Microsoft releases Office 2008 SP1, says VBA to make return

Posted:
in Mac Software edited January 2014
Microsoft on Tuesday released Service Pack 1 for Office 2008 and also provided a glimpse at its roadmap for the Mac productivity suite by announcing the return of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) in the next version.



Since its release at Macworld Expo 2008, sales of Office 2008 for Mac have "soared," the Redmond-based software giant said, "selling faster than any previous version of Office for Mac in the past 19 years."



"The response has been amazing -- since we launched in January, the velocity of sales for Office 2008 is nearly three times what we saw after the launch of Office 2004," said Craig Eisler, general manager of the Mac BU at Microsoft.



Eisler's team on Tuesday made its biggest move yet towards fortifying the office suite with the release of Service Pack 1 (SP1), which aims to increase overall stability, and provide security and performance enhancements to the suite.



In particular, the update will deliver improvements to printing accuracy and reliability in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. It should also deliver improved compatibility with files exchanged between Excel 2008 for Mac and Excel 2003 and Excel 2007 for Windows, Microsoft said.



Meanwhile, Word will gain updates to Notebook layout view and improved document map responsiveness, while PowerPoint's AppleScript compatibility will see enhancements that will offer users the ability to use the PowerPoint selection object in AppleScript to implement custom scripts that operate on the current selection in PowerPoint.



Some other changes target Entourage, such as improved calendar views and Exchange support. The personal information manager and email client will also gain the ability to send and view image from third-party tools.



As part of its announcements Tuesday, the Mac BU also said it intends to bring VBA-language support back to the next version of Office for Mac, but offered no timeframe for the update.



"Sharing information with customers as early as possible continues to be a priority for the Mac BU to allow customers to plan for their software needs," the group said. "Although the Mac BU increased support in Office 2008 with alternate scripting tools such as Automator and AppleScript -- and also worked with MacTech Magazine to create a reference guide -- the team recognizes that VBA-language support is important to a select group of customers who rely on sharing macros across platforms."



Office 2008 users can download the SP1 update for free at Microsoft's Mactopia Website (not yet available at press time), or can receive the file automatically via the Microsoft Auto Update installed as part of initial version of the productivity suite.



Readers interested in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac can purchase various version of the suite at Amazon.com at discounts of up to 21 percent, or check out AppleInsider's 6-part, in-depth Road to Mac Office 2008 series published earlier.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 47
    They better have fixed the spaces issues in word...
  • Reply 2 of 47
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    ...also said it intends to bringing VBA-language support...



    /me intends to slapping Kasper for the lack of a grammar check on this one.



    GET A PROOF-READER! YOU'RE A PROFESSIONAL MAC SITE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.



    -Clive
  • Reply 3 of 47
    virgil-tb2virgil-tb2 Posts: 1,416member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    ... Since its release at Macworld Expo 2008, sales of Office 2008 for Mac have "soared," ... "selling faster than any previous version of Office for Mac in the past 19 years."... "The response has been amazing...



    This is quite easy to achieve when you don't release an update to the previous product for five or six years.



    Where I work (all Mac University environment), every single person gets a copy of it for 5 bucks so there's about 600 hundred "sales" right there. However most found it so unusable they asked for a rollback to the 2004 edition. Actual number of Office 2008 users versus the 600 "sales"? ...



    Probably 80 or so.
  • Reply 4 of 47
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member
    I wonder whose idea it was to remove VBA in the fist place?!
  • Reply 5 of 47
    dr_lhadr_lha Posts: 236member
    Only Microsoft would release a press release saying Office 2008 SP1 is released before its actually released. WTF? Did they not expect that people might think such a press release might actually mean that the patch was downloadable now?
  • Reply 6 of 47
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    I would buy it if it came with Access. I wonder what the problem is. Is there any application that can edit and save Access file format on Mac?
  • Reply 7 of 47
    cubertcubert Posts: 728member
    Once someone downloads the SP and installs it, can you post on the speed of Office 2008? I have stuck with 2004 because of how dog slow 2008 is on both Power PC's and Intel Macs. Many owners of Intel Macs are saying that 2004 runs faster under Rosetta than 2008 does natively!
  • Reply 8 of 47
    dr_lhadr_lha Posts: 236member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cubert View Post


    Once someone downloads the SP and installs it, can you post on the speed of Office 2008? I have stuck with 2004 because of how dog slow 2008 is on both Power PC's and Intel Macs. Many owners of Intel Macs are saying that 2004 runs faster under Rosetta than 2008 does natively!



