[starman]

How many bounces?

[neoME]

Here is the thing:
As I explained above, words cpu usage is huge. At least on my system. I had office 2004, deinstalled it and installed 2008.
A friend of mine has exact the same system and it runs like a charm.... there must be a solution....

[angelmb]

Originally Posted by starman 

How many bounces?

I couldn't tell !!, how high can you count on your fingers ??

[jacklazara]

Originally Posted by angelmb 

I couldn't tell !!, how high can you count on your fingers ??

lol, 11

[kamina]

So what are the main differences between the student edition and the standard one? How does the word processor in iwork compare? I've been thinking of getting some kind of office suite for my home computer even though it would end up getting used very little (proably mostly the word processor, and even that only a bit). I have Office 2004 on my notebook, and have tried Neo-office (but did not like it at least one year ago).

[-Q-]

The difference between the three versions are shown here:

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/product.../shop-now.mspx

As I don't connect to an exchange server, I went with the home version myself; just needed Word compatiblity and Excel.

If you don't need to upgrade to a Universal Binary, Office 2004 will probably do just fine for your needs. Heck even TextEdit would probably work if you're not going to be using it much.

[TheoCryst]

Originally Posted by kamina 

So what are the main differences between the student edition and the standard one? How does the word processor in iwork compare? I've been thinking of getting some kind of office suite for my home computer even though it would end up getting used very little (proably mostly the word processor, and even that only a bit). I have Office 2004 on my notebook, and have tried Neo-office (but did not like it at least one year ago).

Go ahead and try out iWork if you're curious: there's a free 30-day trial here. It's my primary office suite (with a copy of Office 2004 sitting around for occasional compatibility).

[olePigeon]

They also removed Visual Basic from Office 2008. So if you know anyone who has an Excel document (or occasionally Word) that utilizes VB scripting, you're out of luck.

[Cadaver]

Originally Posted by kamina 

I've been thinking of getting some kind of office suite for my home computer even though it would end up getting used very little (proably mostly the word processor, and even that only a bit).

Try iWork ($79 - includes Pages, Keynote and Numbers) or Nisus Writer Express ($45 - a very nice, lightweight and quick word processor). Nisus Writer Pro ($79) if you need something with more advanced features (auto table of contents, etc.).

Nisus Writer is nice in that they use RTF as their native file format. This means that you can send these files to a PC user who can then open in them directly in Word (or whatever) and most formatting will be completely intact. With Pages, you'll have to export the document as an RTF. You could also make a PDF from either Nisus Writer or Pages, but editing a PDF if your recipient needs to can be a hassle.

Personally, for general word processing, I prefer Nisus Writer. Pages is nice for page layout, but for simple text editing Nisus Writer is slicker. And great for a laptop - doesn't use much RAM, disk space, screen real estate or CPU power.

[damiensmunki]

Is there no way to set Pages to save in some open format as a default?

[kamina]

Saving to an open format as default would be nice, I always try to use rtf when possible.

[TheoCryst]

Originally Posted by damiensmunki 

Is there no way to set Pages to save in some open format as a default?

Sadly, Pages doesn't support saving as any open format at all (ODF or even OOXML). If you're referring to .doc or .rtf, then no, you have to go through the "Export..." menu each time you want to save. This was presumably done because its filters aren't perfect. Try creating a complex Pages file, saving it to .doc, then reading it back in. You won't see your original document.

Originally Posted by kamina 

Saving to an open format as default would be nice, I always try to use rtf when possible.

Actually, RTF is owned by Microsoft, just like .doc. The difference is, RTF is so ubiquitous and simple that it's practically open. See here: Rich Text Format - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[JKT]

OOXML is not an open format in any shape or form. Don't spread that myth please.

[freudling]

If you are serious about writing, Pages will not fulfill your needs, unless someone can point me to an adequate spell checker and graphics templates, like in Word.

[mpancha]

I'm still unsure on upgrading or not. I have Office 2004, but haven't decided if I want to switch to 2008, honestly I haven't had any issues with speed on Office 2004.

I'm trying to find a test drive like there was for Office 2004, but looks like there isn't one (yet). Has anyone else seen one?

[nemanirc]

I don't have my copy Office 2008 yet (MS is taking their time shipping the upgrade copies). So, in anticipation of getting it, I had a few questions:

• Can I get to the "Special Characters" pallette that is standard in the rest of OS X?
• Does Entourage let you check mail manually from its dock icon like Mail?
• Is the editing of animation in PowerPoint any better (editing it on the actual slide like in Windows instead of a dialog box)?
• Can you disable the stupid "Are you sure you want to open this document" in Entourage so I don't have to hit "Okay" each time?

I am sure I have more questions, but these are the ones that bug me the most in Office 2004, and I haven't seen any reviews touch on them yet.

