To the folks who have purchased and installed Office '08: do you like it?
So far, I'm not impressed. Load times are much slower, SYLK imports to Excel seem to be broken (it hangs when I try to import a report from QuickBooks), but, I will say that the apps are faster once they've launched.
Overall, I don't see it as being functionally much better than 2004.
btw- The update isn't showing up in MAU for me...
[Edit] Just installed the update. Load times seem a little faster, but SYLK import is still broken. Meh.
I installed it expecting it to be ugly but I was genuinely surprised at how buggy and slow it is on *top* of the ugly.
Load times are *glacial* on a standard 20" iMac desktop even with an extra Gig of RAM. Lots and lots of redraw problems, and frequent (like every third or fourth mouse movement), pauses in the interface. I can't even drag a window out of the way of another without the interface freezing entirely for a second or so. Hopelessly "beta-esque" behaviour IMO. Both the machine and the OS I am using (Leopard) were out for months before they shipped this puppy also.
I will try the update, but so far it hasn't shown up. I guess that rather than telling us the server is busy, MS is merely pretending they don't have an update for me right now.
I was also very disappointed at all the stuff Office installs even when you specifically request only Word and Excel. No one does this nowadays except for Microsoft and Adobe. Why, why why? Users don't have the right to install what they want on their hard drives? Sheesh!
Don't even get me started on why (in 2008!) the Office settings folder is *stil*l stuck in my Documents folder (in violation of the application guidelines), and can't be moved.
WOW - hope the 23 people who bought the suite don't crash their servers while they all rush to download it all at once.
We have a winner!
PS. Shouldn't MS get the tech version of a razzie for releasing an upgrade that's slower than the previous version that ran under EMULATION? That's really quite an accomplishment if you stop to think about it.
I am about to drop Office for good in favor of Apple apps.
It takes sometime 3 to 4 minutes to start up the Office apps. Entourage and Word specially. I already disable the fonts WYGIWYS in the preferences. etc.
I have a MacPro Octo 2.8 with 10 gig of RAM.
My old Office 2004 would take 5 seconds or less.
Man I hate Micro **** !
I just hate it. Any solution for this issue?
Thanks
I don't know what you're doing wrong, but it takes me seconds to load up files in Office 08 (iWork takes longer.) I have a MacBook Pro 2.16.
I just tried to update and it said no updates are available. Then I remember downloading this update 2 weeks ago. Was I a beta tester? [...]
Regardless, first-time launch time seems to be slightly faster.
The updater wasn't working for me either. You need to go to the web page linked to in the AppleInsider article and download the disk image (dmg).
If you installed something a couple of weeks ago, it was probably the "Office Update Updater" or whatever they called it (an update to the auto updater ... which either isn't working, or they haven't set up whatever is needed to inform the updater).
Don't even get me started on why (in 2008!) the Office settings folder is *stil*l stuck in my Documents folder (in violation of the application guidelines), and can't be moved.
I assume you mean the "Microsoft User Data" folder (I don't have Office 2008, just 2004). If it works the same as 2004, try this:
Manually move the Microsoft User Data folder out of the Documents folder and into User/Library/Application Support. And that's it - apparently Office is okay with looking there for the Microsoft User Data folder, and should find it okay and not create a new one.
I hate Office 2008 for Mac. Why couldn't they have used the same interface as Office 2007 for windows. I have uninstalled Office 2008 and will be using Office 2007 in Fusion. It is just unacceptable that Office 2007 runs faster in Fusion than Office 2008 for Mac runs native in OS X.
To the folks who have purchased and installed Office '08: do you like it?
If you work in a primarily Windows office space like me it is a necessary evil. iWork is cool but isn't a viable alternative for XML formats. OpenOffice, don't get me started, open source is a great contributor but not a great replacement for all professionally developed apps.
It definitely runs much faster than 04 on my Intel MacBook Pro but I also have to support it on several other Macs in the office & it has caused constant headaches for machines that would otherwise never need tech services.
Personally, if exchange calendar support comes to the desktop as it is coming to the iPhone I would abandon office 08 & deal with the differences in iWork rather than trying to use office 08.
I assume you mean the "Microsoft User Data" folder (I don't have Office 2008, just 2004). If it works the same as 2004, try this:
Manually move the Microsoft User Data folder out of the Documents folder and into User/Library/Application Support. And that's it - apparently Office is okay with looking there for the Microsoft User Data folder, and should find it okay and not create a new one.
Very nice, thanks! This one has bugged me for years!
90% of the replies to this thread are just plain immature.
MS Office love it or loath it is the defacto standard productivity suite for 90% of the world's leading companies, so to dismiss it as worthless is also idiotic.
