[monkpea]

Hi,

This is a rant, sorry.

I require a super fast FULLY MS office compatible workstation.

I would love to use OS X. Not word for mac which is crap, not the new pc word where you have to add the menus back (different story) ideally word 2003 for xp or something equally powerful, low on bugs and comptible with what ALL my clients use. Three bags full.

I've tried the new office on vista, and it's sluggish as hell. I've tried vmware and 2003 and it's sluggish as hell. I've tried open office on the mac and it's crap... Certainly seeing is 100% of all my work involves MS documents (often very large), it's what clients want, it's what clients send me.

I have no alternative but to buy a fast PC and downgrade it to XP. What a joke!!!

Yours slightly pissed off.

[OreoCookie]

Why don't you install Vista natively on your Mac, assuming you have an Intel-based Mac? Then it's just Windows.

[TETENAL]

Windows Applications Seamlessly Integrated on Mac OS X - CrossOver Mac - CodeWeavers

[Salty]

I was gonna say couldn't cross over work? It'd run kinda like it was in a VM but without the overhead of a VM.

[turtle777]

Office 2003 works on Crossover. However, you need to judge for yourself if it's good enough performance for you. To be honest, if you need the best performance possible, you won't get around using Office 2003 on a native XP installation.

-t

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Office 2003 works on Crossover. However, you need to judge for yourself if it's good enough performance for you. To be honest, if you need the best performance possible, you won't get around using Office 2003 on a native XP installation.

-t

You should pretty much notice native performance running apps under WINE. There is no emulation going on, hence the name.

If NeoOffice doesn't cut it, I would suggest looking into WINE/Crossover.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

You should pretty much notice native performance running apps under WINE. There is no emulation going on, hence the name.

Wouldn't that assume that there were no intertwining between Office and the XP ?

Do we know that there's not "things" in the XP OS that help Office perform more efficiently and faster, as compared to WINE ?
(I'm not an expert, that's why I ask this question - it might be a dumb one)

-t

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Wouldn't that assume that there were no intertwining between Office and the XP ?

Do we know that there's not "things" in the XP OS that help Office perform more efficiently and faster, as compared to WINE ?
(I'm not an expert, that's why I ask this question - it might be a dumb one)

-t

Whatever those things are, if they exist, they would have to not be provided by WINE. I can't think of anything that fits your description though... It's kind of funny that we are even having this conversation, not because the question is bad or illegitimate, but because we are basically talking about a damn word processor! That the damn thing is complicated enough that this would even be a question is telling

It would be funny if WINE could cut your latest 3D game (as it does), but Office was all stuttery and yakking all over the place.

[turtle777]

I was actually thinking more along the lines of Excel, which is more powerful and powerhungry than Word, especially when you try to crunch massive amounts of numbers.

Things that I would think could break under WINE are

a) cross-office integration (e.g. embedded Excel tables in Powerpoint presentations)
b) Excel to Access links
c) database-driver related functionality (Excel, Access)

-t

[JKT]

Regardless - if the OP has a Windows install for VMWare Fusion, then they can just perform an install of Windows and Office as a Boot Camp partition and run it at completely native speed to their heart's content. There is absolutely no need for them to get a new PC. XP instead of Vista maybe, but not a new PC.

[Cold Warrior]

You mentioned you'd tried Office 2007 on Vista and it was sluggish. I've found Office 2007 on Windows 7 RC runs well -- RAM, as it often is, being the key.

However, super-fast is a tough requirement and the absolute best speed you're going to get on your Mac will be JKT's suggestion: boot into Windows on your Mac, run Office 2003 natively.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Whatever those things are, if they exist, they would have to not be provided by WINE. I can't think of anything that fits your description though... It's kind of funny that we are even having this conversation, not because the question is bad or illegitimate, but because we are basically talking about a damn word processor! That the damn thing is complicated enough that this would even be a question is telling

It would be funny if WINE could cut your latest 3D game (as it does), but Office was all stuttery and yakking all over the place.

