Cleaner? How is that cleaner. Looks pretty fugly. I think the best bet for Microsoft is to copy iWork. They're pretty good at it.
The Inspector is hardly perfect either. Many simple tasks are hidden on tabs, numbered headings don't work very well either, especially for professional documents.
I do have Office 2008 at work, but I almost never use Word, Excel or PowerPoint. I have it for Exchange server support (and other than the complete lack of formatting options available, other than some very limited HTML-formatting, I think Exchange is a decent substitute for Outlook and has one feature that blows Outlook away: The Project Center).
For Word and Excel documents, I always use NeoOffice when I need to be compatible with other users. When I'm not sharing documents, everything I do is in iWork. I find its inspector palette (especially the ability to have multiple inspectors open) allows me to do things twice as fast. Don't even get me started on PowerPoint - it's a piece of garbage compared to Keynote, requiring one to open up multiple dialogs every time you want to animate an object: what kind of animation? how fast should it animate? when should it animate? All of this is done with a single step in Keynote.
That said, I'm still anxious for Office 2011. If it finally allows table creation inside of email documents and the ability to create server-side rules, that will be worth the cost alone. Toss in support for VBA and I'll be very happy. I might even start to use it again
The Mac version of the latest incarnation of Office is still leaps and bounds better in the UI than the Windows version. If any of you have looked at the Windows version were MS controls the horizontal and vertical of the UI, I personally think they have destroyed any sense of usability with the Windows version. They've replaced the "File" menu with the Microsoft Windows "blob" that doesn't really give anyone a clear indication that it can be clicked on, much less have features under it.
I have no idea what focus group MS used that deemed what they are doing now with their Windows Office package to be user-friendly. They moved around functionality for the sole purpose of moving it around as near as I can tell. It's terrible to try to support it and there's no ability for making it run in "classic" mode.
2003 was the last decent version of Office for Windows. Fortunately MS can't make Apple get rid of the traditional File, Edit, View, etc. menuing system. So the Mac version at least retains it's usability. I can't say the same for the Windows version...
Yawwwn. But come on Prince Daniel, it's MSO you're writing about. I mean that is so last century. I'm bemused by your near enthusiasm. You getting to like bloatware as you get older, your Majesty?
Nobody should be paying for office software anymore in my opinion, it has little room to grow and the market is flooded with cheap and decent alternatives.
Since when does cheap matter to Mac users? Since when do Mac users accept merely "decent" software?
Microsoft Office is the real deal. Cheap, not-as-good software has no place in the Apple ecosystem.
I thought I would phase out using Office when I bought my latest Mac, but the truth is because we use Office at the office, I still need it and in the end, it's rare that I use iWork. IMO, Word has almost always been total crap, especially when it tries to guess what you want and my Windows version crashes fairly often with large documents. Even though it does auto backups, sometimes I've made a large number of complex changes to spec documents between those intervals and I tend to start screaming and throwing things when it crashes. In fact, in one of the screens in the above article, the screen shot says "recovered" in the document name, indicating that it had crashed.
When they first came out with the new interface for the Windows version, I hated it, but once you get used to it, it doesn't make much difference and there are certain things it does better, although there are other things it does far worse than previous versions (like you can't store multiple custom page setups and you can't customize the toolbar, which really reduces my productivity for certain operations).
For the most part, I haven't had any problems with formatting shifting from Mac to PC and back in the current version. I don't like the way the current Mac version handles comments...the bubbles of the PC version are much better.
If it's cheap, I probably will upgrade. Also, I still prefer Entourage to Apple's mail program and now that Microsoft will be using Outlook, I'll probably want to switch.
If you work for yourself (or don't work), iWorks is probably more than fine. Keynote certainly kills Powerpoint. Numbers has some features that Excel doesn't have, although the reverse is true as well and I've always thought that Excel was Microsoft's best and most reliable app.
I don't see anything terrible wrong with the interface in the screen shots, although you never know until you actually use it.
The Office 2011 screen shot looks like somebody puked up icons onto a screen...yuk. I've used office 2007 on windows for a year now and I still hate the ribbon (Fluent) crap...it's horrible.
The time is coming when people will recognize that simplicity is the key to making life better and more productive. MS Office, with all of its complicated features and nearly useless help menu, is a dinosaur waiting for extinction.
Think of it this way: You go to the grocery store to purchase breakfast cereal. You are overwhelmed by the number of choices available (to say nothing of the marketers who intentionally move products around to keep you impulse shopping. You cannot find what you want is a reasonable length of time. You give up, grab something you don't want, and go home irritated because someone has made your busy life more difficult...on purpose.
That's much like using MS Office. It has tons of choices and options. But you only use a few and if you don't know how those work, it is very time consuming to figure out.
The iPod and iPhone succeed not because they are the most feature loaded, but because you get what you want hassle free. Kind of like the difference between iWork and MS Office.
I am forecasting the slow death of MS Office. Why slow? Because it takes time for people to realize that they have been bamboozled for years and reach the "Aha! Moment" where they can relax and just get something that works.
