The Other Office: Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Review
by Ryan Smith on February 5, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Installation & A New GUI Design
Normally we wouldn’t even comment on an application’s installer, but in this rare case Office 2008 begs for such commentary, and not for good reasons. One of the unique points about the Mac and at the forefront of its simpler design is that applications don’t require a traditional installation. Applications can be dragged directly in to the Application folder and immediately executed; the application will then take care of any setup considerations in the background.
Somewhere between 2004 and 2008, Microsoft seems to have forgotten this. Office 2004 could be drag & drop installed, or an installer could be used if you wanted a customized installation with some elements stripped out. This is not the case with Office 2008, here the installer is the only option. The issue is incredibly minor but never the less we can’t fathom why drag & drop installation is not an option this time; it’s very un-Mac and surprising to see Microsoft taking a step backward here.
Moving on, Microsoft has used the 4-year period to give the entire Office suite a GUI makeover. When we last saw Office 2004, it was still sporting a design from the middle of the Aqua era. Aqua has since then long fallen out of style inside and outside of Apple with Office 2008 catching up on this fashion change. All of the Office applications sport a new GUI theme that bring the suite up to parity with Leopard.
As unexciting as a GUI change may sound however, Office 2008 represents a major improvement in the Office GUI. Office 2004 will not be remembered for its GUI, its Aqua design aside it just wasn’t very good; floating palletes littered the design and toolbars were oddly disembodied from other toolbars and the application’s main window. It was certainly different from its Windows counterparts but it was also impractical.
What’s old is new for Office 2008, the entire GUI has been glued back together and is no longer disembodied to our delight (although the disembodied option is still there for the few who liked it). The default Office 2008 GUI is basically a traditional GUI reborn, still sporting the styles of Mac OS X but without being so revolutionary that it’s hard to use. While we can’t help but feel that the Office 2008 GUI feels particularly close to that of Apple’s iWork the fact of the matter is that copy or not, Microsoft fixed one of the more nagging design issues in Office by finally getting rid of the sometimes-combative GUI moving to a style that works. It’s hard to put in words how much of an improvement the new Office GUI is, but for anyone who has had the misfortune of fighting with Office 2004, they’ll immediately appreciate the return to tradition in Office 2008. Now if Microsoft could just get rid of the floating palletes in Office 2012.
When it comes to GUIs, one of the interesting things that comes from the split development of Office for the Mac and Office for Windows is what does and doesn’t end up getting shared between the platforms. Office 2007 saw the introduction of the ribbon system, the biggest revamp in the Office for Windows GUI since its introduction. Office 2008 traditional design means that it does not use the ribbon for its primary functions, but the influences of the ribbon are clearly seen elsewhere. Specifically new in Office 2008 is the Elements Gallery, which houses many of the new features for each of the core Office 2008 applications (the insertible ones referred to as “elements”) along with some of the features that used to be in floating palletes, and this is where you’ll find the ribbon in Office 2008.
We’ll go in to each of the new functions in the Elements Gallery in a bit when we take a look at the individual applications, but for now consider this a sign of things to come. The ribbon has proven to be effective on Office 2007 and the same is true on Office 2008 where the ribbon does a good job providing access to the rest of Office’s features and proves that a ribbon can work on a Mac. It’s certainly as good of a way as any to phase in the ribbon for Mac users.
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Rankin - Monday, February 11, 2008 - link
Does anyone know the performance of Word '08 and Endnote? About 6 people in my office are running Word '04 (v. 11.3.8) and Endnote X02 with OSX 10.4.11 and the response is terrible. On any document with Endnote references, the CPU jumps to 100% and pretty much stays there, with the fan screaming away, until it's minimised for >5mins or closed. This is totally unacceptable - it makes it impossible to even scroll through documents. Apple tech support just shrug (they can't say if it will be rectified with no emulation), Leopard doesn't help and we can't change from Endnote because all our PhD references are in there.Don't suppose I can convince anyone to do some tests on this to add to the review?
