[Tom C]

I called over to my local Apple Store today and found out that they had Office 2004 installed on all of their machines, so I went over and gave it a spin. Here are my first impressions based on 20 minutes with it. I spent most my time with Word, which is what I use the most, but I have a couple comments about Excel, too.

Word:

Microsoft claimed that Office 2004 is Unicode compatiable, so the first thing I did was to try typing some Greek. It worked like a charm. Then, I popped in a CD that I brought from home and tried loading a Word for Windows file with Greek text. It loaded that like a charm, meaning that the Unicode file formats are compatible across platforms. They got it right. I suspect that many users of non-Roman-alphabet languages will be jumping for joy. (Though I've heard that right-to-left alphabets such as Arabic and Hebrew still won't work. I didn't try it myself.)

Next thing I tried was long filenames. Worked just fine. Everyone will be happy about that.

A new feature that hasn't been well-publicized is "smart buttons." They appear in different contexts after you've taken an action - sort of an after-the-fact contextual menu. The first "smart button" that I noticed appears after pasting in text. In the past, it wasn't easy to predict whether Word would paste in text using the formatting of the source text (i.e., the text from where you've cut) or the destination text (i.e., the text surrounding where you're pasting). Now, it doesn't matter whether you like what it gives you intially. Immediately after you paste, a smart button will show up at the end of the passage. If you don't like the formatting that it chose for you, click on the smart button, and it will give the choice of changing to the source formatting, the destination formatting, or plain text. Very cool. As I recall, this feature is lifted from Word for Windows XP (although I think they implemented it as an ordinary contextual menu instead of a smart button.)

I played around briefly with the new notebook layout. Yes, it works similarly to outline view in many ways, including the concept of promoting and demoting paragraphs. However, the tabs feature gives you an extra way of organizing your notes, and the visual appearance is much more pleasing than outline view. Because of time limits, I didn't get a chance to play around with linking notes to Entourage tasks, and because it would be a little awkward to play around with the audio recording features in the middle of the store, I didn't try those features, either. At least for simple note-taking, it looks worthwhile.

In the new features list, I noticed mention of another relatively unpublicized improvement: Track Changes. I don't know if they've improved the substance, but as for form, it now presents remarks as bubbles to the side of the text instead of as pop-up menus when you point at the change. Again, I think this is lifted from Word for Windows XP.

Excel:

I tried out the new page layout view briefly. It works as advertised. One nice feature: Let's say that you type in text and it's too long to fit in the cell. As Excel users will know, if the column to the right is empty, the extra text will print out over the blank cell. Now, let's suppose you're typing in the rightmost column on the page. If the text spills over, it's spilling over a column on the next page. Fortunately, in page layout view, Excel will properly show the extra text spilling over the next column, even though the column is on the next page. What you see on the screen is what you get on the page.

I also tried Unicode text (Greek) in Excel and it seemed to work just as well as Word (though I only tried typing - I didn't try loading a file created in Excel for Windows.)

Conclusion:

Even though $229 is pretty steep for an upgrade, and even though MS should have put Unicode and long filenames in the last version of Office, I'm going to upgrade. I think that I'll get my money's worth out of notebook view in Word, page layout view in Excel, and the smart buttons, in addition to the Unicode and long filenames.

[mitchell_pgh]

I've got my PO all ready for my copy. It's only $159 for education which isn't that bad considering you get a TON of software.

[typoon]

Originally posted by Tom C:
I called over to my local Apple Store today and found out that they had Office 2004 installed on all of their machines, so I went over and gave it a spin. Here are my first impressions based on 20 minutes with it. I spent most my time with Word, which is what I use the most, but I have a couple comments about Excel, too.

Word:

Microsoft claimed that Office 2004 is Unicode compatiable, so the first thing I did was to try typing some Greek. It worked like a charm. Then, I popped in a CD that I brought from home and tried loading a Word for Windows file with Greek text. It loaded that like a charm, meaning that the Unicode file formats are compatible across platforms. They got it right. I suspect that many users of non-Roman-alphabet languages will be jumping for joy. (Though I've heard that right-to-left alphabets such as Arabic and Hebrew still won't work. I didn't try it myself.)

