Nice post. Strange though because I remember reading over the course of the last six months from various sources that Microsoft would be killing VBA eventually the next version of Office for Window only to replace it with something else. If I recall, one was even a Microsoft engineer. Either that information was wrong, or Microsoft changed its mind because of client complaints. Killing it didn't make much sense to me because so many large companies have a lot of Macros they rely on.
The loss of VBA in the Mac 2008 Word has hit me hard. There's a program called ScriptWright that's one giant macro for Word that I've been using for years and years to write my TV & movie scripts. Even helped beta test the last couple versions (2004 Mac & 2007 Windows). It's more flexible than Final Draft (which I also use, but only when demanded) and is perfectly set up for me. But, it's VBA, and the creator said he wasn't going to go through all the work of re-coding from scratch for Mac 2008 Word. Total drag. I live in that program/macro. So, 2004 for me on the Mac.
To the folks who have purchased and installed Office '08: do you like it?
I installed it but had to remove it -PowerPoint doesn't work with external vga monitors - so there is no point to it - plus it keeps on crashing - I was truly disapointed.
I even emailed Microsoft for a refund - but they ignored me - totally disgusted
I was just beginning to think that Microsoft could actually make a program that was not terrible but then the spell checker stopped working for no reason.
Now I think I might just buy iWork so at least I get a spell checker.
This once again reaffirms my convection never to use Microsoft products more than absolutely necessary.
It's Microsoft. You should have expected things that you didn't ask for.
Quote:
For me Office 08 is at least twice as fast as Office 04 under Rosetta ever was. But yes, it is buggy as hell right now, and hopefully this update fixes some of the problems.
Huh!? 2008 is definitely at least as slow as 2004. Maybe even slower. I have 10.5.2 on a MacBook with 2 gigs of RAM. NO EXCUSE. MS Office 2008, whether intentionally or not, is just terrible programming. Lousy. It crashes all the time and I do NOT work with complicated documents. Office 2001 was better than 2004, which is better than 2008. What have they added or improved from 2001 to 2008?
I don't know whether they ordered the Mac BU to intentionally suck. But they do. MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc open in a SECOND on modern PCs. They take almost a minute to open on my MacBook. In this day and age we shouldn't have splash screens! It shouldn't be taking that long to open the app!
I bet by later this year the Aqua version of Open Office far surpass MS Office 2008 in quality. I checked out the latest build (http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua.html) and it's coming along nicely.
As someone else said, the fact it's slower than the last version which ran under EMULATION is just plain stupid.
Huh!? 2008 is definitely at least as slow as 2004. Maybe even slower. I have 10.5.2 on a MacBook with 2 gigs of RAM. NO EXCUSE. MS Office 2008, whether intentionally or not, is just terrible programming. Lousy. It crashes all the time and I do NOT work with complicated documents. Office 2001 was better than 2004, which is better than 2008. What have they added or improved from 2001 to 2008?
I don't know whether they ordered the Mac BU to intentionally suck. But they do. MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc open in a SECOND on modern PCs. They take almost a minute to open on my MacBook. In this day and age we shouldn't have splash screens! It shouldn't be taking that long to open the app!
I bet by later this year the Aqua version of Open Office far surpass MS Office 2008 in quality. I checked out the latest build (http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua.html) and it's coming along nicely.
As someone else said, the fact it's slower than the last version which ran under EMULATION is just plain stupid.
I find that Word 2008 works faster than the 2004; Excel is dead stupidly slow in 2008 and has problems. Don't use the other stuff.
Comments
Nice post. Strange though because I remember reading over the course of the last six months from various sources that Microsoft would be killing VBA eventually the next version of Office for Window only to replace it with something else. If I recall, one was even a Microsoft engineer. Either that information was wrong, or Microsoft changed its mind because of client complaints. Killing it didn't make much sense to me because so many large companies have a lot of Macros they rely on.
The loss of VBA in the Mac 2008 Word has hit me hard. There's a program called ScriptWright that's one giant macro for Word that I've been using for years and years to write my TV & movie scripts. Even helped beta test the last couple versions (2004 Mac & 2007 Windows). It's more flexible than Final Draft (which I also use, but only when demanded) and is perfectly set up for me. But, it's VBA, and the creator said he wasn't going to go through all the work of re-coding from scratch for Mac 2008 Word. Total drag. I live in that program/macro. So, 2004 for me on the Mac.
