[.Neo]

Microsoft Office 2008 BETA leaked onto the web.

Just let me know if you guys want to know any specific information.

Word


System Pre... *cough* *cough* Word Preferences


Excel


PowerPoint


Entourage and My Day


Saving Formats


Overal Microsoft Office 2008 feels slow, even on my 2.8 GHz Core 2 Extreme iMac with 2 GB of memory. While overal the applications finally look like they actually belong on Mac OS X, in many cases, they sure don't act like it. Hopefully because it's still a beta.

[Nightcrawler]

wow . Looks Great !!
do you have the link where you get those images ?

[pheonixash]

Wow, if those are legit, could they have copied Keynote anymore? Powerpoint looks like they took the source-code of Keynote and wrote MS all over it.

[Big Mac]

I'll admit it looks nice.

[brassplayersrock²]

it does look really nice. it does look like keynote and pages a bit though =/

[Cold Warrior]

those pics look better than anything MS has released.

Too bad they've been releasing fugly screen caps to date. Sad that it takes a leak to get more info on the app.

[Taylor C]

Wow...All I can say is wow. Nice originality, Microsoft.

[CharlesS]

Yeah, MS. How dare you use standard interface elements like the window toolbar and follow the UI guidelines.

[Cadaver]

I'm very much looking forward to Office 2008. I get lots of Word documents from work of intermediate complexity that usually never open correctly on anything else. Images will be missing in, say, Pages, while in Open Office or Nisus Writer Express something else like margins and line spacing will be different enough to move page elements from where they're supposed to be. Word 2004 works, but its GUI is extremely dated compared to more recently released apps.

On top of that, I give at least one lecture a week with either PowerPoint or Keynote. While I much prefer Keynote, its not always convenient (or possible) to give the talk off my MacBook. Sometimes I must use the lecture hall PCs (which of course are Windows machines, meaning no Keynote). And even though the standard build at work uses Office 2003 everywhere, PowerPoint 2003 for Windows is way nicer than PowerPoint 2004 for the Mac. Keynote (especially its '08 incarnation) is still way better, but sometimes I don't have a choice.

I've been using Office 2007 via Parallels for a few months now, and I must say its way better than Office 2004 for the Mac.

Plus, the whole Office suite, especially PowerPoint, is dog slow (especially on my Intel-based machines). While the lack of VB scripting for Excel might bite me once or twice, the update to Word and PowerPoint will be welcome. I'm glad to see Microsoft using a nice, clean-looking interface (at least from the screen shots above) for Office 2008. I'm eager to get my hands on it.

[MartiNZ]

I'm looking forward to it as well. They could have done a much better job with 2004, I feel, and it looks like they have learned as much. Docked toolbars, at last, colour coding in the formatting palette and more utility with it. We get the best of all worlds by the looks, with a ribbon-like interface, the formatting palette, and application menus, the lack of which has annoyed me no end in what little I've had to do with Office 2007.

The other nice thing is that their text rendering engine, whatever it does, even without using Quartz fully, does anti-aliasing a lot better than the iWork apps, because they do not apply sub-pixel rendering.

[CharlesS]

What I'd like to know is whether the emacs shortcuts work by default like they do in Cocoa apps. Yeah, I know you can set them up manually with in the shortcut settings, but it would be nice not to have to do that. 2004 added support for the traditional Mac Command-arrow shortcuts, which was a step in the right direction.

[Chuckit]

I'm waiting to see if the performance is still terrible, but it looks good, anyway.

[MartiNZ]

Indeed. If calculation speed in Excel can compete with that in Windows, and if I can have auto-spell-check squiggly lines turned on in Word without it crippling performance, I'll be satisfied ... at least for a short time.

I haven't used the cocoa keyboard shortcuts much but it would be a nice heads-up to the built-in OS features if they worked, something that MS hasn't liked to give before, really. I do like the customisability of shortcuts in Word and Excel though, and it is really nice essentially having an extra modifier key for them vs. Windows.

[TheoCryst]

Wow, looks pretty good. I just looked, and at least one common torrent site has it. I'm tempted to download it and play around with it a bit, but I'll probably just wait for the official release and download a demo then.

