Microsoft Office 2004 - Page 5

What about backwards compatibility with previous versions of Word XP and power point XP? I can use my Mac to make my presentations and documents, but my freakin job won't allow me to use my Mac to present. I need to present using an XP portable.

Will I benefit from purchasing 2004 with these caveats?
Will I run into new problems transferring documents from either program into XP equivalents?

The compatibilty features of 2004 will be very useful for you. You should have little or no issue moving files created on your Mac into Office XP with virtually no change. Anything that might represent a problem will be reported when you save, so you can plan for/change it as necessary.

Is the new Entourage in Office 2004 better than Apple Mail now?

Depends on your needs, I suppose--I like it better, personally, but I preferred the last version of Entourage to Mail, so I'm simply standing by old preferences.

When using notebook view, is the sound of your typing extremely annoying when recording. I would think that would completely ruin the playback value. I am especially interested in this as that is the only feature for which that I would consider buying it.

I have not tried it yet but a pal told me that connecting the iSight solved the keyboard noise problem.

Daniel

First post on the page might answer your question.

Thanks for the input. I am guessing the iSight trick would work with any external mic. I am thinking about getting the Micflex USB microphone that has just been released. I am also considering an iSight for making other types of recordings. Just how good is the iSight microphone for voice recordings and is it recognized as a microphone by apps such as Word 2004 and GB? Or is it strictly a Web cam? Sorry if these questions seem obvious. I don't want to buy more than I have to or less than I need.

How are PDF graphics when imported/droped into PowerPoint or Word? Do they look good, like in Keynote, or are they still crap like in OfficeX? Thanks.

Well for me they look fine in both vX and 2k4 so I am not sure what you are asking about.

Daniel

For me the results are noticably blury. Maybe its best seen when trying to increase the size of a pdf file beyond its original size.

Regarding Student and Teacher version:

I have heard you get no updates with this version? Is that true?

There are no upgrades at S&T prices so you must purchase the full version each release cycle. You get standard service packs and the software is updateable if you no longer qualify for the S&T price when the next update comes around.

if you mean you don't get on the cheap commercial upgrade path, then yes, you're right. pretty standard with companies. if you are a student, they figure you're going to go through one or two major revisions of the software, tops, during your tenure, and since the price breaks are so significant on the edu packages anyway, they figure they can ask you to shell out for another edu purchase outright when it comes out.

that way, there is incentive for you to eventually get on the commercial path, as over the long haul, you're paying LESS to be a commercial license, while over the short (1-5 year) term, you generally pay less with educational discounts. adobe and macromedia say the same thing, though i have used a commercial upgrade to upgrade an educational license before. adobe just didn't tell me that it would work... i just tried it.

F**k no! It really has no improvement, according to this article. Microsoft if f**king Apple over this support. It is rediculous. I expect Tiger's (10.4) Mail app to better support Exchange than the garbage Microsoft is providing. I hope NO ONE buys this piece of trash!

Rhumgod, chill out my man...let's at least let the software be released before we start throwing feces at it.

Well...The good people of MacBU have most likely intentionally been ordered by their superiors to not now or ever fully support Exchange. Just like they were ordered to can IE, not allow Windoze Media Player for Mac to be 100% compatible, or let Opera use MSN. They should have been split up for this but hey that's politic$.

Wow, got Microsoft Office 2004 S&T edition. It is awesome. Way better than Office X, its faster, more stable, and has really cool features.

Got the Test Drive. Seems to come with more fonts or is it just me. Damn Entourage really is slick. Come on now VPC 7. I hope they really add a lot to it. Mainly speed, could use other things. Perhaps integrating it with Microsoft Remote Desktop? Make Remote Desktop more advanced (add features Timbuktu / Citrix have)

I got my answer of at Mac-in-touch today:

Quote:

Andrew Macrae
I'm very disappointed to find that the new Office still does not support the OS X native graphics file format -- PDF. Okay, you can "import" a PDF, but all you're importing is the 72 dpi bitmap preview image, not the actual PDF data. Compare this with AppleWorks -- which imports the full resolution (i.e. resolution independent) vector PDF data. I've bought every single upgrade to Office since Word 1.0, but I won't be shelling out for this one.

End Quote.

This was the main reason I would have dished out for new Office Apps. Come on Apple and release Apple Office.

If Apple makes Apple Office they'll be making almost every app I use. Not sure if this is good or bad. If they make an Office, I think they should make a Windows Office too.

