Microsoft revealed Thursday that the co-authoring tools in Office 2011 will allow multiple users the ability to work on files from Word, PowerPoint or Excel from different locations. The Presence Everywhere feature gives real-time updates on who is working on the document directly in the application.
This is great! I can finally stop using Office 2010 on a VM with this.
My only concern to MacBU is the screen real estate use by the toolbar + ribbon. If we can sort of hide everything above the ribbon altogether that would be fantastic!
I just wish Microsoft would provide the same functionality to Office Mac version as windows counterpart. We do not get Visio, which has been great help to me developing organizational charts etc. for organizational strategy plans, I am involved with at moment. Microsoft Project is also important part of everyday life and it is not available anymore in Mac version.
Thats my rant about MS, good office products, but give us the same functionality for Mac.
I am not an MS fan... but after years of using Word and Excel, the only reason I can live with Pages and Numbers is because I am no longer in the 'business' world. Actually, Pages is pretty slick for what I do... but Numbers is always going to be a 'play' spreadsheet compared to Excel. For the market it's aimed at, that is AOK (that's me right now). But, if I needed the guts of Excel, I'd be glad to have access to the cheaper Mac version instead of having to deal with Fusion/PArallel/BootCamp and $800 for the full Office Widows deal...
The ribbon does not suck. Learn to love it. I have.
Someone should make the movie: "How I learned to stop worrying, and love the MS Office Ribbon"...
I actually prefer the ribbon to the old ways. Initially it did lead to a lot of frustration as I had to relearn stuff, but it has 2 huge advantages once you get used to it:
1) Much more screenspace (very easy to get rid of it, by double clicking the ribbon tab, and easy to get it back too)
2) Features are FAR MORE discoverable...
Idon't mind the ribbon. I just wish I can remove that extra bar of icons, since it just seems a waste of space...
I just wish Microsoft would provide the same functionality to Office Mac version as windows counterpart. We do not get Visio, which has been great help to me developing organizational charts etc. for organizational strategy plans, I am involved with at moment. Microsoft Project is also important part of everyday life and it is not available anymore in Mac version.
Thats my rant about MS, good office products, but give us the same functionality for Mac.
Peace
Soul
Agreed, and its hard to fathom that Excel and Word got their start on the Mac.
Now that this is out, will Microsoft no longer provide bug fixes for 2008?
Been checking and nothing new since last year.
As anyone who has used PowerPoint knows, it will crash at random when printing and does not compress images the same way as the Windows version.
Talking to Microsoft, and indicating I have installed this on a virgin Mac OS X v10.5 system - just their application alone and one HP printer driver - and I can duplicate it. They want a credit card to even look at the problem.
All I know is I hate the new interface for Office on the PC.
I can NEVER find what I'm looking for. Why don't I have the option of the standard, simple interface we are all used to with Office
agreed. At work I frequently use the pc with the old version of office. The problem with the ribbon is the abstract tab headings. It's not an automatic process to identify which tab something should be under. You have to engage in this intense conceptual philosophical process of guessing where some arbitrary programmer thinks something should go. Just let us customize the toolbar so it's a single view and I can put the twenty or so commands I frequently use at a single glance.
Check out the screen shots of Word. All I see is an OCS presence bubble there. And outlook for Mac! I haven't been this excited about a release in a long time. Haven't heard any word if the new communicator will have the same functionality as MOC.
As for the ribbons. I love them. Know plenty that don't. The fact they get to stay because of the menus should make both worlds very happy!
Click on the picture and then go to picture #2 the caption reads.... "The ribbon interface within Office for Mac 2011 can also be collapsed, as in this look."
So breath deep.
That said I agree the ribbon blows chunks!!!! I cant stand the current floating formula bar in Excel 2008 either.
Office 2008 was really slow, but now with many patches Word opens up just as fast as Pages. Word does have more features than Pages, I often will take a screen shot and the rotate the perspective and give it a drop shadow in Word, for nice looking documentation. You cant do this in Pages.
For Excel compatibility I find that OpenOffice looks very much like Excel 2003 (no ribbon) and does not have that floating formula bar. Plus it supports VBA macros, or most of them, all that I have tried to use.
Why does it take MacBU years to do anything with Office when it's their only product, and when they have probably 50+ people working for them?
They've had close to 10 years to implement Arabic/Hebrew support but haven't been bothered to. Office has always ran less reliably or as fast as its PC counterparts. Really, I don't care anymore.
