Office 2011 for Mac hits Microsoft volume licensing servers

[Xtreme $niper]

I'm planning to install this some time today to test it out, but I already know what .Neo means because I just launched Word 2008 and tried it myself since it has the same issue.

It's just the lack of attention to detail that Microsoft has always been known for. I bet most of the devs working at MacBU didn't even notice that their Cocoa app has smooth scrolling. And if they did, the fact that they didn't do anything about it just shows that they don't really care.

Luckily, it's not a deal-breaker for me, but it's obviously a little annoying. Some browsers (like Opera) still don't have true smooth scrolling too (it has some fake simulated one that just transitions between "steps").

[Quillz]

It's just the lack of attention to detail that Microsoft has always been known for.

Yup, this is exactly what people think of when they think of Microsoft.

The fact that a few of Apple's own applications, such as iTunes, still have not been rewritten for Cocoa I think illustrates the issue that some huge apps like Office and CS have... It takes a long time to rewrite something from Carbon to Cocoa. No one here works for any of these large corporations, so we have no idea if the MacBU is working on a new version of Office completely rewritten for Cocoa or not. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't.

[Scorbing]

I second that; I pulled it straight from Microsoft and 100825 is the latest version.

Scorbing, who told you that the latest was 100825.3 was the latest build?

On WZOR. Check it out.

[rajputwarrior]

I have it but haven't played with it, how is the performance? It's all I care about.

[Scorbing]

I have it but haven't played with it, how is the performance? It's all I care about.

I think MS did a great job with it. It is nice, especially Outlook. It opens very fast. Faster than Apple Mail !!!

[rawr_boy81]

If you're not using one of the Apple-made mousing devices (like the trackpads or the Magic Mouse), you'll notice the scroll jumping around. The Apple-made devices make up for the lack of smooth scrolling in poorly done apps, but it also reduces the scrolling performance.

I'm using a Apple trackpad right now and there is no problems being encountered.

Mac OS 9 and Windows 98 are functional as well, that doesn't mean they're up to today's standards. "Lacking" means something isn't available. So to rephrase myself: Microsoft Excel, Powerpoint and Word 2011 don't have smooth scrolling.

Yes, and what do you mean by 'smooth scrolling'? is the scrolling smooth as far as I see it? yes. Can I scroll through a document and it not jump all over the place? yeap. If you're dragging the scroll bar down then you need to be first beaten with a four by two then introduced to a thing called gestures.

On WZOR. Check it out.

http://www.9to5mac.com/27543/office-2011-for-mac-hits-volume-licensing-servers

That is the official build provided by Microsoft - if there are later builds they probably relate to multi-language

[maxsquared]

I am very unimpressed about lack of exchange 2003 support.....

[rajputwarrior]

I think MS did a great job with it. It is nice, especially Outlook. It opens very fast. Faster than Apple Mail !!!

how do the rest of the apps though?

[.Neo]

Yes, and what do you mean by 'smooth scrolling'? is the scrolling smooth as far as I see it? yes. Can I scroll through a document and it not jump all over the place? yeap. If you're dragging the scroll bar down then you need to be first beaten with a four by two then introduced to a thing called gestures.

Scrolling in Microsoft Office X, 2004, 2008 and 2011 is by no means smooth. Not sure if you're just being difficult here but please Google what the feature means yourself for further info. If you're running Snow Leopard compare scrolling in Safari, Finder, Outlook 2011, iChat, whatever to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Be sure you enabled the below preference...

It [Outlook] opens very fast. Faster than Apple Mail !!!

That's complete and utter BS. No offense. If that's the case on your Mac there's something seriously wrong with your configuration and I'd reconsider doing an Erase & Install of Mac OS X.

how do the rest of the apps though?

I wouldn't take his post too serious. Outlook, which displays a splash screen first, opens by no means faster than Mail. Far from it actually. All launch times are OK though... Word 2008 used to take longer to launch than Photoshop CS4 when it was first released, that's something Microsoft definitely fixed. I'd say Pages '08 and Word 2011 take about the same time to start. Pages perhaps a little bit faster, but not much on my Core i7 iMac.

