Microsoft demonstrates compatibility features in Office 2011 for Mac
Microsoft on Wednesday released a new video highlighting new ways that Office 2011 for Mac users will be able to work with data in Excel and new photo editing tools, all compatible with Office for Windows.
Microsoft's OfficeforMac.com website was updated Wednesday with the second video of a series demonstrating new features in Office for Mac 2011.
"What we've been able to do in Office for Mac 2011 is to bring a lot of power to bear to produce a professional looking document that's still compatible with Office for Windows," said Kurt Schmucker, senior evangelist with Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit.
He said to ensure consistency between Word for Windows and Word for Mac, the Microsoft team would print out identical documents on both machines and make sure that the physical copies were exactly the same. If any differences were spotted, the team considered that to be a bug that needed to be fixed.
"Everybody speaks Office, and that's why Office for Mac 2011 brings a level of compatibility between the Office for Windows suite and the Office for Mac suite that's never been achieved before," Schmucker said.
Office for Mac 2011 will feature Excel Sparklines, which allow users to turn large amounts of data into a quick visual summary using tiny charts that fit within a cell near its corresponding values. Microsoft said it made the addition because most people do not relate well to large tables of numbers, but they can digest data quickly with a collection of graphs.
Sparklines will also be supported in Excel 2010 for Windows, which will make it easy for users on both Mac and PC to share workbooks across platforms.
The new Office for Mac will also allow users to do basic photo editing tasks within Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2011. Users will be able to complete tasks such as background removal and color correction.
"Mac users will find this new photo editing capability really important because of their emphasis on high quality graphics, visual fidelity, great layout, and good art in their documents," Schmucker said. "My presentations and my documents are going to look better, they're going to look more professional, and I can do it all in a software package I am familiar with."
Also improved in this year's update is PivotTables for Excel. They allow users to summarize and analyze lists with less effort.
New improvements to PivotTable reports and Excel Tables (formerly known as lists) provide users with tools to help them display the relevant details and add polish to results. The new PivotTable reports are said to be easier to use and more cross-platform compatible in Excel 2011.
Microsoft announced earlier this month that Office for Mac 2011 will ship in late October with a lower price per installation for all editions, starting at $119 for the Home and Student edition, and $199 for the Home and Business version. The 32-bit software suite will be available in 13 launguages: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish. Two new languages were also added to the mix for this year's update: Polish and Russian.
For more, see AppleInsider's extensive coverage of Office for Mac 2011:
Office for Mac 2011 to feature co-authoring, ribbon interface
Road to Office 2011 for Mac: A New Hope
Road to Office 2011: New looks, support for Exchange, VBA
Microsoft officially unveils key Office 201 for Mac features
Microsoft's OfficeforMac.com website was updated Wednesday with the second video of a series demonstrating new features in Office for Mac 2011.
"What we've been able to do in Office for Mac 2011 is to bring a lot of power to bear to produce a professional looking document that's still compatible with Office for Windows," said Kurt Schmucker, senior evangelist with Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit.
He said to ensure consistency between Word for Windows and Word for Mac, the Microsoft team would print out identical documents on both machines and make sure that the physical copies were exactly the same. If any differences were spotted, the team considered that to be a bug that needed to be fixed.
"Everybody speaks Office, and that's why Office for Mac 2011 brings a level of compatibility between the Office for Windows suite and the Office for Mac suite that's never been achieved before," Schmucker said.
Office for Mac 2011 will feature Excel Sparklines, which allow users to turn large amounts of data into a quick visual summary using tiny charts that fit within a cell near its corresponding values. Microsoft said it made the addition because most people do not relate well to large tables of numbers, but they can digest data quickly with a collection of graphs.
Sparklines will also be supported in Excel 2010 for Windows, which will make it easy for users on both Mac and PC to share workbooks across platforms.
The new Office for Mac will also allow users to do basic photo editing tasks within Word, Excel and PowerPoint 2011. Users will be able to complete tasks such as background removal and color correction.
"Mac users will find this new photo editing capability really important because of their emphasis on high quality graphics, visual fidelity, great layout, and good art in their documents," Schmucker said. "My presentations and my documents are going to look better, they're going to look more professional, and I can do it all in a software package I am familiar with."
Also improved in this year's update is PivotTables for Excel. They allow users to summarize and analyze lists with less effort.
New improvements to PivotTable reports and Excel Tables (formerly known as lists) provide users with tools to help them display the relevant details and add polish to results. The new PivotTable reports are said to be easier to use and more cross-platform compatible in Excel 2011.
Microsoft announced earlier this month that Office for Mac 2011 will ship in late October with a lower price per installation for all editions, starting at $119 for the Home and Student edition, and $199 for the Home and Business version. The 32-bit software suite will be available in 13 launguages: Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish. Two new languages were also added to the mix for this year's update: Polish and Russian.
For more, see AppleInsider's extensive coverage of Office for Mac 2011:
Office for Mac 2011 to feature co-authoring, ribbon interface
Road to Office 2011 for Mac: A New Hope
Road to Office 2011: New looks, support for Exchange, VBA
Microsoft officially unveils key Office 201 for Mac features
Comments
Crazy.
Microsoft on Wednesday released a new video highlighting new ways that Office 2011 for Mac users will be able to work with data in Excel and new photo editing tools, all compatible with Office for Windows. ...