I'm using Office 2004 until it won't run anymore; on my PPC Macs -- that should be never, and on my Intel Macs until Rosetta disappears (will it ever?)
My next move will be OpenOffice and/or Pages. Most likely OpenOffice since I would have complete cross-platform compatibility on not only OS X and Windows, but also my Linux machines.
I'm sure this is good news for some of you though, and I'm happy MS continues to toss you a few crumbs so you'll stay on board (not that you have a choice, since you're probably tied to it for work-related reasons).
My office is a perfect example of why we don't use Office for Mac.
Microsoft has over-thought Mac Office to the point that it's barely Office anymore.
Years ago people were clamoring for a Mac Office that looked like a Mac app. All that did was limit cross-platform compatibility. Now you have Mac Excel that can't use Visual Basic, and whatever that cluster-fu** is - Entourage.
Office is not a Mac app. We could have switched a dozen salespeople over to Mac if Office for Mac looked and behaved as it did on Windows.
Cross-platform compatibility is not limited to whether you can open and close documents. It also includes being able to use the software on both platforms without having to relearn the user interface. I should be able to sit a Windows person down on a Mac with Word and tell them to type me a letter without them having to relearn everything.
Mac Office should look and behave just like the Windows version.
All I know is I hate the new interface for Office on the PC.
If this is the Ribbon interface, and it is coming to Mac, god help us.
I can NEVER find what I'm looking for. Why don't I have the option of the standard, simple interface we are all used to with Office?
I couldn't agree more with this...I can NEVER find anything in word on the PC with this ribbon thing (didn't know that was what it was called)...and I've been using Word 2007 for a year now
I know there are Office for Mac haters out there (a few might show up on this very thread). But I'm not one of them. For me, Office for Mac means that I don't have to run Windows at home (like I do at work). Just so you know where I stand, I'm a big, big fan.
That said, I do NOT love the ribbon on Office 2007. IMO it's a huge impediment vs. the menu interface for those of us who are not brand new to Office (or computers in general). I'm asking that you please NOT REPLACE THE MENU! If some users want the ribbon, fine, but make it possible to at least optionally run Office the old way with the standard menu; at least Word and Excel. That is important to me and probably to most of the Office for Mac users.
Well put, and although I agree that Microsoft should provide a "classic" view for Word and Excel, I find the ribbon to be a huge improvement. Granted I am only 25, but having used MS Word since its inception (over half my life), it is so nice to not have to drill down into the text menus where a particularly useful function would be placed in a relatively obscure location (Excel '03 and older, I'm looking at you). I really began using Office 2007 at my job over 2 years ago, and was actually one of the few people to use it in the whole company (everyone else still used 2003). I thought the ribbon was quirky at first, but by having an open mind I quickly came to learn and love it, and you can actually do things much faster as everything is much more accessible. I find the majority of the haters out there simply haven't given the ribbon any time of day, either by not taking the time to learn it, or are stubborn and refuse to accept it. Those screen caps of Office for Mac: 2010 look really nice, and I love the look even more than the PC version. Hopefully MS doesn't castrate the Mac version with 2010.
Been using Office 2007 on my MBP and I see no reason to upgrade to Office 2011. MS has a habit of making their Mac versions of Office less than their PC/Windows counterpart. Anyone want to venture a guess why? Personally, I like the ribbon, but many may find it an inconvenience.
The ribbon (at least some parts of it) is the one thing I enjoy about the PC version of Office. VERY quickly, I can set things that I prefer: 0.5" margins all around, font, size, landscape, etc. I could see how some people wouldn't like it, especially if you don't have time to get used to it. Unfortunately, this was the one feature left out of Mac Office 2007 (or am I wrong?)
That said, I do NOT love the ribbon on Office 2007. IMO it's a huge impediment vs. the menu interface for those of us who are not brand new to Office (or computers in general). I'm asking that you please NOT REPLACE THE MENU! If some users want the ribbon, fine, but make it possible to at least optionally run Office the old way with the standard menu; at least Word and Excel. That is important to me and probably to most of the Office for Mac users (again, ignoring the haters who don't count as they probably aren't actually customers in the first place).
Who knows, maybe the Office for Windows team could learn a thing or two from the MacBU team?
?
John.B
I couldn't agree more. We use Office 2007 at work, and aside from the ribbon being (at best) non-intuitive, the new version seems to require three clicks to do almost anything that could have been done with one before. And it's not just me as a Mac user who's complaining; many of my colleagues who are staunch Windows fans don't like it either.
