Microsoft officially unveils key Office 2011 for Mac features
Microsoft has added official notice of a variety of key features in the upcoming release of its Office 2011 suite for Mac users.
The feature roundup on Microsoft's Office Blog includes a brief video of developers talking about the new release, along with four primary features:
A new Template Gallery "allows you to quickly and easily pick a template from the built-in designs to the thousands of templates online -allowing you to create a great-looking document right from the start."
The new Outlook for Mac" includes a Conversation View to easily sort emails" and uses a new database format designed to support Spotlight search and Time Machine backups.
A Vista-like Ribbon UI "designed as an evolution of the Office 2008 Elements Gallery," still retains the familiar Mac menu bar and Office toolbars, providing a hybrid UI that melds Windows and Mac features. The ribbon and toolbar can both be minimized "for more screen space or for the more advanced users who rely on keyboard shortcuts."
In April, AppleInsider profiled the then secret UI features of Office 2011 in Road to Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac: A New Hope, and outlined its new Exchange server and VBA features in May. Other reports in the Office 2011 series profiled its new icons and the fact that the new suite will still be 32-bit due to dependencies on Carbon.
The feature roundup on Microsoft's Office Blog includes a brief video of developers talking about the new release, along with four primary features:
A new Template Gallery "allows you to quickly and easily pick a template from the built-in designs to the thousands of templates online -allowing you to create a great-looking document right from the start."
The new Outlook for Mac" includes a Conversation View to easily sort emails" and uses a new database format designed to support Spotlight search and Time Machine backups.
A Vista-like Ribbon UI "designed as an evolution of the Office 2008 Elements Gallery," still retains the familiar Mac menu bar and Office toolbars, providing a hybrid UI that melds Windows and Mac features. The ribbon and toolbar can both be minimized "for more screen space or for the more advanced users who rely on keyboard shortcuts."
In April, AppleInsider profiled the then secret UI features of Office 2011 in Road to Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac: A New Hope, and outlined its new Exchange server and VBA features in May. Other reports in the Office 2011 series profiled its new icons and the fact that the new suite will still be 32-bit due to dependencies on Carbon.
Comments
Microsoft has added official notice of a variety of key features in the upcoming release of its Office 2011 suite for Mac users.
The feature roundup on Microsoft's Office Blog includes a brief video of developers talking about the new release, along with four primary features:
A new Template Gallery "allows you to quickly and easily pick a template from the built-in designs to the thousands of templates online -allowing you to create a great-looking document right from the start."
The new Outlook for Mac" includes a Conversation View to easily sort emails" and uses a new database format designed to support Spotlight search and Time Machine backups.
A Vista-like Ribbon UI "designed as an evolution of the Office 2008 Elements Gallery," still retains the familiar Mac menu bar and Office toolbars, providing a hybrid UI that melds Windows and Mac features. The ribbon and toolbar can both be minimized "for more screen space or for the more advanced users who rely on keyboard shortcuts."..
So basically whatever features Apple added *last* year to iWorks and MobileMe, are now going to be in Office *next* year. Wow.
Unless you *have* to for your job, why would anyone use Office on the Mac?
So basically whatever features Apple added *last* year to iWorks and MobileMe, are now going to be in Office *next* year. Wow.
Unless you *have* to for your job, why would anyone use Office on the Mac?
I don't know anyone who does.
Unless you *have* to for your job, why would anyone use Office on the Mac?
I?m looking forward to it for Outlook for Mac. I am not a fan of having 3 separate apps for my mail, calendar and address book. I much prefer to have them all accessible within the Mail app from the sidebar.
I?m hoping Apple adds this to 10.7, after all they are already tied together in the OS and through MobileMe.
I'll admit that I'm tried of being treated like a 3rd rate citizen from Microsoft - especially when the reviewers don't even mention all of the features the Macintosh version is missing.
i havent used MS Office for over a year. OpenOffice 3 is just as good, and its free
One of the biggest selling points of Office for Mac is compatibility with a world where most people use Office for Windows. It is completely dumb for Microsoft to make a user interface that differs in any way from Office for Windows. They should have made it identical, warts and all. Everything they do to MACify the product, makes it less valuable.
I certainly hope that before Macintosh Office 2011 is released - but when it's in the hands of reviewers - that the reviewers take the time to mention all of the features of Office for Windows that are missing from Office for Macintosh. Things like right-to-left, Access, full Basic, etc. come to mind.
I'll admit that I'm tried of being treated like a 3rd rate citizen from Microsoft - especially when the reviewers don't even mention all of the features the Macintosh version is missing.
Oh dear. I have seen the high-level statement that Office for Mac 2011 will support VB, but have you seen somewhere that VB will be a cut down version for the Mac?
I?m looking forward to it for Outlook for Mac. I am not a fan of having 3 separate apps for my mail, calendar and address book. I much prefer to have them all accessible within the Mail app from the sidebar.
I?m hoping Apple adds this to 10.7, after all they are already tied together in the OS and through MobileMe.