[Cold Warrior]

Originally Posted by nemanirc 

[*]Does Entourage let you check mail manually from its dock icon like Mail?

No.

[*]Can you disable the stupid "Are you sure you want to open this document" in Entourage so I don't have to hit "Okay" each time?

I open attachments all the time and it doesn't ask me anything. Or are you referencing something else?

[cutlassvillager]

I upgraded to Office 2008 because all of my documents I was getting from teachers were in the .docx Word 2007 format. I know you can convert them, but it was a pain and didn't always work right. It still seems pretty slow (I was expecting for there to be a big improvement, especially on my MBP). But, my experience hasn't been as slow as some people have been reporting. A cold start of Word 2008 on my PowerBook G3 (the comp is well below the system requirements but installed fine) is about 25 seconds, so I don't know why some people are getting such slow start times. I really just bought the upgrade for school so that I won't have any compatibility issues. I do prefer Mail, Address Book, Keynote and Pages.

Btw I have the Student and Teacher Edition

[schalliol]

I just had to chime in here. I picked up a copy of Office 2008 and installed it on my MacBook Pro. I had really been looking forward to this version because I figured it would be more stable and have less strange windowing issues. After using it for a day, the software has now been uninstalled and I'm back on Office 2004. I will qualify my comments by noting that I have only used Word and Excel, and I haven't used any other features. I don't log the number of crashes experienced with a program specifically, despite my titling suggesting so, yet I have had crashes nearly every few minutes, even using simple functions. For example, I needed to copy some content out of cells to paste into an online grant form and after I copied, moved to Firefox, Excel would crash. This happened every time. Then, I still had strange windowing issues, where I couldn't change the size of a window, even after attempting to use the zoom function. I am rather amazed by the problems I've experienced, not even to mention the VBA incompatibility, strangely trying to fit Windows UI into the apps, etc. Am I alone here, or are others finding the same to be true?

[Colonel Panic]

Wow - for me Office 2008 so far has been very stable. I think it's a great update. I am not too concerned with VBA loss because honestly VBA support in 04 was iffy enough for me to not to do much with macros on the Mac side and hope for 100% compatibility.

I do hope they go though this with a fine comb looking for performance gains and don't not get around to doing this until Office 2012 or whatever.


Am I the only one that noticed that the Numbers update that went out a few days ago for "Mac OS X compatibility issues" delivered some meaningful interface speed improvements?

[wowway1]

question, will the UPGRADE version upgrade the office 2004 student/teacher edition? I can't believe MS left out exchange support on that verison, and there's no way I'm paying 400.00 for the full version just so I can get my email!

[schalliol]

I did the "Super Suite Deal" which seems to allow you to buy the office 2004 student/teacher and get the "digital media edition" as the upgrade (that's the top version). I assume upgrade versions work the same way, but I don't know.

[MJS]

Many users of MS Word 2004 will know that this version introduced a problem (bug) in which the scroll wheel will become temporarily unresponsive in scrolling through the document. This is particularly the case in documents with tracked changes or Endnote references entered. After clicking in the document the scroll wheel will often work and in fact past scrolls are then executed. Then the problem returns

Can anyone who has 2008 and who knows about this problem comment on whether this issue has been fixed?

[confusedmac]

I just bought a mac and run a home based business and need office. Since the world uses word applications I am forced to buy an office product. After reading all of these comments I am extemely worried about buying the Office 2008 product. I have been on other forums also that are pretty much saying what you are saying that the 2008 is not what was represented and needs another year to work out the bugs. However, I am reading alot of people saying that the Office 2004 didn't crash and freeze their computer like 2008. All I need is word to communicate with the business world and excel. Since you have so much more experience with Mac what would you do if you were in my situation? Office 2004 or 2008?

[Cold Warrior]

If you need total interoperability with Excel 2003/2007 and, specifically, if it relies on a bunch of macros and need visual basic, then you need to use the Windows version (2003 or 2007).

[confusedmac]

Originally Posted by Cadaver 

Try iWork ($79 - includes Pages, Keynote and Numbers) or Nisus Writer Express ($45 - a very nice, lightweight and quick word processor). Nisus Writer Pro ($79) if you need something with more advanced features (auto table of contents, etc.).

Nisus Writer is nice in that they use RTF as their native file format. This means that you can send these files to a PC user who can then open in them directly in Word (or whatever) and most formatting will be completely intact. With Pages, you'll have to export the document as an RTF. You could also make a PDF from either Nisus Writer or Pages, but editing a PDF if your recipient needs to can be a hassle.

Personally, for general word processing, I prefer Nisus Writer. Pages is nice for page layout, but for simple text editing Nisus Writer is slicker. And great for a laptop - doesn't use much RAM, disk space, screen real estate or CPU power.