To the folks who have purchased and installed Office '08: do you like it?
I installed it but had to remove it -PowerPoint doesn't work with external vga monitors - so there is no point to it - plus it keeps on crashing - I was truly disapointed.
I even emailed Microsoft for a refund - but they ignored me - totally disgusted
Does anyone know if the update fixes anything??
PowerPoint simply doesent work with Leopard - does anyone know if there is a fix?
Now I think I might just buy iWork so at least I get a spell checker.
This once again reaffirms my convection never to use Microsoft products more than absolutely necessary.
It seems to be more incredible that Word works with iDisk fine.
It's Microsoft. You should have expected things that you didn't ask for.
For me Office 08 is at least twice as fast as Office 04 under Rosetta ever was. But yes, it is buggy as hell right now, and hopefully this update fixes some of the problems.
Huh!? 2008 is definitely at least as slow as 2004. Maybe even slower. I have 10.5.2 on a MacBook with 2 gigs of RAM. NO EXCUSE. MS Office 2008, whether intentionally or not, is just terrible programming. Lousy. It crashes all the time and I do NOT work with complicated documents. Office 2001 was better than 2004, which is better than 2008. What have they added or improved from 2001 to 2008?
I don't know whether they ordered the Mac BU to intentionally suck. But they do. MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc open in a SECOND on modern PCs. They take almost a minute to open on my MacBook. In this day and age we shouldn't have splash screens! It shouldn't be taking that long to open the app!
I bet by later this year the Aqua version of Open Office far surpass MS Office 2008 in quality. I checked out the latest build (http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua.html) and it's coming along nicely.
As someone else said, the fact it's slower than the last version which ran under EMULATION is just plain stupid.
Huh!? 2008 is definitely at least as slow as 2004. Maybe even slower. I have 10.5.2 on a MacBook with 2 gigs of RAM. NO EXCUSE. MS Office 2008, whether intentionally or not, is just terrible programming. Lousy. It crashes all the time and I do NOT work with complicated documents. Office 2001 was better than 2004, which is better than 2008. What have they added or improved from 2001 to 2008?
I don't know whether they ordered the Mac BU to intentionally suck. But they do. MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc open in a SECOND on modern PCs. They take almost a minute to open on my MacBook. In this day and age we shouldn't have splash screens! It shouldn't be taking that long to open the app!
I bet by later this year the Aqua version of Open Office far surpass MS Office 2008 in quality. I checked out the latest build (http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/download/aqua.html) and it's coming along nicely.
As someone else said, the fact it's slower than the last version which ran under EMULATION is just plain stupid.
I find that Word 2008 works faster than the 2004; Excel is dead stupidly slow in 2008 and has problems. Don't use the other stuff.
I also notice that Word is now buggy in some ways that worked correctly before SP1. Specifically:
(I have a MacPro running 10.5.2)
*** In Powerpoint:
\t1. The controls for inserted movies are very buggy. First, checking
\ton "Loop until stopped" causes the movie to loop continuously, but it
\tpauses at the end of roughly every second loop for a second or two,
\tthen jumps back to the beginning and begins playing again. This
\thappens even on small (in X and Y), short (in time) movies, regardless
\tof filetype. Before I installed Service Pack 1, the movie would
\tactually pause in the *middle* of the movie, then jump back to the
\tbeginning; now it pauses at the end of the movie. So its behavior has
\timproved slightly with SP1, but it's still not right.
\t2. To circumvent this bug, I tried manually clicking on the movie
\tafter it has played, in order to replay it. This works once, playing
\tthe movie a second time, but clicking a third time does nothing. One
\tmust click three times to replay the movie a third time. After that
\treplaying, clicking once will immediately replay the movie a fourth
\ttime, and so on in this strange rhythm. Bugs 1 and 2 may be related.
