Anyone using MS Office for Mac?

Cerbera

I went on to the Apple website to but the Office for Mac package but, perhaps luckily so, read through the product reviews on the site and it doesn't seem to be liked by many people.

Have any of you got it and how do you find it?

Is it as bad as the reviews say it is?

I'd be mainly using Word on it.


I did a search on here but couldn't find anything about it.

forbairt

I'm using it ... pretty basically and its fine.

I've had no problems with upgrading (friends had)

They have released about 2 or 3 major patches to it already though.

Edit: I should add would I recommend it ... no idea .. I need it every so often for work related stuff and it does the job.

I used use open office quite a bit when I was on the PC ... but there were some problems with it and MS Office documents.

Dont be at yourself

If you can avoid it, do so. iWork and NeoOffice are good alternatives if you don't need 100% compatibility with Microsoft Office.

Cerbera

I don't need 100% compatibility with Office but I do need to have the ability to access and edit the Word stuff which is what's mainly used for quotes and I check over all the larger jobs before the quotes go out.

All the quotes will have been done on PC's in Word.

I'll probably never use Excel or Powerpoint to create anything and the most they'll be used for is viewing something I get in from someone else.

forbairt

My gut instinct would be to go with MS Office then ...

Alternatively if you want to go Crazy ...

Run a VM on your machine with an XP install and just use it for MS Office

Dont be at yourself

If it's just for reading windows-created documents, you should manage fine with iWork or NeoOffice. They render most documents fine, unless there is particularly heavy formatting in them. NeoOffice is free, and you get a free trial of iWork with your Mac, so open a few documents to see for yourself how well they render.

The advantage of Microsoft Office for Mac is in creating Windows-friendly documents, but this doesnt seem to be a requirement for you.

nialler

I've installed it on a number of intel & ppc macs, a few niggly little problems, nothing major as stated about 3 big download updates since it was launched, nice interface, little issues with saving backward compatible files to server (for office 2004), users are quite happy with entourage but it's still not outlook or nowhere near it.

faceman

I use it because i need MS office compatibility with a PC. Its no different than using it on a PC for the most part.

K.O.Kiki

OpenOffice.org 3.0beta

The one time I used Excel for important work (which needed to be done that day) it crashed.
Repeatedly.
I didn't actually lose much work, but it made me pretty wary.

ronnie3585

I got MS Mac Office 2008 about 2 months ago and tbh I'm perfectly happy with it, I even prefer it to the windows based model. I use it predominanlty for Word and I have yet to have a compatibility problem or any real issue for that matter. I also use PowerPoint and thats pretty good too - does what it says on the tin sort of thing. Haven't really used excell, only to open and view accounts etc so I can't really comment on it's functionality. There is a diary/calander function, I think it's called entorage. I find iCal much better and easier to use.

I used a months demo of iWork. While its good I just prefer Office, as I use it every day in work and its what I'm used to and comfortable with.

Prior to that I (tried) to live and work with Open Office. Didn't like anything about. But hey, you pay your money you take your choice.

Passenger

Works fine. Does what it does, maybe better, than it does on Windows.

Cerbera

I've downloaded NeoOffice today but I don't think it's going to be the solution for me.

While I can read the Word documents perfectly I run into problems if I try to make changes.

The changes can be viewed perfectly on the Mac but not on the PC's.

There's a bit more research needed, methinks.

Or else they'll all have to get it right first-time so I don't have to make any changes.

forbairt

Are you saving it in the correct format ?

Type 17

Office for Mac (2004 and 2008 editions) used to be very troublesome on all the Macs that I look after (eight of them), but recent updates have seen a big reduction in unexpected quit errors.

The users that I look after use Office to create and send documents to PC users, and are experience tells us that the format that they save in is the key, but also a factor in the mix is how new the version of Office is on the destination PC - many PC users are still on Office 95 and 97, and sending them the wrong version of document (combined with many PC users' ignorance of their machines) can lead to lots of resends and phone calls...

babypink

i'm happy with my office '08

sailorfoley

I have office 2004 for mac. there are lots of floating windows and i find it quite slow to load up. I'd recommend the free open source alternatives.

Type 17

sailorfoley wrote: »

...I find it quite slow to load up.

The launch times are very poor alright - I'd hoped that the 2008 version (Intel-native code) would be faster on the Intel machines, but it's no better... :rolleyes:

Gerard_Smith

There is one question about MS office for Mac that I can never find an answer too. Does it use Microsoft's spell grammar and punctuation check? Microsoft and Google have the only two spellchecks I have ever encountered that can keep up with my dyslexia.

tenandtracer

I like it but.....
Not compatible with Endnote for bibliographies, so I have had to reload 2004!
Also I have found that a lot a folk cannot open .docx so have to consciously save in .doc format.
However, new version of Powerpoint is quite snazzy, gave a presentation last week that had that "wow factor" that Keynote delivers.

erie

I'm using office 2008... great...