I think this latest version is excellent, but then I'm running it on an Intel Mac with Leopard that's less than two years old. Nearly all of the complaints seem to come from people running Office on state-of-the-ark machines with processors that really should be in a museum.
If your Mac is 2004 vintage and you have no plans on upgrading any time soon, then maybe you should just stick with MS Office 2004 too.
The ability of 2008 Office for the Mac to provide seamless compatibility with all past and present Windows based Office docs is alone worth the price of admission.
The update fixed the bug I had that kept Word from properly writing a Normal.dat file when exiting Word. Word also loads faster on my 2 GHz iMac (10 seconds versus 50), but still runs sluggishly, with spinning rainbows when I try to open the File menu.
The ability of 2008 Office for the Mac to provide seamless compatibility with all past and present Windows based Office docs is alone worth the price of admission.
Hmmm. The veracity of your statement hinges largely upon the definition of "seamless compatibility".
VBA macros?
PST files?
EML attachments?
The only version that Mac Office is compatible with is... <drum roll> ...itself.
I have noticed this too. When I was using 2008, it would take a good couple of minutes for the program to start up. Never figured out why. Because of that, I have gone back to 2004 now. Seriously, only MS can release an upgrade that actually 'downgrades' the software
Quote:
Originally Posted by gugy
Does anybody know why is so slow to start up?
I am about to drop Office for good in favor of Apple apps.
It takes sometime 3 to 4 minutes to start up the Office apps. Entourage and Word specially. I already disable the fonts WYGIWYS in the preferences. etc.
90% of the replies to this thread are just plain immature.
MS Office love it or loath it is the defacto standard productivity suite for 90% of the world's leading companies, so to dismiss it as worthless is also idiotic.
If your Mac is 2004 vintage and you have no plans on upgrading any time soon, then maybe you should just stick with MS Office 2004 too.
Actually, since you brought up the term, let me humbly suggest that you are being the "idiot" here: Let me just say, heard of the suffix "x"?
And, "90%" of the posts did not "dismiss" Office '08 "worthless." When you make sweeping statements implying things like that, you destroy your own credibility.
I assume you mean the "Microsoft User Data" folder (I don't have Office 2008, just 2004). If it works the same as 2004, try this:
Manually move the Microsoft User Data folder out of the Documents folder and into User/Library/Application Support. And that's it - apparently Office is okay with looking there for the Microsoft User Data folder, and should find it okay and not create a new one.
no, office 2008 wants the documents folder for that info! if you move it office 2008 creates a new folder automatically!
To the folks who have purchased and installed Office '08: do you like it?
I am running it under Tiger and it crashes regularly, usually when I am saving or closing it. Cost me a whole days work in one case. Hate it and sorry I upgraded.
90% of the replies to this thread are just plain immature.
MS Office love it or loath it is the defacto standard productivity suite for 90% of the world's leading companies, so to dismiss it as worthless is also idiotic.
I think this latest version is excellent, but then I'm running it on an Intel Mac with Leopard that's less than two years old. Nearly all of the complaints seem to come from people running Office on state-of-the-ark machines with processors that really should be in a museum.
If your Mac is 2004 vintage and you have no plans on upgrading any time soon, then maybe you should just stick with MS Office 2004 too.
The ability of 2008 Office for the Mac to provide seamless compatibility with all past and present Windows based Office docs is alone worth the price of admission.
If you open text only documents you will get compatibility with all other versions. However, if you try to open excel sheet or word document created on windows you will get many problems. Also, Mac version lack many features that used to be available on Office 2004 and still available on Office for windows. If you have windows, MS Office is the best application without doubt. On Mac, on the other hand, nothing is close to windows Office. We are irritated that MS is not giving enough attention to Mac version of Office. Maybe if they try harder then they won't worry about people switching from Windows to Mac.
For anyone that wants to test how long it takes to launch Word on their Macs, run this Applescript:
Code:
set starttime to ((current date)'s time)
tell application "Microsoft Word"
activate
set endtime to ((current date)'s time)
set timetaken to endtime - starttime
display dialog ("Word started in " & timetaken & " seconds")
end tell
I have a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro 2.2GHz with 4GB of RAM and from a fresh boot from LoginWindow it takes 31 seconds for Word to load. From a second start it takes 7 seconds for Word to load. Mac OS X 10.5.2. Office 12.0.1.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tailpipe
90% of the replies to this thread are just plain immature.
MS Office love it or loath it is the defacto standard productivity suite for 90% of the world's leading companies, so to dismiss it as worthless is also idiotic.
I think this latest version is excellent, but then I'm running it on an Intel Mac with Leopard that's less than two years old. Nearly all of the complaints seem to come from people running Office on state-of-the-ark machines with processors that really should be in a museum.