Next thing I tried was long filenames. Worked just fine. Everyone will be happy about that.

A new feature that hasn't been well-publicized is "smart buttons." They appear in different contexts after you've taken an action - sort of an after-the-fact contextual menu. The first "smart button" that I noticed appears after pasting in text. In the past, it wasn't easy to predict whether Word would paste in text using the formatting of the source text (i.e., the text from where you've cut) or the destination text (i.e., the text surrounding where you're pasting). Now, it doesn't matter whether you like what it gives you intially. Immediately after you paste, a smart button will show up at the end of the passage. If you don't like the formatting that it chose for you, click on the smart button, and it will give the choice of changing to the source formatting, the destination formatting, or plain text. Very cool. As I recall, this feature is lifted from Word for Windows XP (although I think they implemented it as an ordinary contextual menu instead of a smart button.)

I played around briefly with the new notebook layout. Yes, it works similarly to outline view in many ways, including the concept of promoting and demoting paragraphs. However, the tabs feature gives you an extra way of organizing your notes, and the visual appearance is much more pleasing than outline view. Because of time limits, I didn't get a chance to play around with linking notes to Entourage tasks, and because it would be a little awkward to play around with the audio recording features in the middle of the store, I didn't try those features, either. At least for simple note-taking, it looks worthwhile.

In the new features list, I noticed mention of another relatively unpublicized improvement: Track Changes. I don't know if they've improved the substance, but as for form, it now presents remarks as bubbles to the side of the text instead of as pop-up menus when you point at the change. Again, I think this is lifted from Word for Windows XP.

Excel:

I tried out the new page layout view briefly. It works as advertised. One nice feature: Let's say that you type in text and it's too long to fit in the cell. As Excel users will know, if the column to the right is empty, the extra text will print out over the blank cell. Now, let's suppose you're typing in the rightmost column on the page. If the text spills over, it's spilling over a column on the next page. Fortunately, in page layout view, Excel will properly show the extra text spilling over the next column, even though the column is on the next page. What you see on the screen is what you get on the page.

I also tried Unicode text (Greek) in Excel and it seemed to work just as well as Word (though I only tried typing - I didn't try loading a file created in Excel for Windows.)

Conclusion:

Even though $229 is pretty steep for an upgrade, and even though MS should have put Unicode and long filenames in the last version of Office, I'm going to upgrade. I think that I'll get my money's worth out of notebook view in Word, page layout view in Excel, and the smart buttons, in addition to the Unicode and long filenames.

If you haven't bought the upgrade yet why not just get the EDU version from the Applestore? They don't ask for ID and you get 3 legal installs. You also save some money. The EDU version is only 149.

[mitchell_pgh]

I'm an educator... I can't wait to get my copy from all the positive feedback.

[Developer]

Unicode support and long file names (finally): Thumbs up to Microsoft!

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally posted by Developer:
Unicode support and long file names (finally): Thumbs up to Microsoft!

I don't know if I should smile or puke.

[discotronic]

Originally posted by typoon:
If you haven't bought the upgrade yet why not just get the EDU version from the Applestore? They don't ask for ID and you get 3 legal installs. You also save some money. The EDU version is only 149.

I wish I could say the same for the Apple Store here. They ID when you use the Education discount.

[gorickey]

Originally posted by discotronic:
I wish I could say the same for the Apple Store here. They ID when you use the Education discount.

Same here...as they should!

[typoon]

Originally posted by discotronic:
I wish I could say the same for the Apple Store here. They ID when you use the Education discount.

I didn't use the EDU discount. I just picked up the EDU version and just paid the full 149. I believe you can also do this at CompUSA. Each Apple Store might be different. Just my experience from the one in Tices Corner in Woodcliff Lake.