If the ribbon must be used, please make it an optional interface.
Comments
Microsoft revealed Thursday that the co-authoring tools in Office 2011 will allow multiple users the ability to work on files from Word, PowerPoint or Excel from different locations. The Presence Everywhere feature gives real-time updates on who is working on the document directly in the application.
Google Wave, anyone...?
My only concern to MacBU is the screen real estate use by the toolbar + ribbon. If we can sort of hide everything above the ribbon altogether that would be fantastic!
I just wish Microsoft would provide the same functionality to Office Mac version as windows counterpart. We do not get Visio, which has been great help to me developing organizational charts etc. for organizational strategy plans, I am involved with at moment. Microsoft Project is also important part of everyday life and it is not available anymore in Mac version.
Thats my rant about MS, good office products, but give us the same functionality for Mac.
Peace
Soul
The ribbon does not suck. Learn to love it. I have.
Someone should make the movie: "How I learned to stop worrying, and love the MS Office Ribbon"...
I actually prefer the ribbon to the old ways. Initially it did lead to a lot of frustration as I had to relearn stuff, but it has 2 huge advantages once you get used to it:
1) Much more screenspace (very easy to get rid of it, by double clicking the ribbon tab, and easy to get it back too)
2) Features are FAR MORE discoverable...
Idon't mind the ribbon. I just wish I can remove that extra bar of icons, since it just seems a waste of space...
Hi All,
I just wish Microsoft would provide the same functionality to Office Mac version as windows counterpart. We do not get Visio, which has been great help to me developing organizational charts etc. for organizational strategy plans, I am involved with at moment. Microsoft Project is also important part of everyday life and it is not available anymore in Mac version.
Thats my rant about MS, good office products, but give us the same functionality for Mac.
Peace
Soul
Agreed, and its hard to fathom that Excel and Word got their start on the Mac.
Been checking and nothing new since last year.
As anyone who has used PowerPoint knows, it will crash at random when printing and does not compress images the same way as the Windows version.
Talking to Microsoft, and indicating I have installed this on a virgin Mac OS X v10.5 system - just their application alone and one HP printer driver - and I can duplicate it. They want a credit card to even look at the problem.
All I know is I hate the new interface for Office on the PC.
I can NEVER find what I'm looking for. Why don't I have the option of the standard, simple interface we are all used to with Office
agreed. At work I frequently use the pc with the old version of office. The problem with the ribbon is the abstract tab headings. It's not an automatic process to identify which tab something should be under. You have to engage in this intense conceptual philosophical process of guessing where some arbitrary programmer thinks something should go. Just let us customize the toolbar so it's a single view and I can put the twenty or so commands I frequently use at a single glance.
As for the ribbons. I love them. Know plenty that don't. The fact they get to stay because of the menus should make both worlds very happy!
DJ
DJ
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10...dStoriesArea.1
Click on the picture and then go to picture #2 the caption reads.... "The ribbon interface within Office for Mac 2011 can also be collapsed, as in this look."
So breath deep.
That said I agree the ribbon blows chunks!!!! I cant stand the current floating formula bar in Excel 2008 either.
Office 2008 was really slow, but now with many patches Word opens up just as fast as Pages. Word does have more features than Pages, I often will take a screen shot and the rotate the perspective and give it a drop shadow in Word, for nice looking documentation. You cant do this in Pages.
For Excel compatibility I find that OpenOffice looks very much like Excel 2003 (no ribbon) and does not have that floating formula bar. Plus it supports VBA macros, or most of them, all that I have tried to use.
For a Visio/Project replacement on the Mac.....
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnigraffle/
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniplan/
I find both, especially omnigraffle, way betterthan Visio/Project.
I dont know why anyone would want to use Outlook at all, especially with Snow Leopards Exchange support.
Apple should buy OmniGroup, beef up Pages and Number a bit and then offer their own "Office" with, pages, numbers, keynote, graffle and plan.
They've had close to 10 years to implement Arabic/Hebrew support but haven't been bothered to. Office has always ran less reliably or as fast as its PC counterparts. Really, I don't care anymore.
I'm using Office 2004 until it won't run anymore; on my PPC Macs -- that should be never, and on my Intel Macs until Rosetta disappears (will it ever?)
My next move will be OpenOffice and/or Pages. Most likely OpenOffice since I would have complete cross-platform compatibility on not only OS X and Windows, but also my Linux machines.
