Microsoft officially unveils key Office 2011 for Mac features

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.

Im 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.

Im hoping Apple adds this to 10.7, after all they are already tied together in the OS and through MobileMe.

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.

another overpriced upgrade for some window dressing.

i havent used MS Office for over a year. OpenOffice 3 is just as good, and its free

"A Vista-like Ribbon UI "designed as an evolution of the Office 2008 Elements Gallery"

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.

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?

If this is going to be another $300 - $400 program? So what exactly am I paying for? I'll wait for iWork 2011. I have a feeling Apple has been waiting to release iWork 2011 until after Microsoft is committed to releasing MS Office 2011 for the MAC and can't add (copy) anymore features. I'll keep my copy of Office 2004 if I really have to use MS Office.

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.

well, out of the top of my mind, at least 3 "very advanced" and hard to implement in iWork features:

1. Autosave.
2. Cross-References
3. a SERIOUS style manager, where i don't have to "write some gibberish on the doc, format it as i whant and then save it /update it.
4. Excel... for those that do know how to use it, there's no comparison unfortunately

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 like using mail, calendar and address book together, and for free:

Google.

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 either...the only new "feature" is spotlight search...

YAWN! I would LOVE to see something INNOVATIVE from M$, JUST for a change!

PS: Did they FINALLY bring back MS Project to the Mac?!

The new Office looks fantastic. Congrats MacBU!

Kinda weird that they talk about the ribbon like it's an UI achievement...

A new release of iWork must be imminent.

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.

Sure, if you want big brother to search and index all of your communications, schedules, and contacts.

exactly!

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.

Becausse it is significantly better than iWork if you are beyond the high school level

Auto-save is an extremely important feature. If you're working on an important and lengthy work document or college thesis, there is nothing worse than having the power go out or someone tripping over a power cord losing all your information.

You make an interesting point in essentially mentioning the iOS style of saving items but it doesn't solve the problem. iOS saves the document when you quit the app and not when there is a sudden power loss. Since devices like iPad are mobile products, it is a non-issue.

BTW there is an app out there that autosaves iWork documents so some Mac user thought it was a lacking feature.

Right! Until there is concrete information on pricing, what´s the point of even considering this bloatware?????

It looks like this will be a strong competitor to other, more Office-compatible products available for the Mac such as OpenOffice and NeoOffice, and arguably, iWork. MS Mac Office has been an intriguing, if wrecky, homage to the true Office compatible applications, especially the famous Windows compatible product, Microsoft Office. While useless for true business use, I think it might go well in a museum for conceptual art. Kind of like that shark in the plexiglass tank, or the porcelain urinal. Mac Office... it makes you laugh, and then have an existential crisis. It's post-software software.

as opposed to using office for fun?


again, obviously it is for work... but what i mean is: you insert a picture, add an automatic numbered caption (legend : "Figure 8 - ") to it and there cross-reference it in your text like "Figure 8 shows that..."
now if you go back and insert other picture before "figure 8", and automatic caption it, it updates the text and caption to figure 8 (which will now be Figure 9) . So you don't have to be fishing around to "cross-references" everytime you change somethin in your document order or add something. this for Equations, graphs, bibliography etc etc


well, let me tell you that it would have really helped me out when i found out that pages didn't have one and lost 10 pages of a phd article draft. i saved it once in the beginning, because with Word you do that to get autosave working, and then wrote it all through the night and when i finished and was going to format it, tried to click save but clicked "iwork.com" instead and puff! there it was, a pages crash, no recovery of document and a night of work (inspired one i might say) gone.

it s a main "beef" because it actually helps people, it is a main and basic feature of every single text editor i know, and it should have been implemented since day one! EVEN TEXTEDITOR.APP HAS ONE! it's ridiculous that a so called "professional writing app" doesn't.