[selowitch]

RANT WARNING!

I thought the whole point of Unicode was not to exclude any major languages. Arabic is spoken by many hundreds of millions of people. Hebrew is much less widely spoken, but many scholars and Israelis (and other Jewish people) use it.

Why can't Micrsoft support those? Why couldn't they compromise by not doing them right-to-left but allowing you to type them "backwards, which was the usual workaround in the old days?

[quadgrande]

I love the new Entourage. I just installed it, and it took my Exchange settings just fine. IT's much quicker, and the new mail notification rocks. A tiny floating window fades in at the bottom right corner of your screen and show the sender and subject of the new mail that just arrived.

The side by side organization for email rocks! You can fold all of your email up as it shows up by default in bucket s for Today, Yesterday.....Last Week, This Year......etc.

The project center is cool, easy to set up new projects (very intuitive), and it's not a big show like MS Project. Not that it's a replacement for the Project literati.

I love the new default view for Excel, it used to open a blank document and fill my entire 17" Powerrbook screen. It's now more reasonably sized as well is the default font.

Every app is faster and shows marked refinement. Well worth the $150.

[golfdude]

I haven't really had the need to use MS Office programs since I have Adobe Creative Suite. Since I have changed career, I need to use MS Office more now. I bought my G-5 a year or so ago and it came with MS Office but I can't get to open. Everytime I tried to open up Word, Excel or PowerPoint it would give me this message.

"The application has unexpectedly quit"

Does anyone have any suggestions? Is it have to do with any extension issues?

I would really appreciated any help on this.

Thanks in advance.

[Bi@tch]

Originally posted by golfdude:
I haven't really had the need to use MS Office programs since I have Adobe Creative Suite. Since I have changed career, I need to use MS Office more now. I bought my G-5 a year or so ago and it came with MS Office but I can't get to open. Everytime I tried to open up Word, Excel or PowerPoint it would give me this message.

"The application has unexpectedly quit"

Does anyone have any suggestions? Is it have to do with any extension issues?

I would really appreciated any help on this.

Thanks in advance.

Basic question: Did you try to reinstall OSX?

[discotronic]

Originally posted by golfdude:
I haven't really had the need to use MS Office programs since I have Adobe Creative Suite. Since I have changed career, I need to use MS Office more now. I bought my G-5 a year or so ago and it came with MS Office but I can't get to open. Everytime I tried to open up Word, Excel or PowerPoint it would give me this message.

"The application has unexpectedly quit"

Does anyone have any suggestions? Is it have to do with any extension issues?

I would really appreciated any help on this.

Thanks in advance.

Did you purchase Office separately? The version that came pre-installed with the system is a 30 day evaluation. That could be the problem.

[cambro]

I recently "upgraded" to 2004 from X. I have to admit that aside from a few of the features mentioned here, this is arguably a step backwards in some ways. I only use the "trilogy" (.xls, .doc, .ppt)

1) Slower. Yes, 2004 is slower than X in some things and definitely is not faster in any way.

2) EndNote 7,6,5,4? Forget about it...Word 2004 breaks it...must buy 8.

3) Mouse over eye candy is everywhere and you can't get rid of it. Type "teh" instead of "the"...X autocorrected, showed you with a red underline, and then got out of the way. Now there is an animated, rather thick blue line with a clunky menu arrow that pulses across during the correction and keeps coming back whenever you move your mouse over every single autocorrected object in your document. You can't turn this off unless you get rid of autocorrect all together.

4) Paste context menu? Handy at times, but again gets in your way more than anything. Especially in Excel since it covers cells up and will NOT go away until you type in another cell or move something. A "Paste Special" option on ctrl-click would be way better since one typically wants to specify format before plunking in pasted objects, not after the fact.

5) Remember the nice, small thesaurus window? Bye Bye. Now you have a big clunky window with advertisements for MSN and Encarta Encylopedia.