[workerbee]

Does anyone know what those strange-looking bottons at the top left of the document window are? While I don't necessarily love the OS X red yellow and green baubles or their grayish "Graphite" equivalent, in the screenshots above they look really reduced to the max, so to speak.

Is it one of those of UI-changing applications playing tricks, or M$'s MacBU?

While having a slight colour tone to the various menues' titlebars is possibly a good idea, I'm not sure I like the pink or flesh colour in PowerPoint -- it reminds me of someone who once described it to me (about a 3D animation I did, where I had washed-out red tones) as «the colour of my grand-mothers underwear»... somehow this really stuck :-)

[TETENAL]

It seems like the person running the beta uses some weird Shapeshifter theme.

And the info palette section headers are bluish by default: Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 Maybe that colour is customisable.

[Kevin]

Or that isn't a theme at all.

That might just be how 10.5 will look.

[.Neo]

I updated the first page. This time screen shots from a Mac running default Aqua.

[kuchiki]

Is it really that slow?
I was hoping that 2008 being a UB it would run a lot more smoother than office 2004.
the UI looks amazing though...

kuchiki

[.Neo]

Originally Posted by Cadaver 

On top of that, I give at least one lecture a week with either PowerPoint or Keynote. While I much prefer Keynote, its not always convenient (or possible) to give the talk off my MacBook. Sometimes I must use the lecture hall PCs (which of course are Windows machines, meaning no Keynote). And even though the standard build at work uses Office 2003 everywhere, PowerPoint 2003 for Windows is way nicer than PowerPoint 2004 for the Mac. Keynote (especially its '08 incarnation) is still way better, but sometimes I don't have a choice.

It's perfectly possible to export any Keynote presentation to a user interactive QuickTime presentation. Animations, slides etc. everything is being preserved. It will play on any Mac or PC with QuickTime 7.

I've done it on several occasions when I had to use a Mac (or PC for that matter) at college without iWork installed. Works like a charm.

Originally Posted by kuchiki 

Is it really that slow?
I was hoping that 2008 being a UB it would run a lot more smoother than office 2004.
the UI looks amazing though...

kuchiki

Yeah it lags a lot and dunno the entire interface feels a bit off when actually using it. The applications launch pretty quickly though and changing charts and such is almost instant.

Don't get me wrong, it's definitely an improvement coming from Office 2004.

[kuchiki]

thanks for the clarification...
hope the lagging you are experiencing will be fixed till release.

kuchiki

[.Neo]

I'm pretty confident it will.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by .Neo 

I updated the first page. This time screen shots from a Mac running default Aqua.

What was it running before?

[.Neo]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

What was it running before?

No idea. I got the first set of shots from some internet site.

[Kevin]

Yeah I posted a screenshot of dialog boxes sorta like that in the other thread about 10.5...

Could you post the links to those again real quick? (I wont derail the thread I promise)

[.Neo]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

Yeah I posted a screenshot of dialog boxes sorta like that in the other thread about 10.5...

Could you post the links to those again real quick? (I wont derail the thread I promise)

I don't have them any more sorry. It was some 3rd party theme, but it looks nothing like default Aqua.

[Kevin]

I've seen lots of themes. I've never seen that one before.

I just saw were you could download it.. I would give it a try, but I have no reason to have Office installed on my computer at home.

I only have it installed at work because some customers think that giving me their logo in power point format makes sense.

Or giving me a word document, and not turning text into graphics..

MS Office just makes my job harder/suckier because it exists. Some people think that you should do everything in Office! I once had a customer asking us (before we bought office) why we weren't using Office for our design and layout program. I tried my best to explain it to him without coming off condescending or patronizing.

I've been to MS days... I used to date a gal that was made to go to them by her company. And she'd always make ME go. I'd always bring a MacAddict magazine or a MacWorld to read and sit up front. But they do act like Office etc is the end all be all of applications. And it's all you need to do professional work in. I wont even go into Publisher. Which BTW MS gave to us for free. We officially do not support publisher documents. I have to say no to maybe one person a year.

I did win a copy of office one year at one of those MS days. Sold it on ebay for like $250.

So it was worth the attendance.