\t3. To circumvent this second bug, I tried checking "Rewind after
\tplaying". This checkbox works correctly on some movies, but not
\tothers. In the latter case, it does nothing, as if the checkbox
\tweren't checked.
\t4. I also tried clicking on the "Show movie controller". This brings
\tup a slider-based movie controller, but what is its purpose? It
\tdisappears as soon as you unselect the object, and it never appears
\tduring the presentation. Thus, you can't use it to control the
\tpresentation, nor to select which frame the movie starts or ends on.
\t5. One more bug about inserted movies - if an image is inserted into a
\tslide in front of a movie (designed for example to appear after I've
\tplayed the movie, then clicked the mouse), then the movie plays
\tjerkily. This behavior regardless of the filetype of the movie. This
\tdoesn't happen in Window Powerpoint 2003.
Since being able to control a movie is mission-critical for me, I gave up on
controlling inserted movies, and decided instead to link to my movie files,
which I would then play in an external player. However, in Powerpoint 2008
this is equally problemmatic.
\t6. First, action settings don't allow you to link to a file, with the
\tnotion that the file would be opened by the default application for
\tthat kind of file; you get an error message "Can't locate or start
\t<filename>". This method of linking to files works in Windows
\tPowerpoint 2003.
\t7. To avoid this bug, I tried hyperlinking to the movie file.
\tHowever, in Powerpoint 2008, if you hyperlink to one of your own files,
\tyou get two pop-up warnings in succession every time you click on the
\tfile, even during your presentation. There appears to be no way to
\tsuppress these pop-ups. Since Powerpoint is supposed to be a public
\tpresentation tool, this effectively makes hyperlinks to files useless.
In desparation, I now pre-launch my movies (before starting my presentation),
and switch tasks to the movie player in the middle of the presentation. In
the year 2008, this is a pretty lame solution to playing movies during talks.
\t8. There appears to be no way to change the color of equations entered
\tusing the Microsoft Equation Editor; black is the only option. Black
\tdoesn't work if your slides are black. In Powerpoint 2003, you could
\t"Recolor object" to change this color. Of course I can circumvent this
\tproblem by changing the slide's color scheme, but since I have dozens
\tof talks that contain equations, this would be a major undertaking.
\t9. The progress bar for the autosave function is very annoying. I
\tlike having my work saved in the background, but I don't like having
\tthe progress bar pop up across my work every 10 minutes. If it's
\treally a background function, then just do it quietly.
\t10. Powerpoint changes the "Date Modified" of files, even if you only
\tlook at them, without making any changes. This makes it hard to keep
\ttrack of when you have modified a presentation. This bug affects only
\t.ppt files, not .pptx files. But I have hundreds of such files, and I
\tkeep them sorted in the Finder using "Date Modified". Yes, I could
\tstart renaming my presentations to include the date every time I modify
\tone, but this is an error-prone workaround.
This bug is so severe that it's almost a show-stopper for me. It may drive me
to either revert to Powerpoint 2003 or 2007 under Parallels or VMWare Fusion,
or switch to Apple's Keynote package.
\t11. Copying/pasting of slides in the slide sorter (or vertical pane
\tsorter) is buggy. Sometimes it displays the icon that leads to the
\t"Keep source formatting" menu, but sometimes it doesn't, even when it
\tshould. Other times it displays the icon, but selecting "Keep source
\tformatting" has no effect on the formatting. This feature works
\treliably in Windows Powerpoint 2003.
*** In Word:
Before installing SP1, I could double-click on .doc files created by previous
versions of Word (or Word on a PC), and they would open correctly. Now, after
installing SP1, they open as blank documents. If I just launch Word, then
File/Open..., then I can open the file fine, but I can't double-click on it in
the Finder. This problem has been reported elsewhere, so it's not just me.
I've been a PC user for years, and I have never seen service packs introduce
such blatent bugs. The quality control on Office for the Mac must be lower than
for PCs. This isn't helping Microsoft's reputation - on any platform.
---
Reluctantly, I must agree with other commentators that this software looks either
like it hasn't been tested enough, or like Microsoft simply doesn't care about
Mac users, or may even be trying to deliberately drive them off the Mac
platform by releasing poor software.
-Marc Levoy
Stanford University