Couldn't agree more. It's my one remaining issue with "letting go" of MS altogether. For better or worse, Entourage does a better job of syncing my proprietary work calendar/clients/etc. to my Apple equivalents on my Mac and iPhone than Apple does on it's own. Go figure.

pressing command+S every hour or so was too much work hey?

Yes, autosave should exist and save different versions of the document with unlimited undo. But if you're typing all night, every time you take a breather, just hit command S. If you're in the habit of that, it's almost as good as autosave.

I've studiously avoided Microsoft Orifice for years. I had to use the latest PowerPoint for a presentation recently and, shockingly, came away impressed. The Smart Art feature in particular made it easy to create great looking graphics with a minimum of fuss. I still prefer Keynote, but PowerPoint 2008 is much better than earlier versions.

Why should anyone lose even an hour of work?
Only a very conventional, noncreative person has never experienced losing track of time in the creative process. Such a person wouldn't need to press command+S at all. Who would find value in their work?

sarrica
Registered User
Join Date: Jan 2002
Posts: 1

Wow good topic to make your debut since 2002.

I actually went over to Open Office for a few years, but with the release of office 07 and 08 I came back because they were genuinely better and easier to use. Changes can be previewed instantaneously, formulas are a lot more complete and power points are a lot easier to make.

I also tried iWork briefly and it seemed really bad with the exception of Keynote which is miles ahead of PPT, which is impressive. In the end though MS still makes the best productivity software in my book.

If you liked PP then you shouldn't say orifice. I generally don't like MS products but Office is the exception and credit should be given where it's due.

Any Mac user knows that it was MS who primarily saved Apple 13 years ago. They may not like it but it is the truth. There were other mitigating factors but that doesn't change anything.

Truth is that the Mac wouldn't exist if not for Office and Boot Camp and I'm a loyal Mac user.

Bah it's still shit. On Beta 5 I get consistent crashes when inserting equations.

I only use it because the world is on it, if only Google Docs was more powerful, or we could all use Pages!

if i only lost an hour of work, would it have been better? or more bearable?



and in between breathes and command-save, you wouldn't mind that i actually do some work if i manage to get the time?

For any kind of complex worksheet, it's hard to replace Excel which is one of the best pieces of software in existence for Mac or PC.

Or maybe what MS meant was that beta meant beta. Just because Google keeps a product in beta for 7 years doesn't mean that all products in beta are ready for primetime.

Yes, prioritizing email addresses within a card should be a matter of dragging up or down to position it


I have no problems here - I am not saying it is better than what you are used to in Windows but user friendliness and 'ease of use' or often more functions of 'what you are used to' than anything else.

Again - no problems here for me. I use search a lot. There are available search software that greatly improves how you can search in Mail. Can't you use smart folders?

Ouch! But you need to chill. If you hate the Mac way so much maybe you need to return to the world of non-morons. But seriously, I have no problems with any of this. Why do you have to open Mail? If you leave it running its a quick cmd-tab to flip into mail to have a look. If it really is killing you then use g-mail and Firefox with the appropriate extension to tell you who has emailed you in a similar fashion to Windows.
Now you are getting silly - the messiah jobs? I think you'll find that the day Apple starts behaving like what I suspect you feel constitutes a 'Real Company' is the day we all walk away. In fact, I suspect most of the Apple leadership would do the same as the fun will have gone.

I'm a Mac user, but apparently not 'any' because I don't know how MS saved Apple 13 years ago. Are you referring the non-voting shares thy bought at a value much less than what Apple paid for NeXT or value of Apple at the time?


Mac, circa 1984; but you surely meant it would no linger exist but note that the iMac was the machine that spurred a significant jump in Mac sales, then again with Intel chip to replace the high TDP PPC chips that were no longer offering performance advantages or evolving quickly enough to satisfy PC needs, not any 3rd-party SW. I bet we can also see dramatic interest in Mac sales when the unibody notebooks were introduced.

The next iWork will beat the pants of this late wanna-be application.

Congratulations to MS for trying to please Mac Users! But I won't use it.