This is just sad. These new "features" (as opposed to features), won't add anything but more confusion. There's nothing in this product, this video, or the MS MBU that inspires the slightest bit of confidence that these guys realise what the big problem with their software is.
Since the first version, people have been saying that Mac Office is over-designed, confusing, and bloated. Here we are in the low teens for version numbers, and ... they are adding new "features." WTF?! They just don't get it. It's as if MS was a late 50's car manufacturer and is just focussing on putting cool fins on what is basically the same model as last year.
How about starting from scratch and designing a product that actually does what people want it to do without having to read an 800 page book to figure out all the "features" and turn off all the crap you don't want? How about a product that focusses like a laser beam on the task at hand instead of a bloated "do everything, but none of it well" office suite that takes over your computer? How about listening to people who *don't* use the product, instead of the endless focus groups of middle manager, Office "lifers" with their wish-lists of "features" they'd like to see?
How about making the software work well instead of adding 10,000 more features that no one will use and that just slow the whole thing down?
Thanks Microsoft.
I'll be getting 2011, it'll be a HUGE upgrade over 2008.
Am I the only one who thinks they should just run the whole suite in wine? That's the easiest way to guarantee features and compatibility across both platforms.
Then you'll have people complaining that it doesn't behave like a native app.
Sparkliness? Photo Editing?
How about making the software work well instead of adding 10,000 more features that no one will use and that just slow the whole thing down?
Dead on! I still have my original disquettes of the 1st version of Excel and was faithfull to it thru the years. At one point Excel refused to accept one more cell! Then came in the new version: wow back in business! Then came Office 2004 and God forbids ... Office 2008 with all the bells and whistles... but was unable to import my Office 2004 spreadsheets. Graphs spreadsheets were slow like a turtle on valium! I did complaint to MS but they told me that I was an isolated case while the blogs were flooded with the same.... NO SOLUTION! The buggy Office 2008 remains idling on my cpu! I use Office 2004! Now picture ??? Kidding ??
Give me an zippy Excel version that can handle large spreadsheets just like BEFORE !!!! Plse bring us a "DOWNGRADE" NOT an UPGRADE!!!
On topic, I think this is good. iWork is ok, but Windows compatibility is still weak. Sounds like MSFT is adding "iWork like" features that Office for Windows might not get, but still offer compatibility. How is that bad? I hate to admit that I still use Office, but it's reality.
He said to ensure consistency between Word for Windows and Word for Mac, the Microsoft team would print out identical documents on both machines and make sure that the physical copies were exactly the same. If any differences were spotted, the team considered that to be a bug that needed to be fixed.
Is this for real? It almost sounds like it's 1 April.
Office 2008 sucked. For that matter so did 2007, but not as much. 2010 is a significant improvement. Let's hope that 2011 follows this trend.
VBA: MIA on the mac. This is a huge failure in interoperability
Figure inclusion: Sure a cover letter in word for mac looks the same in word for windows assuming that you chose your fonts wisely. But the second you drop a figure in either platform, the file is then hosed up on the other platform in subtle or sometimes not so subtle ways. It's this reason that I use office in parallels almost exclusively, and when I'm writing something that I control, I use pages.
Even the office figures like the equation editor it can't get right between platforms. I've given up trying.
Sheldon
A big selling point is that this software will be compatible with itself?
Crazy.
Hey it's Microsoft -- call it business as usual.
BTW, basic photo editing has been a feature of iWork for a long time. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they included a rip of Instant Alpha and called it an innovation.
Except, the UI has completely changed since Office 2008 - making it overly not-familiar.
Sure I can work with data in excel and I'm sure editing photos will suck equally on all platforms. But how about the real interoperability problems:
VBA: MIA on the mac. This is a huge failure in interoperability
Sheldon
VBA is coming in office 2011 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/nadyne/archi...ffice-mac.aspx Welcome back macro viruses!
Anyway, I think that office 2011 with VBA (sorry correction) support and outlook is a good replacement for 2008. I am looking forward to it and I hope it does not disappoint.
"Kurt Schmuck-er! Nuff said
Funny thing is that I noticed that name before I saw that YouTube Comment! I wonder if MSFT will ask for that Comment to be Deleted? Probably not, because many more might follow, making Mr. Schmucker feel "young" [and "restless"?], like he is back in High School
Of course one can't expect Kurt (Mr. Schmucker) to be saying the following in that video:
"hey guys, please don't hold my Last Name against me! Trust me, this is a great product, even if the price might be too "stiff", and hard to swallow for some people!!!!"
Doing so would "out-hip" Apple's PR machine!!!
I know it's unfair to make fun of people's names with all the puns, and double meanings etc, but like it's often the case with humor, not all jokes have to be Morally Uplifting to be funny to some people, sometimes!!!
Nuff said
First, don't ever have a guy named Schmucker pitch your products.
On topic, I think this is good. iWork is ok, but Windows compatibility is still weak. Sounds like MSFT is adding "iWork like" features that Office for Windows might not get, but still offer compatibility. How is that bad? I hate to admit that I still use Office, but it's reality.
as someone who knows who kurt schmucker is and his history at Apple, I now actually look forward to seeing the new version of Office