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Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review
Upgrading Office on an old iMac + Expression Media comments, December 4, 2008
By
corrivo (Varosha)
I installed Office 2008 on a 1.25GHz G4 iMac with System 10.4.11 . Since other reviewers have discussed the features and functionality of Office 2008 thoroughly, I am going to focus my review on the experience of upgrading from Office v.X to Office 2008. I'll also comment on Expression Media because it's what sets the Mac Office Special Media Edition apart from the other versions of Mac Office.
Background:
*I have experience with several versions of Mac Office, beginning with version 4.2 . I also have used Office 98, Office 2001, and as mentioned above, Office v.X before upgrading to Office 2008.
*The way I use Office has changed over time. I made extensive use of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in graduate school and in various professional settings through Office 2001. Now I mostly use Excel to do basic financial analysis and Word to write personal documents.
Installation:
*Installation is straightforward, using Apple's familiar Installer mechanism. I prefer this method to the old drag-and-drop installation method because OS X is so sensitive to where things are installed.
*The installer program automatically finds older versions of Office and allows users to delete them easily.
*Many customized settings can be transferred from previous Office installations, including dictionaries, autocorrect lists, and proofing tool settings.
*Once Office 2008 is installed, several updates must be downloaded and installed. Microsoft should have made this process more user-friendly. Users must manually shut down other applications, including the Office 2008 Installer, before running the update installer.
Pros:
*Office is now a Universal Binary so the same program will run on both PowerPC and Intel Macs.
*An Uninstaller is placed in the Office folder automatically.
*Office will check for updates automatically on a schedule chosen by the user. No more messing around on the Microsoft website, hoping you didn't miss a Service Pack or Critical Update.
*Users can now turn the feedback sounds on and off. If hearing a chime, a popping bubble, or some other "cute" noise every time you did something drove you crazy, you will greatly appreciate this long overdue feature.
*Speaking of unnecessary cuteness, Clippy the Paperclip is gone! Yesssssss!
Cons:
*All the applications startup and quit slowly on my G4 machine. Office v.X applications started and quit virtually instantaneously (yes, I realize v.X was written specifically for PowerPC processors). Saving files is slow as well.
*Office 2008 uses a new file format that is not compatible with other versions of Office. If you send documents to people who are not fully up to date, you have to save a second version or limit yourself to working with the older file format.
*It's good that Microsoft no longer just ports Windows Office to the Mac. Nonetheless, there are user interface inconsistencies both within and across the applications which keep Office from feeling 100% Macintosh.
*Silverlight, Microsoft's attempt to compete with Macromedia Flash, is installed by default.
*No macros in Excel! Bad, bad, bad move. And no support for Visual Basic.
Expression Media comments:
*EM is a standalone application, not a fully integrated component of Office. Installation and activation is a separate process from installing Office and requires entering a second product key.
*Mac Office ships with EM 1.0 . Users must manually download EM 2.0 from the Microsoft website after installing the earlier version. This is inconvenient but not a gigantic obstacle if you have a fast Internet connection.
*EM is a good tool for managing projects that use data from many sources. For example, somebody putting together a presentation that includes text from Word, numbers from Excel, slides from PowerPoint, music from MP3's, and images from digital photographs can organize all the necessary files in one EM "catalog." All the source material for the presentation is then viewable in one place.
*EM doesn't create new copies of documents, thankfully, but its catalogs can become very large. As a test, I created two catalogs with digital photographs--a 3.5 GB set resulted in a 25.8 MB catalog and a 1.5GB set created a 113.9 MB catalog. I'm not sure what accounts for this very large discrepancy but it's clear that EM isn't for people with limited hard disk space.
*Home users probably will find EM to be overkill for their needs. If you just want to keep track of your music and photos, iPhoto and iTunes are more than adequate. Having said that, I'm going to use EM to manage all the e-delivery documents I receive from banks, brokers, and the like. It will be a lot easier than digging through lots of Finder folders and subdirectories.
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Bottom line: Office 2008 doesn't hold any surprises for experienced Office users. For the most part, everything still operates in the way to which you are accustomed. If you own a PowerPC Mac and use an older version of Office, you should carefully consider whether you want to upgrade or not. The benefits of the new features may be outweighed by the inconvenience of the slower performance and/or the need to adjust your workflow.
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4 because Expression Media is a useful tool.
MS Office with some special sauce, December 4, 2008
By
Jessica Weissman (Silver Spring, MD USA)
This is the latest version of MS Office. If you need it, you need it. But why would you as a noncommercial user buy this instead of the Student/Teacher edition, which is usually cheaper and can be installed on 3 computers?
There are three reasons.
1) This package is updatable, where the Student/Teacher edition is not.
2) This one is sometimes priced lower than the Student/Teacher edition. It goes on sale fairly often. If you have only one computer, get this one if the price is right.
3) You want the special media edition stuff. You get two items. One is a set of useful but not worldbeating Automator actions that support workflows. The other is a drag and drop media library/management tool.
Both items are nice, but if you have more than one computer, go with the Student/Teacher edition.
One more note: Office 2008 doesn't support VBA macros. If your work depends on macros, stick with Office 2004 or get Office 2007 Student/Teacher for Windows and run it under Windows on your Mac. Macros are supposed to be back in a future version. Let's hope so.