Gandalf90125 - Saturday, February 9, 2008 - link
"iWork is ... leaps and bounds better ... enough so that for the first time ever Microsoft has some real competition for office suites on the Mac."This is a silly comment. I don't think you are aware of Lotus 1-2-3 and WordPerfect for Macintosh. In the early to mid-1990s, both products were excellent and were serious challengers to Microsoft's offerings. In fact, when 1-2-3 was released, Excel (version 2.2 at the time) was clearly inferior to it. I don't mean to denigrate you or your review, but I think you ought not to make such comments unless you are familiar with the history of Macintosh business applications, a history that goes back almost 25 years.
Now, I expect that I will be challenged or flamed over this on the grounds that 1-2-3 and WordPerfect never constituted an actual "Suite", but that's just semantic baloney. Word processing and electronic spreadsheets have always been the workhorses of business software applications.
strikeback03 - Thursday, February 7, 2008 - link
These figures are great, esp. implying a connection between global warming and pirates. I'd guess the pirates being outrun by cruise ships is a bigger problem for them thoughhttp://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/11/05/somalia...">http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/11/05/somalia...
hiromizu - Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - link
There's no mention of this important feature of remote Exchange/Outlook integration.Yawgm0th - Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - link
The article talks quite a bit about business use and how certain features (caused by lack of VBA support) are missing, mostly from Excel. This seems like a moot point, or at least the point that some of the missing features should not affect more than a few dozen -- if that many -- potential end-users of Office 2008 for Mac.What kind of business uses a Mac for accounting or a similar function based around Excel spreadsheets? I mean, one could make the argument that few business use a Mac in any function that will have use for Office, but Excel is a big stretch. No business hoping to profit would justify the cost of a Mac for use with Excel.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - link
One of my jobs prior to working for AnandTech was IT at a company using Macs near-exclusively (as exclusive as they could be, anyhow). You would be terrified what these people did with Excel spreadsheets and VBA, there were certainly better ways to do it but it was quite literally a matter of the whole thing having built out of Excel over the years.And this company isn't alone.
There will be plenty of Excel-addicted accountants reeling from the loss of VBA, for this you can take my word.
Pirks - Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - link
doh, no biggie - they can just replace expensive macs with cheap office dell pcs and get all their loved vba back in the business, while saving money on expensive apple hardware at the same timeOmega215D - Tuesday, February 5, 2008 - link
Any chance of this office version being updated to be more like Office 2007 on Windows? I just bought the Office 2008 Home and Student and also have a Office 2007 but couldn't get an OEM of Windows Vista without having a processor, RAM or motherboard included in the purchase. So no BootCamp for now.slashbinslashbash - Wednesday, February 6, 2008 - link
I really doubt it. I mean, look how long it took for MS to update Office for Mac to Universal. Also, MS tends to release the Mac version a year after the PC version (Mac Office 98, 2001, 2004, 2008 vs. Windows Office 97, 2000, 2003, 2007) so I doubt we'll see any new Office releases for Mac for another 3-4 years, and there's no way they'll make major updates available between releases. In the past the only updates have been due to security and stability issues, and also to add compatibility with the new .docx/.xlsx/.pptx file types. In other words, nothing major.Personally, I'm just happy that there's finally a Universal version available, and they made the cheaper "Home and Student" version. The UI updates are handy, but hardly impressive IMO.
halfeatenfish - Tuesday, February 5, 2008 - link
"The other new layout in Word is the Notebook Layout, which turns Word in to a notebook. It’s an interesting concept in theory, and if we had a tablet Mac perhaps we could put it to use, but as it stands right now we’re not sure why Microsoft added it. It’s not a page layout feature, and we can’t find much use for it on its own."Notebook layout first appeared in Word 2004. It's actually very handy for doing outlines. Think of it like a stripped down and basic OmniOutliner...