[.Neo]

I'm curious what do you use? Currently I make all my college assignments and projects in Pages. Not sure if Word 2008 will offer me more in terms of layout customization and user-friendliness.

[Cold Warrior]

finally, a decent Entourage screen cap. Thanks!

Anyone using the beta, let us know more if you can.

[Kevin]

For work I use the Adobe CS3 Suite. I do layout in InDesign (finally got rid of Quark) Photo manipulation in Photoshop, and vector work in Illustrator.

It has everything I need in it. But then again If I was in college I would probably have Office because that is what most colleges support. Or you can just make it a PDF. Everyone can open PDFs, and they can't be modified if you don't want them to be.

[yellowdog]

.Neo -- one feature that would be helpful is the ability to select a search in Entourage, say all upcoming theater dates over a number of months, and then print the list. Currently neither iCal nor entourage can do that - very frustrating. Is that list printing available in the beta? Also, hopefully they will get the spelling of October corrected in the release version. Good work putting up the info!

[Kevin]

Good example of MS taking Apple's GUI and making their botched version. They put widget like GUIs in main applications themselves.

MS and Apple's GUI never did mesh well. Anyone remember IE5 for OS X or OS 9? The "highlight" colors didn't even match with Apple's scroll bars and such. I mean WTF... they could have just connected to it somehow and used the colors Apple used.

Just messed up. I hated IE 5 because of that. And I hated it even more because at the time it was the only real usable browser for the Mac. And that wasn't saying much at the time.


I am sure Safari for XP has similar issues. I never understood why Apple put Safari out for Windows...

[.Neo]

Originally Posted by yellowdog 

Also, hopefully they will get the spelling of October corrected in the release version. Good work putting up the info!

"Oktober" is the Dutch way of spelling "October". It adapts to whatever region Mac OS X is set to, in my case Dutch, Netherlands.

[.Neo]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

Good example of MS taking Apple's GUI and making their botched version. They put widget like GUIs in main applications themselves.

MS and Apple's GUI never did mesh well. Anyone remember IE5 for OS X or OS 9? The "highlight" colors didn't even match with Apple's scroll bars and such. I mean WTF... they could have just connected to it somehow and used the colors Apple used.

Just messed up. I hated IE 5 because of that. And I hated it even more because at the time it was the only real usable browser for the Mac. And that wasn't saying much at the time.


I am sure Safari for XP has similar issues. I never understood why Apple put Safari out for Windows...

Let's be honest here: At least Microsoft puts in the effort to make Office 2008 fit in with Mac OS X. We can't say the same of iTunes, QuickTime and Safari on Windows.

[Cold Warrior]

I did notice Entourage's folder list now looks (mostly) like iTunes and Leopard's Finder. That's an improvement.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by .Neo 

Let's be honest here: At least Microsoft puts in the effort to make Office 2008 fit in with Mac OS X.

Using non-standard GUIs isn't making effort to me IMHO. MS has a habit of doing this to Apple for years.

We can't say the same of iTunes, QuickTime and Safari on Windows.

For one, Windows has never been consistent like the Mac OS has been (well not really lately)

For two, I think I mentioned that. when I said "I am sure Safari for XP has similar issues. I never understood why Apple put Safari out for Windows."

I'd rather MS make a whole DIFFERENT GUI, than to attempt to match Aqua, and fail miserably.

It reminds me of a poorly done Java application that was ported over to OS X.

I will be curious as to how it will look when 10.5 comes out and no longer uses Aqua, but the Unified theme.

I know MS didn't change anything with the OS X version of IE 5 graphically to match OS X. Things as simple as the pinstripes were completely off. I mean how hard would it have been for MS to match pinstripes?

[Kevin]

This is how a Mac layout program SHOULD look like



IMHO

That is elegant. MS Office's GUI is archaic. Adobe's new GUI options are awesome.

MS should attempt to tame Office with something similar.

[.Neo]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

Using non-standard GUIs isn't making effort to me IMHO. MS has a habit of doing this to Apple for years.

For one, Windows has never been consistent like the Mac OS has been (well not really lately)

For two, I think I mentioned that. when I said "I am sure Safari for XP has similar issues. I never understood why Apple put Safari out for Windows."