I'm sure this is good news for some of you though, and I'm happy MS continues to toss you a few crumbs so you'll stay on board (not that you have a choice, since you're probably tied to it for work-related reasons).
That was absolutely untrue in 2004.
No, it is. Ever hear of things that are included in the Windows version of Office, like Publisher? Access? And they are *where?* in the Mac version?
Microsoft has over-thought Mac Office to the point that it's barely Office anymore.
Years ago people were clamoring for a Mac Office that looked like a Mac app. All that did was limit cross-platform compatibility. Now you have Mac Excel that can't use Visual Basic, and whatever that cluster-fu** is - Entourage.
Office is not a Mac app. We could have switched a dozen salespeople over to Mac if Office for Mac looked and behaved as it did on Windows.
Cross-platform compatibility is not limited to whether you can open and close documents. It also includes being able to use the software on both platforms without having to relearn the user interface. I should be able to sit a Windows person down on a Mac with Word and tell them to type me a letter without them having to relearn everything.
Mac Office should look and behave just like the Windows version.
All I know is I hate the new interface for Office on the PC.
If this is the Ribbon interface, and it is coming to Mac, god help us.
I can NEVER find what I'm looking for. Why don't I have the option of the standard, simple interface we are all used to with Office?
I couldn't agree more with this...I can NEVER find anything in word on the PC with this ribbon thing (didn't know that was what it was called)...and I've been using Word 2007 for a year now
Dear MacBU:
I know there are Office for Mac haters out there (a few might show up on this very thread). But I'm not one of them. For me, Office for Mac means that I don't have to run Windows at home (like I do at work). Just so you know where I stand, I'm a big, big fan.
That said, I do NOT love the ribbon on Office 2007. IMO it's a huge impediment vs. the menu interface for those of us who are not brand new to Office (or computers in general). I'm asking that you please NOT REPLACE THE MENU! If some users want the ribbon, fine, but make it possible to at least optionally run Office the old way with the standard menu; at least Word and Excel. That is important to me and probably to most of the Office for Mac users.
Well put, and although I agree that Microsoft should provide a "classic" view for Word and Excel, I find the ribbon to be a huge improvement. Granted I am only 25, but having used MS Word since its inception (over half my life), it is so nice to not have to drill down into the text menus where a particularly useful function would be placed in a relatively obscure location (Excel '03 and older, I'm looking at you). I really began using Office 2007 at my job over 2 years ago, and was actually one of the few people to use it in the whole company (everyone else still used 2003). I thought the ribbon was quirky at first, but by having an open mind I quickly came to learn and love it, and you can actually do things much faster as everything is much more accessible. I find the majority of the haters out there simply haven't given the ribbon any time of day, either by not taking the time to learn it, or are stubborn and refuse to accept it. Those screen caps of Office for Mac: 2010 look really nice, and I love the look even more than the PC version. Hopefully MS doesn't castrate the Mac version with 2010.
Been using Office 2007 on my MBP and I see no reason to upgrade to Office 2011. MS has a habit of making their Mac versions of Office less than their PC/Windows counterpart. Anyone want to venture a guess why? Personally, I like the ribbon, but many may find it an inconvenience.
The ribbon (at least some parts of it) is the one thing I enjoy about the PC version of Office. VERY quickly, I can set things that I prefer: 0.5" margins all around, font, size, landscape, etc. I could see how some people wouldn't like it, especially if you don't have time to get used to it. Unfortunately, this was the one feature left out of Mac Office 2007 (or am I wrong?)
That said, I do NOT love the ribbon on Office 2007. IMO it's a huge impediment vs. the menu interface for those of us who are not brand new to Office (or computers in general). I'm asking that you please NOT REPLACE THE MENU! If some users want the ribbon, fine, but make it possible to at least optionally run Office the old way with the standard menu; at least Word and Excel. That is important to me and probably to most of the Office for Mac users (again, ignoring the haters who don't count as they probably aren't actually customers in the first place).
Who knows, maybe the Office for Windows team could learn a thing or two from the MacBU team?
?
John.B
I couldn't agree more. We use Office 2007 at work, and aside from the ribbon being (at best) non-intuitive, the new version seems to require three clicks to do almost anything that could have been done with one before. And it's not just me as a Mac user who's complaining; many of my colleagues who are staunch Windows fans don't like it either.
If the ribbon must be used, please make it an optional interface.