If your Mac is 2004 vintage and you have no plans on upgrading any time soon, then maybe you should just stick with MS Office 2004 too.
The ability of 2008 Office for the Mac to provide seamless compatibility with all past and present Windows based Office docs is alone worth the price of admission.
Comments
To the folks who have purchased and installed Office '08: do you like it?
So far, I'm not impressed. Load times are much slower, SYLK imports to Excel seem to be broken (it hangs when I try to import a report from QuickBooks), but, I will say that the apps are faster once they've launched.
Overall, I don't see it as being functionally much better than 2004.
btw- The update isn't showing up in MAU for me...
[Edit] Just installed the update. Load times seem a little faster, but SYLK import is still broken. Meh.
I installed it expecting it to be ugly but I was genuinely surprised at how buggy and slow it is on *top* of the ugly.
Load times are *glacial* on a standard 20" iMac desktop even with an extra Gig of RAM. Lots and lots of redraw problems, and frequent (like every third or fourth mouse movement), pauses in the interface. I can't even drag a window out of the way of another without the interface freezing entirely for a second or so. Hopelessly "beta-esque" behaviour IMO. Both the machine and the OS I am using (Leopard) were out for months before they shipped this puppy also.
I will try the update, but so far it hasn't shown up. I guess that rather than telling us the server is busy, MS is merely pretending they don't have an update for me right now.
I was also very disappointed at all the stuff Office installs even when you specifically request only Word and Excel. No one does this nowadays except for Microsoft and Adobe. Why, why why? Users don't have the right to install what they want on their hard drives? Sheesh!
Don't even get me started on why (in 2008!) the Office settings folder is *stil*l stuck in my Documents folder (in violation of the application guidelines), and can't be moved.
The updater seems to install Silverlight, odd.. I didn't ask for that..
On second look, only a "webloc" (link) to the Microsoft site about Silverlight.
WOW - hope the 23 people who bought the suite don't crash their servers while they all rush to download it all at once.
We have a winner!
PS. Shouldn't MS get the tech version of a razzie for releasing an upgrade that's slower than the previous version that ran under EMULATION? That's really quite an accomplishment if you stop to think about it.
Does anybody know why is so slow to start up?
I am about to drop Office for good in favor of Apple apps.
It takes sometime 3 to 4 minutes to start up the Office apps. Entourage and Word specially. I already disable the fonts WYGIWYS in the preferences. etc.
I have a MacPro Octo 2.8 with 10 gig of RAM.
My old Office 2004 would take 5 seconds or less.
Man I hate Micro **** !
I just hate it. Any solution for this issue?
Thanks
I don't know what you're doing wrong, but it takes me seconds to load up files in Office 08 (iWork takes longer.) I have a MacBook Pro 2.16.
I just tried to update and it said no updates are available. Then I remember downloading this update 2 weeks ago. Was I a beta tester? [...]
Regardless, first-time launch time seems to be slightly faster.
The updater wasn't working for me either. You need to go to the web page linked to in the AppleInsider article and download the disk image (dmg).
If you installed something a couple of weeks ago, it was probably the "Office Update Updater" or whatever they called it (an update to the auto updater ... which either isn't working, or they haven't set up whatever is needed to inform the updater).
Don't even get me started on why (in 2008!) the Office settings folder is *stil*l stuck in my Documents folder (in violation of the application guidelines), and can't be moved.
I assume you mean the "Microsoft User Data" folder (I don't have Office 2008, just 2004). If it works the same as 2004, try this:
Manually move the Microsoft User Data folder out of the Documents folder and into User/Library/Application Support. And that's it - apparently Office is okay with looking there for the Microsoft User Data folder, and should find it okay and not create a new one.
To the folks who have purchased and installed Office '08: do you like it?
If you work in a primarily Windows office space like me it is a necessary evil. iWork is cool but isn't a viable alternative for XML formats. OpenOffice, don't get me started, open source is a great contributor but not a great replacement for all professionally developed apps.
It definitely runs much faster than 04 on my Intel MacBook Pro but I also have to support it on several other Macs in the office & it has caused constant headaches for machines that would otherwise never need tech services.
Personally, if exchange calendar support comes to the desktop as it is coming to the iPhone I would abandon office 08 & deal with the differences in iWork rather than trying to use office 08.
I assume you mean the "Microsoft User Data" folder (I don't have Office 2008, just 2004). If it works the same as 2004, try this:
Manually move the Microsoft User Data folder out of the Documents folder and into User/Library/Application Support. And that's it - apparently Office is okay with looking there for the Microsoft User Data folder, and should find it okay and not create a new one.
Very nice, thanks! This one has bugged me for years!
