Is Office 2008 still horrible? [mac]

[sanctified Veteran]

I havent tried it since the first release. Now I know multiple patches have been released, it is now good enough to use? I ask because it seems I will need to use it for now to write my dissertation.

[LiqHead]

It never was horrible. ;)

[Ruti]

It never was horrible. ;)

[Brad.]

It never was horrible. ;)

QFT

[sanctified Veteran]

It never was horrible. ;)

QFT

Do you all realize I am talking about the Mac version, right?

[giga Veteran]

[stevehoot]

The only "problem" with Office 2007 that I'm aware some people had issues with was the ribbon interface. Actually I was one of them - I could zip around Office 2003 really quickly and just 'know' were various commands were hidden. This new ribbon comes along and I knew nothing!

However after a week of actually using it, I love it. It's a lot quicker to navigate and the menus and options are structured more logically. You start from the left and work along as your document is being created. I've found it a lot quicker than having three or four clicks just to enable something or modify the formatting.

Give it a try (think you can download a free trial from MS) and see how you get on - but give it a week or so before you judge.

[I8PP]

The only "problem" with Office 2007 that I'm aware some people had issues with was the ribbon interface. Actually I was one of them - I could zip around Office 2003 really quickly and just 'know' were various commands were hidden. This new ribbon comes along and I knew nothing!

However after a week of actually using it, I love it. It's a lot quicker to navigate and the menus and options are structured more logically. You start from the left and work along as your document is being created. I've found it a lot quicker than having three or four clicks just to enable something or modify the formatting.

Give it a try (think you can download a free trial from MS) and see how you get on - but give it a week or so before you judge.

This is about Office 2008 for Mac. I still find it terribly slow and clunky, but i must live with it.

[Lewism]

The only "problem" with Office 2007 that I'm aware some people had issues with was the ribbon interface. Actually I was one of them - I could zip around Office 2003 really quickly and just 'know' were various commands were hidden. This new ribbon comes along and I knew nothing!

However after a week of actually using it, I love it. It's a lot quicker to navigate and the menus and options are structured more logically. You start from the left and work along as your document is being created. I've found it a lot quicker than having three or four clicks just to enable something or modify the formatting.

Give it a try (think you can download a free trial from MS) and see how you get on - but give it a week or so before you judge.

2008 = Mac Version

Read the title

[sanctified Veteran]

The only "problem" with Office 2007 that I'm aware some people had issues with was the ribbon interface. Actually I was one of them - I could zip around Office 2003 really quickly and just 'know' were various commands were hidden. This new ribbon comes along and I knew nothing!

However after a week of actually using it, I love it. It's a lot quicker to navigate and the menus and options are structured more logically. You start from the left and work along as your document is being created. I've found it a lot quicker than having three or four clicks just to enable something or modify the formatting.

Give it a try (think you can download a free trial from MS) and see how you get on - but give it a week or so before you judge.

Damn people! read the title! :s

[bankajac]

It is still very slow for me.

[sanctified Veteran]

It is still very slow for me.

Seems I have no other choice. :(

[what]

Just from what I've been reading at MacRumors (I've totally given up on Office 2008 myself), the performance issues that existed at launch still exist now, and updates can fail to complete successfully. The biggest problems, like the issue with Spaces, haven't been fixed either. I certainly haven't been convinced to try it again. I'm amazed Apple still keeps it on the front page of their online store. They should be trying to wean people off of Microsoft's products if this is what we can expect from them in the future.

[VGVL]

It's not that horrible compared to Office 2004 for Mac, which corrupted its database on a weekly basis. At least 2008 opens without error messages.

I try to use iWork or Mellel whenever I can though.

[PyX]

I don't like Office on the Mac.

And these geniuses at MS already had 2007 ready and up for a year, and couldn't reproduce a similar design on the Mac... no, they had to change all the options once again to make you lost. Even MORE.

The Ribbon interface couldn't have been ported to the Mac, we all know why. But they could have done something 90% close to it, and place the features and options in the same Tabs, with the same aspect, etc. But no.

And where the stupid hell are mathematical expressions for God's sake? I'm in science and Word and PowerPoint are pretty much worthless without these. Don't tell me about MathType, it's just a wrong solution. Opening a whole new window with a whole new interface just to type an equation, without being able to type proper shortcuts on the keyboard... whose idea was that?

Oh yeah, it's slow to start, and pretty slow to use too!

By making MS 2008, MS wasted their time and their employee's time, and consumers are losing money by buying it and are losing their time also. They had the perfect interface, they didn't even have to design anything new :|

I should almost make an Angry Microsoft Nerd video just about Office 2008 on the Mac.

[Pink Floyd Veteran]

I love the GUI. But it's still slow as hell even with the latest patch from Microsoft.

I am personally considering to buy iWork 08

[giga Veteran]

Pages > Word. Keynote > Powerpoint. Excel > Numbers.

[Damian]

Is Office 2008 still horrible?

Short answer: YES

iWork works a lot better.

Good thing i got Office 2008 for free (legally)

[1759]

Just from what I've been reading at MacRumors (I've totally given up on Office 2008 myself), the performance issues that existed at launch still exist now, and updates can fail to complete successfully. The biggest problems, like the issue with Spaces, haven't been fixed either. I certainly haven't been convinced to try it again. I'm amazed Apple still keeps it on the front page of their online store. They should be trying to wean people off of Microsoft's products if this is what we can expect from them in the future.

The Spaces issue is primarily why I gave up on 2008, as well as Excel. It looks nice, but in comparison to Office 2007, it's pretty terrible. iWork is a fair substitute (Numbers is a joke though), and the OOo 3.0 beta is pretty good, although both are lacking in Office 2007 compatibility.

2007 is great, but 2008 is such a disappointment. Apple either needs to get cracking a pro office suite or MS needs to go back to the drawing board.

[PyX]

Good thing i got Office 2008 for free (legally)

:|

---

On another note, when is iWork 09 out? I'm dying to see this and iLife 09 and the new improvements. Shouldn't there be an event for this? A 'One more thing' event with refreshed laptop designs and specs and iWork 09 and iLife 09 would be so freaking amazing! It could be the only real way they can apologize now that laptops have good reasons to be scheduled in October instead of September.

And yeah, a lot can be done to iWork, but globally it's a suite that works well.

[LiqHead]

I read the title & once again it was never horrible.

[Quillz]

I've actually never had any issues with Office 2008 at all. And with the latest patches, this continues to be the case. There was a minor issue with Spaces, but it's fixed. I use Office 2008 every single day and I love it. I tried iWork and didn't care for it.

I wonder how many people here have actually used Office 2008 for more than a day. I think that some here are saying it sucks simply because hating Microsoft is the trendy thing to do these days.

[StevoJD]

It sucks because it's slow.

It takes ages to load on my iMac.

[PL_ Veteran]

I wonder how many people here have actually used Office 2008 for more than a day. I think that some here are saying it sucks simply because hating Microsoft is the trendy thing to do these days.

Word takes 57 seconds to load here, Pages takes 25 seconds. By load I mean "I can start typing now". Scrolling through fonts is slow, it has this irritating pseudo-ribbon that doesn't do much useful, it just doesn't integrate as well as Pages. However, I use Word because it saves in .DOC by default, and it isn't as design-obsessed as Pages is. Everyday use, though, I use TextEdit because of the speed.

[Damian]

:|

Yes, what's wrong?