[rajputwarrior]

I wouldn't take his post too serious. Outlook, which displays a splash screen first, opens by no means faster than Mail. Far from it actually. All launch times are OK though... Word 2008 used to take longer to launch than Photoshop CS4 when it was first released, that's something Microsoft definitely fixed. I'd say Pages '08 and Word 2011 take about the same time to start. Pages perhaps a little bit faster, but not much on my Core i7 iMac.

thanks for that (Y)

have you had time to play around at all though? How is performance when actually working in the apps?

[.Neo]

thanks for that (Y)

have you had time to play around at all though? How is performance when actually working in the apps?

First things first. You have to see Outlook as a completely different animal. Microsoft basically wrote it from the ground up, so apart from the Ribbon, splash screen and some import wizards it's basically a picture perfect Mac OS X application. Because of it it behaves as you're used to from other apps like iPhoto, iMovie, Pages, Keynote etc.. Excel, PowerPoint and Word 2011 however are build on top of the same old plumbing with the only difference being the fresh lick of paint, namely, the Ribbon. That means you won't get any smooth scrolling, customizing toolbars is still different from the rest of Mac OS X, preference/formatting windows require you to do an "Ok" or "Cancel" first to apply changes (or lack of changes) etc. Performance, such as 3D charts, are fine. Mind you I haven't tried any large files. The thing that still annoys the hell out of me is that you require to launch Excel and edit charts there when working in Word. I really don't understand the logic behind it. You don't see Pages launching Numbers either when formatting charts... But oh well... Overall all applications have so many quirks, weird design decisions and other issues that completely clash with the Mac OS X user experience, I decided to just leave it alone (except for viewing files). Luckily I don't need Excel, and Pages + Keynote suit my needs perfectly.

Microsoft Office (with the exception of Outlook) is a perfect example of an application suite that never fully made the transition from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. They try to cover it with a modern looking interface but it still screams Mac OS 9 all over the place. Adobe Creative Suite is the same way really.

That's my personal point of view (before people feel like starting a never ending debate). Others might agree or disagree and depending on what you need (or not need) your personal milages may vary. That's totally OK, and I recommend you trying Microsoft Office 2011 out yourself so you can form your own opinion about it. :)

[KoL Veteran]

Anyone having problem with Messenger? Mine keep crashing.

[.Neo]

Anyone having problem with Messenger? Mine keep crashing.

Try trashing the preferences and Microsoft User Data in Documents.

[KoL Veteran]

Try trashing the preferences and Microsoft User Data in Documents.

Didn't work. I've been having that problem with all v8 builds.

[Scorbing]

Scrolling in Microsoft Office X, 2004, 2008 and 2011 is by no means smooth. Not sure if you're just being difficult here but please Google what the feature means yourself for further info. If you're running Snow Leopard compare scrolling in Safari, Finder, Outlook 2011, iChat, whatever to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Be sure you enabled the below preference...

That's complete and utter BS. No offense. If that's the case on your Mac there's something seriously wrong with your configuration and I'd reconsider doing an Erase & Install of Mac OS X.

I wouldn't take his post too serious. Outlook, which displays a splash screen first, opens by no means faster than Mail. Far from it actually. All launch times are OK though... Word 2008 used to take longer to launch than Photoshop CS4 when it was first released, that's something Microsoft definitely fixed. I'd say Pages '08 and Word 2011 take about the same time to start. Pages perhaps a little bit faster, but not much on my Core i7 iMac.

Why is it BS? Do I have to make a video showing you how fast it opens up in comparison to Apple Mail so you can believe what I'm saying?

[Elliott]

Why is it BS? Do I have to make a video showing you how fast it opens up in comparison to Apple Mail so you can believe what I'm saying?