MS Office love it or loath it is the de facto standard productivity suite for 90% of the world's leading companies, so to dismiss it as worthless is also idiotic.
I think this latest version is excellent, but then I'm running it on an Intel Mac with Leopard that's less than two years old. Nearly all of the complaints seem to come from people running Office on state-of-the-ark machines with processors that really should be in a museum.
If your Mac is 2004 vintage and you have no plans on upgrading any time soon, then maybe you should just stick with MS Office 2004 too.
The ability of 2008 Office for the Mac to provide seamless compatibility with all past and present Windows based Office docs is alone worth the price of admission.
--Mike Perry, Seattle
The ability of 2008 Office for the Mac to provide seamless compatibility with all past and present Windows based Office docs is alone worth the price of admission.
Hmmm. The veracity of your statement hinges largely upon the definition of "seamless compatibility".
VBA macros?
PST files?
EML attachments?
The only version that Mac Office is compatible with is... <drum roll> ...itself.
Does anybody know why is so slow to start up?
I am about to drop Office for good in favor of Apple apps.
It takes sometime 3 to 4 minutes to start up the Office apps. Entourage and Word specially. I already disable the fonts WYGIWYS in the preferences. etc.
I have a MacPro Octo 2.8 with 10 gig of RAM.
My old Office 2004 would take 5 seconds or less.
Man I hate Micro **** !
I just hate it. Any solution for this issue?
Thanks
90% of the replies to this thread are just plain immature.
MS Office love it or loath it is the de facto standard productivity suite for 90% of the world's leading companies, so to dismiss it as worthless is also idiotic.
If your Mac is 2004 vintage and you have no plans on upgrading any time soon, then maybe you should just stick with MS Office 2004 too.
Actually, since you brought up the term, let me humbly suggest that you are being the "idiot" here: Let me just say, heard of the suffix "x"?
And, "90%" of the posts did not "dismiss" Office '08 "worthless." When you make sweeping statements implying things like that, you destroy your own credibility.
I assume you mean the "Microsoft User Data" folder (I don't have Office 2008, just 2004). If it works the same as 2004, try this:
Manually move the Microsoft User Data folder out of the Documents folder and into User/Library/Application Support. And that's it - apparently Office is okay with looking there for the Microsoft User Data folder, and should find it okay and not create a new one.
no, office 2008 wants the documents folder for that info! if you move it office 2008 creates a new folder automatically!
To the folks who have purchased and installed Office '08: do you like it?
I am running it under Tiger and it crashes regularly, usually when I am saving or closing it. Cost me a whole days work in one case. Hate it and sorry I upgraded.
90% of the replies to this thread are just plain immature.
MS Office love it or loath it is the de facto standard productivity suite for 90% of the world's leading companies, so to dismiss it as worthless is also idiotic.
I think this latest version is excellent, but then I'm running it on an Intel Mac with Leopard that's less than two years old. Nearly all of the complaints seem to come from people running Office on state-of-the-ark machines with processors that really should be in a museum.
If your Mac is 2004 vintage and you have no plans on upgrading any time soon, then maybe you should just stick with MS Office 2004 too.
The ability of 2008 Office for the Mac to provide seamless compatibility with all past and present Windows based Office docs is alone worth the price of admission.
If you open text only documents you will get compatibility with all other versions. However, if you try to open excel sheet or word document created on windows you will get many problems. Also, Mac version lack many features that used to be available on Office 2004 and still available on Office for windows. If you have windows, MS Office is the best application without doubt. On Mac, on the other hand, nothing is close to windows Office. We are irritated that MS is not giving enough attention to Mac version of Office. Maybe if they try harder then they won't worry about people switching from Windows to Mac.
set starttime to ((current date)'s time)
tell application "Microsoft Word"
activate
set endtime to ((current date)'s time)
set timetaken to endtime - starttime
display dialog ("Word started in " & timetaken & " seconds")
end tell
I have a Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro 2.2GHz with 4GB of RAM and from a fresh boot from LoginWindow it takes 31 seconds for Word to load. From a second start it takes 7 seconds for Word to load. Mac OS X 10.5.2. Office 12.0.1.
90% of the replies to this thread are just plain immature.
MS Office love it or loath it is the de facto standard productivity suite for 90% of the world's leading companies, so to dismiss it as worthless is also idiotic.
I think this latest version is excellent, but then I'm running it on an Intel Mac with Leopard that's less than two years old. Nearly all of the complaints seem to come from people running Office on state-of-the-ark machines with processors that really should be in a museum.
If your Mac is 2004 vintage and you have no plans on upgrading any time soon, then maybe you should just stick with MS Office 2004 too.
The ability of 2008 Office for the Mac to provide seamless compatibility with all past and present Windows based Office docs is alone worth the price of admission.