Is Office 2008 still horrible? [mac]

[TogaForComfort]

Word takes under 20 seconds to load the first time for me. But if I launch it anytime after loading and quitting it once, it takes 5-7 seconds from clicking to being able to start typing. Not bad if you ask me.

Yeah i find the same, the recent updates have helped but I still find it has to catch up sometimes when typing and i'm by no means fast. I prefer pages for general writing.

[giga Veteran]

Anything will open fast once it's been cached.

[chrisgeleven]

I tried for a few months to use iWork '08 and today I finally installed Office 2008. To me, the benefits of iWork do not outweigh the benefits of Office 2008.

iWork Pros:

1) Keynote has no peers, it is so ahead of PowerPoint that it isn't funny anymore.

2) Pages is pretty good, you can really create some nice documents on it.

3) The multiple spreadsheeets per page feature in Numbers is fantastic.

4) Fast and modern in design.

iWork Cons:

1) Save in Office formats by default: I use the Office formats too much (for work and personal use) to rely on the export options. This format is the standard, all programs should use it. Or at least allow me to change the default file formats. Relying on the stupid export options is very un-Apple like.

2) The more I try to do in Numbers, the more I get frustrated. It is way too basic for anything but the simplest of spreadsheets.

Office 2008 Pros:

1) Full support of all old and current Office formats by default. I haven't run across a bug sending stuff back/forth to work (where I use Office 2007).

2) Basic design is familiar for anyone who uses Office on Windows.

3) There are some things that Word and Excel do that you simply cannot do anywhere else.

Office 2008 Cons:

1) No VBA support (some may say this is a pro)

2) Slow at times, especially at startup. Once it gets going though, I have no issues. Make sure you install all of the latest updates for Office.

3) At times, some very un-Mac like UI.

Overall, Office is still better then iWork in my opinion. Apple still as a lot of work before most people can Office with iWork.

[PyX]

Anything will open fast once it's been cached.

5 seconds, opened for the 2nd time after reboot, with project gallery off

Yeah, but this is not what I call fast, unfortunately :s

[Impact]

It takes about 10 seconds to open any of the iwork apps and be able to start typing on my macbook. You have to keep in mind that this is with a screen coming up first asking if I would like to try or buy (I'm using the trial until I convince my parents to fork over the $70 or so that it is).

[threesixtyflip]

For someone that is doing light tasks in documents and stuff, maybe a few letters here and there and a few invoices, what would be better to use, iWorks or Office 2008?

Thanks,

Matt

[giga Veteran]

Pages should be sufficient.

[Cormier6083]

I miss 2003. It was a whole lot simpler.

[+virtorio MVC]

I spend a bit of time working with Office 2004 and found it a ton faster if I disabled some (actually - most) of the fonts.

Not sure if 2008 would be the same.

[HellScream63]

For someone that is doing light tasks in documents and stuff, maybe a few letters here and there and a few invoices, what would be better to use, iWorks or Office 2008?

Thanks,

Matt

To answer your question, iWork should meet those needs. It's a lot cheaper, and from what was described you probably won't need all the features in Office 2008.

If you don't need the presentation and spreadsheet elements of iWork then there are some free word processors out there such as Bean.

[viciv]

office 2008 auto updates never works for me...

[sn00pie]

It didn't work for me either except when I tried the quit the application. Then oddly enough it started to install the update. :p

[TrickFinlay2]

I still prefer NeoOffice, but the newest version of OpenOffice 3.0 will soon be native for OSX .

[PyX]

I still prefer NeoOffice, but the newest version of OpenOffice 3.0 will soon be native for OSX .

Ohhhh, native as in... written with Cocoa?

[mattrobs]

After just finishing a 10-page assignment in Word 08 with its slowness, a palette with an astoundingly poor layout, random jumping to the first page, absence of equation editor, impossible Chart/Excel integration, half-arsed Styles/Colour support, a gallery that could easily be replaced by a dialog box, and general UI awkwardness, I feel like bludgeoning the developers across the head.

Office 07 is light years ahead of this thing.

[Hurmoth]

Office 2008 is terrible. Even with all the updates, I just cannot stand it. I prefer iWork.

[Arpit]

i use office mostly when i'm working in group projects and have to send/edit stuff to other people. i don't like it nearly as much as i like office 2007 (sometimes i just resort to using that through fusion). today for example, i was editing my friend's resume. i was almost completely done when word just crashed all of a sudden with a stupid little message "some unknown error occurred and we'll try to revive your file"...didn't happen and i had to start from scratch.

if you are using word, save A LOT, just in case. i also missed some functionality in excel like macros and 'solver' (which was only recently released as a separate application). i know this is off-topic but i prefer excel over numbers just because i can navigate through the keyboard instead of having to use the mouse (especially when typing up formulas. i hope they fix this in the next version). haven't spent much time with powerpoint yet and i don't use entourage and i would've used access but they don't have it for mac.

[.Neo]

On my 3.06 GHz iMac Adobe Photoshop CS3 actually launches faster than Microsoft Word 2008. It's saddening.

[cq_]

i don't post much any more, but I figure I'll throw my 2cents in.

I was a beta tester for office 2008 and submitted over 20 bugs. Many of the buggy issues were fixed. However NONE of my, or anyone elses complaints about spaces, awkward UI, and slowness were ever addressed - all bugs were reported "closed" with out a reason. I simply would re-submit the "bugs" but all in the end were closed without explanation - then they pulled the whole feedback website because the master had gone GOLD! Everyone was like WTF this is still beta, and it still is beta.

Office 2008 has been the biggest steaming pile of **** I have ever seen from a "real" software company that claims to produce the "best" software in the world.

Office 2007 is amazing, and in the time it takes to open parallels, resume my session, start office 2007 and open the doc, the mac wouldn't have even allowed me to start typing in word 2008!

BTW i have a 2.16GHz Macbook pro with 2GB of Ram - this is not a slow computer. CS3 also loads way faster than any office 2008 app...

[NeoXY]

Hmm, Office out of the box was bad for me. After the service packs and the updates, performance is becoming pretty considerably good. Originally, I choose Word 08 over Pages due to features. Now I would just choose Pages all around. So no. It doesn't still suck.