I have never heard of Nisus Writer and in view of all the problems with Office 2008 I am very interested in what you have been using. My concern is having home based business that I will not be able to communicate in the business world. But you say that PC users can open off the program that I would use Nisus Writer, right in there Word program. Where would I get Nisus Writer and exporting the document to RTF which means what? Thanks

[besson3c]

NeoOffice is compatible with Office file formats.

[Oversoul]

After updating Leopard to 10.5.2, my Office 2008 applications just refuse to load. The product splash pops up and then just stalls on the spinning beach ball. Anyone else having this problem?

[byron]

Originally Posted by Oversoul 

After updating Leopard to 10.5.2, my Office 2008 applications just refuse to load. The product splash pops up and then just stalls on the spinning beach ball. Anyone else having this problem?

my apps load..... but now my entourage is dead and won't download any new mail from my exchnage (OWA) account. this is the case on both of my macs. both worked fine before upgraded and now neither will work at all. i can't believe this wasn't resolved before 10.5.2 was released.

[Oversoul]

I was able to get a new Word document to appear via the Project Gallery, but after it pops up -- spinning beach ball. Won't let me touch the document, and menu bar and tool windows don't load. I eventually have to force quit.

I'm on a quad-3.0Ghz Mac Pro with 5GB RAM, so I doubt it's that my computer's too slow.

[JKT]

Originally Posted by Oversoul 

After updating Leopard to 10.5.2, my Office 2008 applications just refuse to load. The product splash pops up and then just stalls on the spinning beach ball. Anyone else having this problem?

Do you have Linotype Font Explorer running? Similar issues have been reported for Adobe CS3 apps. Quitting LFE enables people to launch CS3 apps again.

[Oversoul]

Nope. I didn't have problems with Office 2008 outside the occasional crash prior to 10.5.2. Now, I can't even load the applications.

[byron]

Originally Posted by Oversoul 

Nope. I didn't have problems with Office 2008 outside the occasional crash prior to 10.5.2. Now, I can't even load the applications.

who does the bug report go to on this (and my entourage problem)? MS or Apple?

[Altermind]

i just want to know, what kind of installation procedure the people that say office 08 is fast and lightning speed, just did, 'cause i think i miss a part in the installation.
My Office 08 is DAMN SLOW, and when i say SLOW is and means SLOW, Word, Excel and Powerpoint take a lot of time to load and i wonder why, if anyone can help me out, im gonna apreciate.

Besides, in my girlfriend Powerbook 12" running Tiger, loads fast and she can start working inmediately, but i have to wait a lot of time watching the beachball to stop and allow me to use it, damn!!

[pendragon]

FWIW:
Because Office is so finicky re installing while other apps are open, I Safe Booted and then installed. Even when I quit all open apps, I still have other third party apps running in the background, such as Pith Helmet, Meteorologist, MaxMenus, MouseWorks, etc.

So far, Office 2008 is rock solid and problem free, though I too have the PPT font/pagination issue when I open a PPT created in Office 2004. To get around that, I kept Office 2004. And yes, they can both be on the same volume and even opened at the same time.

Also, I did a custom install: no Entourage and no foreign (non-English) helpers/languages.

What affect my Safe Boot install had vis-à-vis my success, I dunno.

Still, I hope this is a bit of help-

[AC Rempt]

Originally Posted by schalliol 

I did the "Super Suite Deal" which seems to allow you to buy the office 2004 student/teacher and get the "digital media edition" as the upgrade (that's the top version). I assume upgrade versions work the same way, but I don't know.

I called MS today, and they said they were dealing with an 8 week backlog on these orders.

[schalliol]

Yeah, that's pretty silly when the idea is to effectively pre-order Office. Maybe they'll work out the bugs with it by the time those come.

[agent mac]

Has anyone experienced a similar problem. I have a dual 2GHz G5 with 1.5 GB Ram running 10.5.2. I installed Office 2008 and kept my original Office x on the machine. There are no trial versions floating around.
And what I find is that any sort of cutting and pasting into Word 2008 causes it to crash. Pasting from Excel 2008 or even from within the SAME Word 2008 document causes an instant crash. Even when it is the only program opened.
I phoned Microsoft in the US and they said it was a known problem !!!!!!!!!
But they also said I had to phone microsoft support nearer where I live in Switzerland, and there they implied it could just be a "funny" copy.
As it was essentially unusable as a word processor, I uninstalled it. Has anyone had a similar experience?
Thanks.

[Cold Warrior]

Have you tried uninstalling Office v.X and all of its stuff (folders, pref files, caches, etc.)? Also try, in the same effort, deleting all Office 2008 caches, .plist files, and others (or run the uninstaller). Then start fresh by reinstalling Office 2008 to see if that fixes your issues.