It's certainly surprising to me. Mail with two email accounts fires up about 5 seconds faster for me than Outlook with no accounts.

[Scorbing]

It's certainly surprising to me. Mail with two email accounts fires up about 5 seconds faster for me than Outlook with no accounts.

have you ever heard of "Tweaking"?

Tweak your MacOSX to perform better dude. Disable the useless, annoying animations and delays and you will see a more responsive OS. I hate animations. I think they serve no purpose whatsoever. They only thing they are good for is to slow down your OS UI.

[Xtreme $niper]

Okay, so I finally got a chance to install this thing and try it out. Here are my thoughts so far...

- Outlook 2011 (with no accounts, thus a very small database to load) seems to launch in the same amount of time as Mail.app (with an account with over 8000 messages, thus a large database). The splash screen also slows it down a bit but not by too much, since I notice it only lasts half a second.

- Overall, every app has been improved from their 2008 counterparts on almost all counts. That's not to say that they've solved all the issues people have raised (as made obvious by the posts in this thread, they still have a long way to go), but relatively speaking, this is an improvement.

- There are some really nifty new features in almost all the apps, and they seem to be really pushing the idea of collaborative editing. I think this is mainly because they are about to really push the whole online version of Office (and all the synching parts of it) as one of the main features that set it apart from iWork or OpenOffice. Powerpoint's broadcast mode seems interesting, but I didn't want to try it because I don't know if it would have an issue since the product has technically not launched yet. Don't want to raise any flags. ;)

- Messenger is a joke. I thought they would have improved it but really, the improvements are so minuscule that I'm not even sure why they bothered. I logged in and it notified me that a bunch of contacts (one by one, no less) wanted me to add them to my contact list. Some spammy, some of them were already on my list to begin with. Then, shortly after I got disconnected for no apparent reason. There seems to be a lag between clicking "sign in" and the actual process starting, too. The contact list is quick and the convo windows open up quickly, but aside from that I can't see myself using this over Adium (it's hard to give up the lightweight factor and the minimalistic skins I can apply to Adium).

- I just opened up Word 2008 and then closed it, and then opened Word 2011, and the startup time is almost halved on my machine... just as an example.

- Word and Excel have some neat new templates (similar to Pages and Numbers, I guess) aside from their standard "blank" templates. Not sure if I'd ever use them, but they do seem nifty. The one from Word that stood out for me was the notebook mode (OneNote?) and Excel's was Pros vs Cons, where it lets you list the pros and cons of something with weighted points, and it tells you which one wins based on some basic calculations. Kind of fun.

Overall, good upgrade. Once this is released, people who use these apps on a daily basis should probably upgrade for the sake of their sanity (performance wise) and just to take advantage of some of the newer features, even if they are mainly novelty.

I have no idea if I'm going to give up Mail.app for Outlook. I might have to set up the accounts to run simultaneously between both programs so that I can use them both without losing out on any emails.

Good effort MacBU. Next step, 100% Cocoa? That would really put Apple to shame if they haven't converted iTunes by then... just saying. ;)

[StandingInAlley]

Just installed MS Office for Mac 2011 and got rid of 2008 and I'm loving the new version. MS Word opens in less than 3 seconds. MS Outlook is equally fast too. Have nicely configured my MobileMe with it and I don't think I would like to use Leopard Mail anymore. I'm loving the new version over all and its a nice big change over the previous version. People might say that iWork > Ms Office but I think its more of a personal opinion and preference. For Me iWork could never get the work done and the word processor in MS Office clearly meets my requirements much better.

Loving it over all.

[.Neo]

Why is it BS? Do I have to make a video showing you how fast it opens up in comparison to Apple Mail so you can believe what I'm saying?

Did you read the second part of my post? If Outlook beats Mail at launch times you have a serious issue with your installation. Mail opens instantly on my iMac. Hell, even on my old G4 1,42 GHz eMac Mail manages to open in less than two bounces. If Apple decided put in a splash screen for Mail it wouldn't have the time to display it...