    The 12.0.1 update actually helped a lot with the slowness of the first release of Office 2008, hopefully SP1 will continue that trend.
  • Reply 9 of 47
    mr_zebramr_zebra Posts: 85member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cubert View Post


    Once someone downloads the SP and installs it, can you post on the speed of Office 2008? I have stuck with 2004 because of how dog slow 2008 is on both Power PC's and Intel Macs. Many owners of Intel Macs are saying that 2004 runs faster under Rosetta than 2008 does natively!



    That has certainly been my experience.



    The other day it took Word 45 seconds to open a new document.
  • Reply 10 of 47
    bwikbwik Posts: 565member
    Wow, so in the future they will de-downgrade Office for the Mac somewhat (but not all the way).



    Maybe by 2012 or so, Office for the Mac will equal Office 97 for the PC. But I actually doubt it (Access, Macros, etc).
  • Reply 11 of 47
    mr. hmr. h Posts: 4,870member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by NasserAE View Post


    I wonder whose idea it was to remove VBA in the fist place?!



    It was removed because the VBA runtime environment was coded at a very low-level (lots of PPC assembly code), so it was considered too hard/time consuming to port to Intel.



    That and it now gives them a "major feature" for the next version of Office for Mac.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    I would buy it if it came with Access. I wonder what the problem is



    I'm 100% sure this is fear from central Microsoft management that having Access available for OS X would remove a huge barrier to OS X adoption by business. I.e., they fear that Access for OS X = huge market-share losses for Windows.
  • Reply 12 of 47
    I run the update and says searching for program then comes back saying it can't find the program.... wont let me search for program even though Office 2008 is installed in the default location.
  • Reply 13 of 47
    nasseraenasserae Posts: 3,167member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. H View Post


    It was removed because the VBA runtime environment was coded at a very low-level (lots of PPC assembly code), so it was considered too hard/time consuming to port to Intel.



    That and it now gives them a "major feature" for the next version of Office for Mac.



    That makes sense. Microsoft being lazy as usual
  • Reply 14 of 47
    heyjpheyjp Posts: 39member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SARO91201 View Post


    I run the update and says searching for program then comes back saying it can't find the program.... wont let me search for program even though Office 2008 is installed in the default location.



    Mine seems to have installed fine and I'm using Word, Excel, and PPT all simultaneously now. No major issues thus far.



    Jim
  • Reply 15 of 47
    jbh0001jbh0001 Posts: 80member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. H View Post


    It was removed because the VBA runtime environment was coded at a very low-level (lots of PPC assembly code), so it was considered too hard/time consuming to port to Intel.



    That was the official line. But since the beta of OpenOffice 3.0 for the Mac is boasting "limited" support for VBA, Microsoft is having to back peddle.



    Yes, competition is a good thing.
  • Reply 16 of 47
    dagamer34dagamer34 Posts: 494member
    For some reason after I install SP1, the Setup Assistant keeps poppping up asking if i want to enroll in their consumer participation program, but my app never runs after that!



    What is this, shoddy bug testing?
  • Reply 17 of 47
    blufireblufire Posts: 8member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dagamer34 View Post


    For some reason after I install SP1, the Setup Assistant keeps poppping up asking if i want to enroll in their consumer participation program, but my app never runs after that!



    What is this, shoddy bug testing?



    Same experience here, and someone on MacUpdate is also getting this.
  • Reply 18 of 47
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by blufire View Post


    Same experience here, and someone on MacUpdate is also getting this.



    I'm also getting this behavior. Hope a solution is found.
  • Reply 19 of 47
    desarcdesarc Posts: 642member
    "since we launched in January, the velocity of sales for Office 2008 is nearly three times what we saw after the launch of Office 2004"





    ...this is because three times as many people are using mac's instead of pc's as they were 4 years ago.
  • Reply 20 of 47
    frank777frank777 Posts: 5,839member
    Yeah, I think this is mainly being announced because OpenOffice is about to launch on the Mac. Redmond is afraid MS Office will eventually be eclipsed as the leading cross-platform solution for Businesses.



    If Sun had gotten a clue and ported the software earlier, OO might be the leading solution already.
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