6) The save as window is HUGE. There is always a pedigree of MS Office products that are compatible with the document if it is an Office file and all about what ASCII text is if it is a text file. You can't turn this off. To top it off, there is always (?) a big yellow sign with red text saying you should do a compatibility report...when you panic and run this, it says nothing is wrong...thanks.

7) Powerpoint? No, Powerpoint presentations STILL don't always work between platforms and it's NOT like we are talking about slightly different sized fonts. Things can get MANGLED between Windows and Mac. Why? Don't ask me, but Powerpoint still sucks in this regard. It is also modestly slower, which is always nice.

Rant over...

[golfdude]

I haven't reinstalled OSX. I didn't know the pre-installed version was 30 days trail. Is that true? That might be the problem than. Sorry to ask such a dumb question.

[driven]

What does "three legal installs" mean with regards to the education version?

Does this mean I can legally install it on 3 of my own Macs, or does it mean that I have to buy another copy if I have to reinstall for the 4th time.

The guy in the Apple store implied the later, but followed up by stating that he wasn't sure.

[ReefHobbyist]

Excel 2004 still doesn't support Pivot Charts that Excel 2002 for XP does. It support Pivot tables, which are great, but I would like more compatibility between the two.

[Anand]

Originally posted by cambro:
I recently "upgraded" to 2004 from X. I have to admit that aside from a few of the features mentioned here, this is arguably a step backwards in some ways. I only use the "trilogy" (.xls, .doc, .ppt)

1) Slower. Yes, 2004 is slower than X in some things and definitely is not faster in any way.

2) EndNote 7,6,5,4? Forget about it...Word 2004 breaks it...must buy 8.

3) Mouse over eye candy is everywhere and you can't get rid of it. Type "teh" instead of "the"...X autocorrected, showed you with a red underline, and then got out of the way. Now there is an animated, rather thick blue line with a clunky menu arrow that pulses across during the correction and keeps coming back whenever you move your mouse over every single autocorrected object in your document. You can't turn this off unless you get rid of autocorrect all together.

4) Paste context menu? Handy at times, but again gets in your way more than anything. Especially in Excel since it covers cells up and will NOT go away until you type in another cell or move something. A "Paste Special" option on ctrl-click would be way better since one typically wants to specify format before plunking in pasted objects, not after the fact.

5) Remember the nice, small thesaurus window? Bye Bye. Now you have a big clunky window with advertisements for MSN and Encarta Encylopedia.

6) The save as window is HUGE. There is always a pedigree of MS Office products that are compatible with the document if it is an Office file and all about what ASCII text is if it is a text file. You can't turn this off. To top it off, there is always (?) a big yellow sign with red text saying you should do a compatibility report...when you panic and run this, it says nothing is wrong...thanks.

7) Powerpoint? No, Powerpoint presentations STILL don't always work between platforms and it's NOT like we are talking about slightly different sized fonts. Things can get MANGLED between Windows and Mac. Why? Don't ask me, but Powerpoint still sucks in this regard. It is also modestly slower, which is always nice.

Rant over...

I agree 100%. And the new Powerpoint seems to hang on slides for some reason. Wacky. I am so ready to dump Powerpoint and move to Keynote.

[threestain]

3 legal installs means you can have it on any 3 machines at one time I believe.

[clarkgoble]

About the only real big issue I have with Word is that the font selection isn't that nice. Unless you have some standard templates and do everything via them and style sheets, it ends up being less friendly than I'd like. I'm halfway thinking of trying out iWork just because of this.

[cambro]

Originally posted by Anand:
I am so ready to dump Powerpoint and move to Keynote.

You won't be sorry.

If you need to show it on a Windoze machine, Keynote exports kick *ss PDFs (minus trancparency of course...)

[driven]

Originally posted by cambro:
You won't be sorry.

If you need to show it on a Windoze machine, Keynote exports kick *ss PDFs (minus trancparency of course...)

Now you've caught my attention. I didn't know about this feature. This might be useful to me after all!