And yeah, why not, show us a video. Be sure to put Console in the background so we can figure out what's going wrong.

Tweak your MacOSX to perform better dude. Disable the useless, annoying animations and delays and you will see a more responsive OS. I hate animations. I think they serve no purpose whatsoever. They only thing they are good for is to slow down your OS UI.

Extremely useful advice considering Mac OS X doesn't animate opening application windows.

[AltecXP]

i would assume this would be the same as on windows (multiple versions of office don't play nice together) it is still a microsoft product after all

So tell me, is ignorance really bliss?

[PyX]

.Neo :

I just tried removing the ruler from Word. Is it me or if it scrolls a little smoother?

I have to admit scrolling is and has always been a major issue in Office : Mac, but in 2011 it is nowhere as bad as Office 2004 and 2008.

Edit : OH I know what you're talking about now. When OS X scrolls, there's a smooth animation when each row of pixels shows up. Office 2011 has a non-smooth scrolling by displaying rows of about 10 pixels without any animation. That's a basic mistake from Microsoft's part and what a shame, seriously.

My main issues are :

- There’s still a bunch of menus in OS X’s bar. I know it would remove consistency in the OS if MS removed them, but I hate when something in an app is available in multiple places. Everything can be done in the Ribbon now, so just keep a File menu to print and save and whatnot.

- The default styles are a little different from Office 2010 on Windows. Titles should all be in Cambria and the Normal style should be in Calibri. Why did they invert that? It made sense that the body was in Calibri because you need to pass time on sans-serif fonts when you work on a computer because serif fonts aren’t good (long to explain, but I’ve followed classes at University and that’s what they said).

- No 64-bit. What’s wrong with this?

- No smooth scrolling.

- Still feels dog-slow, a little bit like iTunes on both OS X and Windows.

- The videoconferencing option : the GUI sucks. Why is my buddy occupying all my screen estate on top and I am on the right, showing up as a small thumbnail? This makes strictly no sense at all. We should both be on left or right, as I have a widescreen monitor, and I want to see my conversation even when I’m on a webcam.

- Lack of Access.

- Lack of Project.

- The Office folder showing up in my /Applications/ folder. What a mess. In this day and age, all I wanna see is the icons of my apps. Word.app, Powerpoint.app, Excel.app, Outlook.app, Messenger.app, Office Updater.app

My congratulations go to :

- The ribbon bar, finally the same as on Windows (excluding a few tiny differences).

- Macros and VB script. This is a big one.

- Outlook. Entourage sucked.

- A little bit of optimization has been done. Woohoo.

- Cell’s background colors in Excel. I think we have 32 choices in Excel 2008, why, oh why? Now we have 32-bit colors possibilities, as it should.

- Video and Audio conversations in Microsoft Messenger.

[rawr_boy81]

You raised an interesting point PsykX regarding the return of VB - I remember when it was originally pulled from 2008 the argument was that there was huge amounts of PPC specific code that had to be re-written so I wonder to what degree a large amount of the development time was re-implementing features that were pulled from 2008. Maybe the purpose of 2011 is feature parity at least with Office 2004 and maybe with 2013 we'll see MBU go beyond feature parity.

[.Neo]

What did Microsoft Office 2011 actually bring to the table feature-wise beyond the Ribbon and return of functionality that was already there before?

[Southern Patriot]

Yup, this is exactly what people think of when they think of Microsoft.

The fact that a few of Apple's own applications, such as iTunes, still have not been rewritten for Cocoa I think illustrates the issue that some huge apps like Office and CS have... It takes a long time to rewrite something from Carbon to Cocoa. No one here works for any of these large corporations, so we have no idea if the MacBU is working on a new version of Office completely rewritten for Cocoa or not. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't.

The problem I have with this is that they have had YEARS (to be honest, the better part of a decade) to do it, and yet they still are lagging behind. I'm not just blaming Microsoft here, Apple is just as guilty with some apps as well.