[schalliol]

Just FYI, my Super Suite Deal version of Office 2008 Special Media Edition arrived at my home today.

[ibook_steve]

Same here: Super Suite deal just arrived.

Steve

[legacyb4]

Interestingly enough, even though we only have VLP licenses for Windows versions, the eOpen website had links for the 2008 Mac version. Just downloaded for testing and I wasn't even prompted for key information...

Originally Posted by starman 

Turns out my company's getting a volume license version very soon, so I'll wait until then.

[Sn1PeR]

Office 2008 Student Entourage does not support Exchange servers, and it disallows your previous office 2004 Entourage from functioning at all to get around this!

So in essence, I buy 2004 Student, use Entourage with Exchange, buy the 2008 Student upgrade and they REMOVE this function from the new version and break the old version!

Also: 1.33Ghz Powerbook G4, 2GB RAM
Excel and word are very very slow compared to 2004, there is a noticeable lag typing. When I do simple x,y graphs (no calculations, just raw data) with over 1000 or so points, the graphs become so slow that Excel nearly freezes for seconds at a time. Making any change such as moving the graph, stretching etc causes seconds of delay while it redraws. Office 08 is a pretty big let down.

[ibook_steve]

Originally Posted by Sn1PeR 

Office 2008 Student Entourage does not support Exchange servers, and it disallows your previous office 2004 Entourage from functioning at all to get around this!

So in essence, I buy 2004 Student, use Entourage with Exchange, buy the 2008 Student upgrade and they REMOVE this function from the new version and break the old version!

Also: 1.33Ghz Powerbook G4, 2GB RAM
Excel and word are very very slow compared to 2004, there is a noticeable lag typing. When I do simple x,y graphs (no calculations, just raw data) with over 1000 or so points, the graphs become so slow that Excel nearly freezes for seconds at a time. Making any change such as moving the graph, stretching etc causes seconds of delay while it redraws. Office 08 is a pretty big let down.

You're trying to run a Microsoft application on a 3 to 4 year old non-Intel computer. What kind of performance were you expecting?

As for the Exchange issue, unlike Microsoft's multiple versions of Vista, it was pretty well spelled out that there was no Exchange support in the student version. However, disabling Entourage 2004's Exchange support is news and disturbing.

Steve

[Cadaver]

Discovered a bug last night in Word 2008 that is a pain to work around.

OK, so I've got a 29 page Word document and on one page in the middle of the document I have an image plus some text. Now, if the image is cropped (I've taken a bit off the bottom edge) and I attempt to print either that one page or a range of pages (i.e., not printing the whole document), the image on that page does not print. The text on the page prints, but not the image.

If I print the whole document (all 29 pages), the image does print. If I put the image on the page without cropping and print either that one page or a range of pages, the image will print.

But the image on the page will not print if its cropped and I attempt to print anything other that the whole document at once. Its kind of a pain. Doesn't matter what printer (I've tried three). And not only that, but its clear that the image isn't going to print as it doesn't show up on the little print preview, either.

FSM! I hate Microsoft. And yes, for this particular document, I must use Word (its basically a 30 page template with tons of tables I must fill in).

[Kenneth]

Ain't MacBU supposed to push out the 12.0.1 update today?

edit: okay, it's out. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.0.1 Update (114MB)

[bender]

Office 2008 loads really slow for me. For example, here is how long Word 2008 takes to load...

2008 Mac Pro 2x2.8GHz Quad Core 8GB RAM
Initial load: 14.5 seconds
Proceeding loads: 3 seconds

2008 MacBook 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo 2GB RAM
Initial load: 25 seconds
Proceeding loads: 3.7 seconds

For comparison, I timed Word in Office v.X on my old dual G4 800 MHz
Initial load: 14 seconds
Proceeding loads: 1.5 seconds

Once it's loaded, Office 2008 seems to run fine, but that initial load is a pain. Seriously Microsoft, 14.5 seconds to load a word processor on an 8-way 2.8GHz machine? I have an old XP laptop that opens Word 2003 so fast you can't even count it. Did Microsoft reintroduce code from Office 6?

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

If you need total interoperability with Excel 2003/2007 and, specifically, if it relies on a bunch of macros and need visual basic, then you need to use the Windows version (2003 or 2007).

The missing macro / VBA is the killer.

I'm not gonna upgrade. If I have to get a new version, it's gonna be the PC version, running Fusion.

Way to go M$, shutting out the power users

-t

[olePigeon]

Unlike Microsoft Office 2004, iWork is compatible with .docx OOXML files. Ironic.

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by bender 

I have an old XP laptop that opens Word 2003 so fast you can't even count it. Did Microsoft reintroduce code from Office 6?

By default, Windows loads Office into memory at bootup if you have it installed, and doesn't really quit it either. That may be why you think it's really fast.