Isn't CrossOver's biggest raison d'être to run the Windows version of MS Office? It's the first app they mention on their promotional page. I'd be shocked if Codeweavers hadn't spent the time to make sure Office ran at least acceptably.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

I'd be shocked if Codeweavers hadn't spent the time to make sure Office ran at least acceptably.

Codeweaver DID make sure Office 2003 runs acceptably.

The OP is looking for Office to run exceptionally well, not just acceptably.


-t

[besson3c]

VMWare products consume a lot more RAM than reported by the hypervisor, so it seems. Your VM guests are going to run horrifically slow if the host and guest are competing for I/O, and one of the biggest causes for this is swapping occurring within either the host or guest side. It is very hard to play the game of trying to find the minimal amount of resources to allocate to either that will run with acceptable results. It is much better, to just throw gobs of memory at both.

With both running with gobs of free memory, you should notice near native speeds within your VM Guest. The overhead should be minimal.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Isn't CrossOver's biggest raison d'être to run the Windows version of MS Office? It's the first app they mention on their promotional page. I'd be shocked if Codeweavers hadn't spent the time to make sure Office ran at least acceptably.

Just to be clear, what you mean is the WINE team. Crossover Office is just a nice wrapper around WINE that provides a nice wizard to help install apps and configure the appropriate DLL overrides, where necessary. However, it is definitely possible to mirror the performance and stability of Crossover within WINE, it's just often a little harder to do.

Otherwise, I believe that what you are saying is right. If Office reports are silver or gold within the WINE application database, I would suggest that the original poster check out WINE or Crossover - it represents the best performing solution for running Office under OS X outside of booting into Windows.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Just to be clear, what you mean is the WINE team.

I thought CodeWeavers basically are the WINE team. Don't they do the bulk of the development work on it?

[P]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I was actually thinking more along the lines of Excel, which is more powerful and powerhungry than Word, especially when you try to crunch massive amounts of numbers.

Don't forget that Excel did run on an 8MHz 68000 back in the day, and the core calculation routines probably haven't changed too much since then. Office pre-2007 actually runs quite well on low performing hardware. It will certainly be slower crunching large amounts of data, but not too bad. Office 2003 under Crossover is certainly faster than Office 2007 on Vista on equivalent hardware. The only reason to run Office 2007 is that you can use bigger sheets in Excel. Performance is no reason to avoid Crossover - limited compability might be.

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Things that I would think could break under WINE are

a) cross-office integration (e.g. embedded Excel tables in Powerpoint presentations)

Any way to break this on Windows? Please? Especially the "feature" where Powerpoint changes all the colors on Excel charts to match its theme, so my written text becomes incomprehensible - e.g. "See the red bar in this chart", except that bar is now green.

I actually think that this works under Crossover, but I had to vent.

Originally Posted by turtle777 

b) Excel to Access links

c) database-driver related functionality (Excel, Access)

-t

This may be true, if database functionality is a required feature.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by P 

Please? Especially the "feature" where Powerpoint changes all the colors on Excel charts to match its theme, so my written text becomes incomprehensible - e.g. "See the red bar in this chart", except that bar is now green.

I have never had that problem with Office 2003, but I think this happens when you cut & paste from Excel to PPT.

I usually create spreadsheets and charts in Excel first, and then embed the whole Excel sheet. It looks pretty close to the original in PPT.

-t

[P]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I have never had that problem with Office 2003, but I think this happens when you cut & paste from Excel to PPT.

I usually create spreadsheets and charts in Excel first, and then embed the whole Excel sheet. It looks pretty close to the original in PPT.

-t

It happens in 2007 when you copy a specific chart into a presentation - which I do all the time. You usually don't notice, because the default themes are the same. I use a company-specific theme in Powerpoint, however, and those colors are much too bright to work well in a chart. The default ones are much better, and actually complement the theme quite well, so I'd just like to disable that moronic color switching.

[turtle777]

I'm avoiding Office 2007 like the plague. One more reason why.

-t