It could be so much better, why doesn't Microsoft ever trying something risky? They should look to iTunes as an example on how to do interfaces. Their new toolbar is ugly. So many boxes, separators, gradients, its disgusting.
I mean look at that search bar! Couldn't they look to Safari as a better example? Seriously, if Microsoft people are reading this, look at the Safari search bar.
Comments
Cleaner? How is that cleaner. Looks pretty fugly. I think the best bet for Microsoft is to copy iWork. They're pretty good at it.
The Inspector is hardly perfect either. Many simple tasks are hidden on tabs, numbered headings don't work very well either, especially for professional documents.
As for copying... seriously?
For Word and Excel documents, I always use NeoOffice when I need to be compatible with other users. When I'm not sharing documents, everything I do is in iWork. I find its inspector palette (especially the ability to have multiple inspectors open) allows me to do things twice as fast. Don't even get me started on PowerPoint - it's a piece of garbage compared to Keynote, requiring one to open up multiple dialogs every time you want to animate an object: what kind of animation? how fast should it animate? when should it animate? All of this is done with a single step in Keynote.
That said, I'm still anxious for Office 2011. If it finally allows table creation inside of email documents and the ability to create server-side rules, that will be worth the cost alone. Toss in support for VBA and I'll be very happy. I might even start to use it again
Granted this laptop isn't used in a Business environment, So far I'm really liking Iwork.
I am working towards a total migration from PC to Mac , Now if the wife would follow along it would be easier
I have no idea what focus group MS used that deemed what they are doing now with their Windows Office package to be user-friendly. They moved around functionality for the sole purpose of moving it around as near as I can tell. It's terrible to try to support it and there's no ability for making it run in "classic" mode.
2003 was the last decent version of Office for Windows. Fortunately MS can't make Apple get rid of the traditional File, Edit, View, etc. menuing system. So the Mac version at least retains it's usability. I can't say the same for the Windows version...
Without Microsoft and Adobe, where would Apple be right now?
Nobody should be paying for office software anymore in my opinion, it has little room to grow and the market is flooded with cheap and decent alternatives.
Since when does cheap matter to Mac users? Since when do Mac users accept merely "decent" software?
Microsoft Office is the real deal. Cheap, not-as-good software has no place in the Apple ecosystem.
When they first came out with the new interface for the Windows version, I hated it, but once you get used to it, it doesn't make much difference and there are certain things it does better, although there are other things it does far worse than previous versions (like you can't store multiple custom page setups and you can't customize the toolbar, which really reduces my productivity for certain operations).
For the most part, I haven't had any problems with formatting shifting from Mac to PC and back in the current version. I don't like the way the current Mac version handles comments...the bubbles of the PC version are much better.
If it's cheap, I probably will upgrade. Also, I still prefer Entourage to Apple's mail program and now that Microsoft will be using Outlook, I'll probably want to switch.
If you work for yourself (or don't work), iWorks is probably more than fine. Keynote certainly kills Powerpoint. Numbers has some features that Excel doesn't have, although the reverse is true as well and I've always thought that Excel was Microsoft's best and most reliable app.
I don't see anything terrible wrong with the interface in the screen shots, although you never know until you actually use it.
Because of their garish colors, ...lame icons...I don't contemplate ever buying software from Microsoft again.
The screen animations could be improved as well.
Good catch!!! I just had to go back to the original article to see and there it was.
Cheap, not-as-good software has no place in the Apple ecosystem.
Neither does expensive, buggy crap which, in my opinion, Microsoft Office is, along with the rest of their garbage software.
If you want to be a happy computer user, avoid Microsoft at all costs.
Think of it this way: You go to the grocery store to purchase breakfast cereal. You are overwhelmed by the number of choices available (to say nothing of the marketers who intentionally move products around to keep you impulse shopping. You cannot find what you want is a reasonable length of time. You give up, grab something you don't want, and go home irritated because someone has made your busy life more difficult...on purpose.
That's much like using MS Office. It has tons of choices and options. But you only use a few and if you don't know how those work, it is very time consuming to figure out.
The iPod and iPhone succeed not because they are the most feature loaded, but because you get what you want hassle free. Kind of like the difference between iWork and MS Office.
I am forecasting the slow death of MS Office. Why slow? Because it takes time for people to realize that they have been bamboozled for years and reach the "Aha! Moment" where they can relax and just get something that works.
I mean look at that search bar! Couldn't they look to Safari as a better example? Seriously, if Microsoft people are reading this, look at the Safari search bar.
Then WTF you on AppleInsider...? You going to die to protect Window Vista too...because I want my money back.
No hard feeling man but Microsoft / Steve Ballmer sux big time.
Relax, I'm pretty sure that was a joke...
Can we just have Word 5.1 for OS X/Intel? That's the last version that wasn't crammed with poorly-functioning features that hardly anyone uses.
My favorite word processor was Word 3.01 on an SE/30. Lean, quick, easy to use. Powered my college newspaper (including AP feed) and my class papers.