I won't buy Office for the all in one Outlook but I couldn't agree more. I have started to use a very simple CRM for Mac called Relationship 2 (no affiliation) and it does indeed combine all three and some other project management features. It uses the AddressBook db as well as the iCal db so there are no sync issues. Unfortunately the Mail client part is not very sophisticated - it downloads new copies of all your mails - but it allows you to easily attach key emails to users or projects. Not perfect but not a deal breaker for me.
So basically whatever features Apple added *last* year to iWorks and MobileMe, are now going to be in Office *next* year. Wow.
Unless you *have* to for your job, why would anyone use Office on the Mac?
well, out of the top of my mind, at least 3 "very advanced" and hard to implement in iWork features:
well, at least the first one must be a nut-cracker , as they have failed to implement it in what, 5, 6 versions of iwork?
and i would also say VBA but i haven't played around enough in Numbers to find out if there is something similar.
I?m looking forward to it for Outlook for Mac. I am not a fan of having 3 separate apps for my mail, calendar and address book. I much prefer to have them all accessible within the Mail app from the sidebar.
I?m hoping Apple adds this to 10.7, after all they are already tied together in the OS and through MobileMe.
I like using mail, calendar and address book together, and for free:
Google.
I?m looking forward to it for Outlook for Mac. I am not a fan of having 3 separate apps for my mail, calendar and address book. I much prefer to have them all accessible within the Mail app from the sidebar.
I?m hoping Apple adds this to 10.7, after all they are already tied together in the OS and through MobileMe.
and this i also strongly agree. the 3 apps is moronic. specially because at least two of them are seriously ill designed.
i have been trying to set a default address for a contact and what should be a pain free task is a nightmare. i must go to the address book in apple mail. then select a shade that means this is the default one, then go edit the "distribution lists as i have several with the same contact, then change it in every one of them, then check again in the main list, and also try to make address book put one email first than another and god knows what else, all to fail every last time. when i start typing the address, the wrong one comes on top, because its alphabetically "higher" than the one i want.
also, address book is an interface confusion. the white page with several fields and plus and minuses is aesthetically ugly, confusing and just awkward to use.
mail inboxes separated from the sub-folders is another moronic decision. it either makes me go around fishing for mail or simply resort to have rules to organize email in the subfolders, but use an intelligent folder to see what i've received today.
also, a simple efficient way to know if there is any new mail since the last time i checked seems something that the messiah jobs haven't decided to waste time yet. in outlook, you get a nice mail icon on the system tray when there is new mail. you open it and the folders with new ones unread are in bold . if you close or minimize the window, the tray icon disappears. and will only appear if you receive a new one.
now in email, i have a useless new message number in the dock icon. should i memorize the number every time i check it? or should i read every single mail i receive, even if it is just publicity or spam or some other stuff i don't want to read now just to make sure that if i'm absent during 5 minutes from the mac, i can know if some new mail has arrived?
i find myself opening the mail app and wasting time far more than when i use/used windows outlook.
i really wished that apple behaved more like a "real company" and start listening to customers, start expanding it's engineering and designers team so that not all things are depending on the messiah jobs and we could get real program and quirks corrections based on consumer feedback. Now it seems everything hits a brick wall and we must wait around or send an email to the CEO...
I don't know anyone who does.
i don't either...the only new "feature" is spotlight search...
PS: Did they FINALLY bring back MS Project to the Mac?!
FWIW, I use Office 2008 because compatibility with my Office 2007/2010 documents and spreadsheets from work is basically flawless. While Pages is pretty good on its own, Numbers is all but unusable. And I'm not going to use two separate programs just to give Apple the business; they have to earn it like everyone else.
Since the MacBU team announced earlier this year that users will be able to turn off the ribbon interface if they prefer, I think Office:2011 may have a better user experience than Office 2010 where the ribbon is mandatory. The one knock I have against Excel:2008 is the lack of VBA interoperability, which is coming back in Excel:2011.
As always, YMMV.
I like using mail, calendar and address book together, and for free:
Google.
Sure, if you want big brother to search and index all of your communications, schedules, and contacts.
Sure, if you want big brother to search and index all of your communications, schedules, and contacts.
exactly!
well, out of the top of my mind, at least 3 "very advanced" and hard to implement in iWork features:
well, at least the first one must be a nut-cracker , as they have failed to implement it in what, 5, 6 versions of iwork?
and i would also say VBA but i haven't played around enough in Numbers to find out if there is something similar.
Well, different strokes for different folks I guess.
I would argue that if you *need* excel instead of Numbers or something similar, that you are basically talking about using it "for work." Not sure what you mean by "cross-references" but again, it sounds like something you would need in a work or professional environment.
I find the "autosave" requirement funny though, especially since you list it as your main beef. I can't stand auto-save and as a technician, I'm always helping people that have problems with their documents related to auto-save basically not working right. I can't think of a single time in my entire career where auto-save actually saved someone's ass. However, the little ghosted document icons have caused problems in the past with many users.
Personally I don't think the user should have to "save" documents at all. It's so last century. I'd like to see Apple adopt an autosave for iWork that doesn't require on complicated copies of hidden files that may or may not be resurrect-able and simple remove the save function altogether.
So I guess I agree with you in the sense that I can't see why any user should have to explicitly "save" or worry about whether the thing is saved all the time.