I'd rather MS make a whole DIFFERENT GUI, than to attempt to match Aqua, and fail miserably.

It reminds me of a poorly done Java application that was ported over to OS X.

I will be curious as to how it will look when 10.5 comes out and no longer uses Aqua, but the Unified theme.

I know MS didn't change anything with the OS X version of IE 5 graphically to match OS X. Things as simple as the pinstripes were completely off. I mean how hard would it have been for MS to match pinstripes?

Just like in the Mac OS X Leopard thread I think you're overreacting. Microsoft Office 2008's UI is nothing like a poorly coded Java application, nor does it feel like one when actually using it. But shall we keep this thread about Office 2008 as a whole instead of picking out one aspect and turning it into yet another endless GUI debate?

[Cold Warrior]

Can the beta be run alongside 2004 or is it exclusively either/or?

[.Neo]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

Can the beta be run alongside 2004 or is it exclusively either/or?

You can run it side by side as both versions are installed in their own separate folder inside /Applications. According to the Installer Microsoft doesn't recommend it though. But in any case both suites are fairly easy to get rid of (there's an uninstaller inside the Microsoft Office 2004/2008 folder).

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by pheonixash 

Wow, if those are legit, could they have copied Keynote anymore? Powerpoint looks like they took the source-code of Keynote and wrote MS all over it.

Actually, I would say Keynote copied PowerPoint.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by kuchiki 

Is it really that slow?
I was hoping that 2008 being a UB it would run a lot more smoother than office 2004.

Keep in mind that this is beta-ware. Performance can't really be evaluated until software reaches the release candidate stage.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by Kevin 

This is how a Mac layout program SHOULD look like

But then everybody would be accusing MS of copying Apple

[Cold Warrior]

Originally Posted by .Neo 

You can run it side by side as both versions are installed in their own separate folder inside /Applications. According to the Installer Microsoft doesn't recommend it though. But in any case both suites are fairly easy to get rid of (there's an uninstaller inside the Microsoft Office 2004/2008 folder).

Cool. I saw some comments on a site about Entourage phoning home....don't know what that's all about, b/c another poster said he hadn't seen it do that. The only thing I can think of is if it defaulted to checking some address directory (it happened to me one time in Entourage 2004 after an Office update).

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Actually, I would say Keynote copied PowerPoint.

How so? Aside from both being presentation apps, they didn't really look that much alike to me.

[Taylor C]

I'm using iWork '08 now anyway. Pages new word processor functionality is enough for a complete replacement to Word for me, I've always used Keynote instead of PowerPoint, and I don't even use Excel's more "professional" features enough to warrant using such a bloated program in place of the beautiful OS X app that Numbers is.

[.Neo]

About that. The Pages '08 title bar always says Untitled (Word Processing). Are there any other modes to choose from?

[Mrjinglesusa]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Keep in mind that this is beta-ware. Performance can't really be evaluated until software reaches the release candidate stage.

Office 2008 Beta is more than functional and the interface is actually very responsive. I'm not sure why people are saying it "lags" or is "slow" - it's actually faster and more responsive than 2004 on both my Macs. All apps launch in less than 2 dock bounces (more like 1 and a 1/2). All my Apple Mail data imported without a hitch.

Overall, I am very pleased with the progress MS made with Office 2008 - especially considering they still have several months to optimize and tweak before release.

[.Neo]

Originally Posted by Mrjinglesusa 

Office 2008 Beta is more than functional and the interface is actually very responsive. I'm not sure why people are saying it "lags" or is "slow" - it's actually faster and more responsive than 2004 on both my Macs. All apps launch in less than 2 dock bounces (more like 1 and a 1/2). All my Apple Mail data imported without a hitch.

I noticed that something went wrong during installation. I deleted the applications and support files and did a complete reinstall of Microsoft Office 2008. The lag pretty much gone now.

Something I really not like so far is that the only way to edit charts is by launching Excel and change data there.

[pheonixash]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak 

Actually, I would say Keynote copied PowerPoint.

I was referring to the interface. And even otherwise, I don't agree with that. Keynote functions in a completely different way. The Inspector is the best thing for presentations ever IMO. Way better than MS's right-clicking everything nightmare.