions, but you can get all the same power from Neo Office, which can create most of these same documents, and can read and edit older versions of Office documents. (not sure if Neo Office for the Mac can read PC versions of Office 2007 documents). Neo Office is a freeware or shareware program, that can be supported for a nominal donation.
Rating:
- My first Office on a mac - not bad!
I just got my wife a macbook and she was upset the Microsoft Office Trial that comes with it expired, so we got this version. Being a PC and Linux Guy, I had no issues with this version of office for Mac. She was able to use powerpoint and Word just like she would on a pc. It is a tad bit different than then PC version in looks and function, but essentially the same thing. I installed the Service Pack as well, so DO NOT FORGET TO INSTALL OFFICE SP1 for Mac as soon as you install the product.
Nice price, Nice product.
Rating: - Average
I'm not a Mac user so here's my father's comments: Pretty good product once he got it running. Not user friendly or intuitive. Seems to have some bugs that freeze it but they seem to have resolved after a few days. Too soon to tell. Has this software been fully tested before marketed?
- Not perfect but...I read reviews and checked out the mactopia site so I knew what I was getting. I was trying to decide between iWork and MS office because of the better pricing on iWork. At my office I use office 2007 on a pc and I needed to be able to continue working on Word documents at home. Office 2008 for Mac allows me to do this but because it lacks support for VBA some functions do not work on the mac product. It is a minor annoyance that I work around and the same goes for Excel. In the end it allows me to easily create study notes and write great looking documents that are easy to read. iWork says that it is compatible with Office but after trying the demo and using it to open word documents it could not carry over a good amount of formatting. MS office for Mac gets the job done for me with relative ease and no compatibility issues between office 2007 for pc and 2008 for mac as long as I say away from VBA (data analysis add-ins, word's equation editor) in the PC version.
Coming from windows I was confused on what entourage is. After using it, Entourage is just iCal, address book, and Mail combined in one program that also allows you to create projects. Projects allow you to create a calendar with items only related to that project, invite others to collaborate, create notes and link documents related to a particular project. For home use i have not found this very efficient so I stick to the native mac apps.
After installing this I have not noticed my iMac preforming any differently that before. The only issue I have noticed so far is when I have an office program open and I switch spaces in leopard. Sometimes the program will switch spaces when I try to return to the space I opened it in. i think it has to do with the tool box which contains the formatting options, so i just close it before i switch spaces.
Rating:
- Has its problems, but good overallI have mixed feelings about this version of Office. On the positive side, I feel that the graphical capabilities are outstanding. The first day I worked in Word 2008, I created a very visually satisfying piece of Smart Art for my communications class, with little to no experience doing this before. Also, from my limited usage of the feature, I think the publishing layout view is very useful.
Now for the not-so-positives... I know not everyone is a fan of it, but I miss the ribbon interface from Office 2007 for Windows. I wish they could have created a preference where you could select the standard or ribbon view. In my opinion, the ribbon was the most significant interface update since word processors went WYSIWYG in about 1988. I loved that I could hover the mouse over the ribbon area, scroll up or down to pick my menu, select my command, and have the menu remain. This makes repetitive (but not identical) formatting and document creation tasks an absolute breeze.
Also, unless I am missing something, there is no way to use the mouse scroll-wheel to zoom in and out of a document. In previous versions (and many other mac text editing/word processing apps), a Control-Scroll was the absolute easiest way to zoom in and out. In fact, I never realized how often I was zooming my document until I got this version and wasn't able to in the same manner.
Finally, why does the formatting palette float instead of anchor to the window? It drives me nuts that the tool palettes seem to almost operate independently of the applications themselves. Again, refer to my opinion on the omission of the ribbon interface to understand my frustration.
Rating:
- Ok Product but why bother?The single best thing about the Mac version of Office 2008 compared with the PC version of Office 2007, is that users aren't burdened by the Tool Bar Ribbon that radically changed the interface for PC users.
The second best thing is that this Student version comes with 3 licenses that allow you to put it on 3 Different machines.
Anyone who is familiar with Office already, will like this product, and it does make exchanging files with someone who is using Office 2007 easier, since it is compatible. That would be about the only reason I would get this product.
The other drawback from an email standpoint, is that Entourage (The Mac version of Outlook) on this version can not connect to an Exchange server, so forget about using this with any corporate email account that runs Exchange on the backend.
Overall the program functionality, and operations haven't changed much from previous versions, but you can get all the same power from Neo Office, which can create most of these same documents, and can read and edit older versions of Office documents. (not sure if Neo Office for the Mac can read PC versions of Office 2007 documents). Neo Office is a freeware or shareware program, that can be supported for a nominal donation.
Rating:
- My first Office on a mac - not bad!I just got my wife a macbook and she was upset the Microsoft Office Trial that comes with it expired, so we got this version. Being a PC and Linux Guy, I had no issues with this version of office for Mac. She was able to use powerpoint and Word just like she would on a pc. It is a tad bit different than then PC version in looks and function, but essentially the same thing. I installed the Service Pack as well, so DO NOT FORGET TO INSTALL OFFICE SP1 for Mac as soon as you install the product.
Nice price, Nice product.
Rating:
- AverageI'm not a Mac user so here's my father's comments: Pretty good product once he got it running. Not user friendly or intuitive. Seems to have some bugs that freeze it but they seem to have resolved after a few days. Too soon to tell. Has this software been fully tested before marketed?