Different look than the PC version, November 30, 2008
By
Michael D. Burns (Topeka, KS)
I had read mixed reviews about MS Office for the Mac and was reluctant to install it on my MacBook Pro. As it turns out, my fears were unfounded. It does have a different look than the Windows version and takes a little getting used to . I am pleasantly surprised with the speed of the applications as I had read that it was a bit sluggish. Not the case at all. It is very zippy and the few docs and spreadsheets that I've experimented with have migrated back and forth between my Mac and PC with no problems, so far. I'm not sure that it is worth buying, however, if you already have IWorks on your Mac, since you can export all of your files to a PC from the iWork applications. In the end, I'll probably use the Office suite for my work applications and iWork for my personal use.
Just the same as, Just a new user-interface, November 28, 2008
By
Hyunseok Michael Oh (Norwalk, CA USA)
From a user's standpoint, as I have used Microsoft Products since 1994, Microsoft Products have usability issues with office products. After I am used to using one product like Office 2004, I am hit with Office 2008. Differences between the two are as follows:
1) I have to pay for the upgrade, once again, to be able to open up the new word document format that the non-technical office personnel have purchased.
2) The menu changes for each release makes communicating about "how-to" format different for users who has different Word versions without the significant upgrades in features.
3) It all starts out from the blank document. Even with the "Document Elements" features, it's hard to conform to current official office formats. Further edits are required for all new features-based document embellishment.
4) New features are almost all of the Format features that were on the menu were moved to Format Palette; and those features were reduced to small "size" icons. It's hard to relate to icons and delays my "gotten used to" features.
5) Where are all the short-cuts "keys"?
After realizing some of the features are turned-off when first installed on the menu and toolbar, I turn try to toggle the toolbar. And realized the pop-up menu are still the same, just tweaked further to the "minimalist" style.
From a brand-new user's standpoint, I would imagine that this version of Microsoft Office is definitely useful. Except, even though the Document Element feature in the Word program looked great. When I clicked on the first document elements > Cover Pages > first choice, and started to edit some text file into the the document, and I realize the formatting doesn't quite fit with the cover page, in fact, the feature of the cover page is the "cool look" and there are no explanation on how to edit using this Cover Page style choice. There are no other help on how to change the cover page's format elements like the "year" and "title" or how to change it so that the flow of the text aren't underneath the cover page's text box. Further, I am having to deal with navigating a new completely-different-from-previous-version-menu-setup.
So, far it took me 30 minutes to find out what's changed from the older version. It will take me about another 30 more minutes to find out why the menu disappears on the format palette, and how to describe this to the co-workers at the office when the IT guys upgrade it to all the mac computers, "just-because."
Disappointing Performance and Lack of Configurability, November 28, 2008
By
James R. Spitznas (Purcellville, VA United States)
I ordered the 2008 version of Office due to its Universal support in the hopes of improved performance over the 2004 version (which relies on Rosetta for non-Intel software versions). I frequently manipulate very large spreadsheets containing a mixture of data and formulae in Excel. To get an idea of the differences in performance, I timed a couple of tasks that I routinely do on my Mac Pro (2 x 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors and 4 GB of RAM).
In the first test, I timed how long it took Excel to open a 15.6 MB Excel file containing a mixture of data and embedded formulae. In this test, it took the 2004 version 19 seconds to open the spreadsheet and the 2008 version significantly slower in 25.5 seconds.
In the second test, using two keys I sorted a 27 column by 6939 row spreadsheet with no embedded formalae. I found the 2004 version of Excel performed the task in 11 seconds and the 2008 slightly faster in 10.5 seconds.
In the third test, using three keys I sorted a 51 column by 6244 row spreadsheet with lots of embedded formulae. I found the 2004 version of Excel performed the task in 16 seconds and the 2008 version significantly slower in 21 seconds.
Beyond the performance differences, I was annoyed by several changes made to the 2008 version of Excel. First, the software no longer provides an indication of when it is working -- no hourglass, no stopwatch, etc. Thus while I'm waiting for half a minute for Excel to manipulate the spreadsheet I'm left wondering if it is really working or if I accidentally hit the "cancel" button. Second, the toolbars are not as configurable as the 2004 version. I like to have the "Standard", "Formatting" and "Formula" toolbars open. In the 2008 version I am not allowed to position the formula bar directly over the spreadsheet and I'm only allowed to have the Standard bar open directly over the spreadsheet. The 2008 version also added an extra menu line for "Sheets" "Charts" "SmartArt Graphics" and "WordArt" that I will never use yet cannot turnoff. The bottom-line is that with the 2008 version, I now have less usable space for my worksheets, less configurability than I previously did, am forced to make more mouse clicks and move the mouse pointer more thank I did with the 2004 version. While I mainly use Excel, I did note that the new version of Word also has the same toolbar issues that I noted for Excel.
Another annoyance -- though one-time -- is the number of very large updates that had to be downloaded to update the shipped software. While I didn't time these, I was able to install the software from the DVD in about 2 minutes. It took about 45 minutes to download and install all of the software updates.
Overall, I'm glad that I didn't un-install the 2004 versions of the Office applications as I think I'll continue to use them until support for the 2004 versions is dropped and I run into compatibility issues.