I hear you on the concern of an Apple monopoly and what Apple may be doing to push other software developers out of the Mac market. It is a tough issue and I'm sure there has been much discussion going on inside Apple on it. Maybe the reason we haven't sen a new/updated/ office suite from Apple is because of fear that MS would dumb their efforts.

However, I really love what Apple has done with all their software. I really beleive a melding of Keynote with a word processor would quickly become my word processor of choice. It's is really stupid that MS Office can't handle the PDF graphics I can "print" out from any OSX app. They look like complete crap when imported into word or powerpoint.

I'm just hoping that the reason Apple hasn't come out with a new version yet is that it really is a grand undertaking to come up with an Office bundle that not only catches up with MS Office, but leaves it in the dust.

hmm. i'd guess that apple is probably working on an office suite just as a contingency plan. i doubt they'd try to take on microsoft office for x directly. it simply has too much brand recognition and it would take a lot of effort to convince people that they could use the apple office suite and still interoperate with microsoft office. the compatability between pc and mac office suites is of paramount importance. but i'd be very surprised if they weren't working on appleworks to some degree just as a hedge.

it really wouldn't be smart of them to try to displace office, incur the wrath of microsoft and put any enterprise plans they MAY have at jeopardy just to spite microsoft.

Well, for anyone who wants to know, I'm currently working on a Cocoa word processor that basically is Keynote for word processing. So, if Apple isn't working on one, don't despair, because one is coming .

Is it possible to export the audio notes from notebook mode to eaither burn on a CD or put on an iPod?

Macaddict16

The Apple Office / iOffice / AppleWorks successor situation is something that, every once in a while, I just sit and puzzle over. Clearly, Apple was considering going down the Apple Office route at some point, when they hired the team that originally made BeProductive suite (for the BeOS). That was over two years ago (IIRC)...

Since then, AppleWorks has remained on bare-bones life support, and nothing has happened. Did Apple abandon the whole project, reading MS's folding of the new IE6 for Mac engine into MSN as a warning sign? Did the work begun on an Apple WP get instead folded into Panther's text engine, with it's basic .doc support? Is Apple still working on consumer-level "Works" suite, or staying far out of MS's way? It's all wild speculation.

Seems to me that the most strategic decision would be to work on a very consumer-friendly, basic "Works" suite, with lots of interesting features, Apple-style ease-of-use and polish, and as-good-as-possible Office compatibility... as a replacement to the aging and clunky AppleWorks. (Perhaps it could even make use of some the Office-compatability parts from KOffice or OpenOffice.) Should MS ever slash its Mac development for Office, this suite could then be expanded into a full Office version.

Where Keynote fits into the whole thing I'm not sure. Clearly Keynote was an experiment to see how many people would bite at an Apple-style Office application. I'm not sure exactly what the results were, and what Apple learned from it.

Perhaps we'll find out more next MWSF, but who knows.

Sounds good.

Footnotes, margins, dictionary, .doc compatibility...?

It came up in a previous thread that since Adobe killed Framemaker, that an Apple version of word may be more targeted at the page layout crowd than at the pure text document crowd. Something in between MS Word and InDesign/Quark. It would be a delicate act to sell it as neither a competitor to either of these but rather as a new product to fill a niche. Maybe aimed at the SOHO crowd.

As a scientist, I mainly write papers and grants, and for this placing figures into the text (grants) is important. This is old hat, did it back in MS Word 5, but I have to say if anything MS has made it less simple over the years. Certainly no improvements.

Then again, Apple is slowly pouncing on the Entiprise ball and offering their version of Office for the cost of the computer would be good for switchers. I think if you add in the cost of MS Office to going Mac, it really prevents many from switching.

Footnotes: Check
Margins: Check
Dictionary: Do you mean spell checking? If so, Check
.Doc Compatibility: Initially it will use basically the same compatibility conversion that TextEdit uses, but .doc compatibility will be improved for a 1.0.x release

Be warned, I'm finding compatibility issues between Office 2004 and Adobe CS.

tables?

stylesheets?

Anyone have success connecting via Exchange 5.5 Server? I can access e-mail via IMAP, but not as an Exchange configuration (same settings).

Also, anyone have success connecting to LDAP.

My company runs 5.5, but there is an OWA server that I can log into. How do I set it up to use OWA?

Tables - Yes

Stylesheets - Not for the first release, but it will be implemented soon after