Filed under: Software, Productivity
Office for Mac 2008 released to manufacturing
The official word from Microsoft is that Office for Mac 2008 has been released to manufacturing. This means that the code is final and has been sent out to the factories for duplication and packaging ahead of its formal release at Macworld San Francisco on January 15, 2008. If you want a full preview, the Mac Office 2008 website is fully up and running.After so many delays (and two full years since the first Intel Mac), it's good to know that the MacBU has finally met their goal of a Universal Binary, modernized version of Office -- equally importantly, a version compatible with the new Office 2007 file formats. Personally, I've been able to move almost all of my own stuff to iWork '08, even my professional academic writing. Nonetheless, I'm sure I'll end up picking up Office just for compatibility's sake. How many of you will be purchasing in January (and which one)?
If you're looking for the best deal on upgrades to Office 2008, reader Ty sent a reminder last night that you can buy Office 2004 now ($130 for the Student/Teacher edition is the lowest-cost tier) and then upgrade for the cost of S&H, $7. Not bad.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Shawn said 9:20AM on 12-13-2007
Sweet. I was planning to get Office for Mac Student Edition along with the Macbook Pro I'm buying within the next two weeks. This is great news, because I wasn't even sure of the price. I'll probably buy whichever one is cheaper (either office 2008 or upgrade from 2004.)
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Yazdgerd said 11:44AM on 12-13-2007
And you know it doesn't support unicode, still interested?
Simon Arch said 12:50PM on 12-13-2007
@ Yazdgerd: Is Unicode support really a make-or-break feature? It's the industry standard, everyone uses it, but hey, no Unicode so forget it? Rrrrrrrreally?
Tomahawk said 4:27PM on 12-13-2007
You do realize that it can't run windows macros anymore, and that if you want to use macros then you have to rewrite them all in AppleScript, which won't work on the windows machines. My advice, use iWork, Google Docs & Spreadsheets (hopefully Safari support comes soon, and really it does everything most people need for free), or use Office running off a VM in Parallels or Fusion. Personally, I'll stick to Google Docs & Spreadsheets.
chip said 9:22AM on 12-13-2007
M-Soft emailed me to advise that my pre-ordered copy of Mac:Word would ship 1-7-2008
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Kevin Rye \\\\\\\\\\\\ said 9:24AM on 12-13-2007
Office was so bad on my Mac that I stopped using it. I'm stuck using Ofiice 2000 at work on my PC and I am reminded daily as to how bad it is. Word crashes every day.
Anyway, I sworn to never use it again at home. It's been over a year and so far, so good. I am using NeoOffice. I have never had a problem. All my docs created at home open flawlessly in Office at work, and vice-versa.
So, free NeoOffice or $300 bloated crappy M$ code? You decide.
Sorry Microsoft, you lost another customer. Again.
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Luna Lovegood said 9:31AM on 12-13-2007
Board up the windows, Microsoft! Kevin Rye isn't giving you another penny!
Todd said 9:36AM on 12-13-2007
Sounds like you need a real IT staff at work. I can't remember the last time I have had a problem like that with MS Office. But, like you said there are other options and if they work for you that is great.
Dextro said 9:27AM on 12-13-2007
I hope it's a lot faster than the Beta. That was just horribly slow on my fastest system (mbp 2,33Ghz c2d 2gb ram). Office 2004 under Rosetta was faster. (Office 2007 on vista in Fusion was waaaaaay faster)
It worked ok, but i've switched to LaTeX for word processing and i'll never look back. You do have to invest some time in it to learn your way around, but it pays off big time.
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Al said 10:20AM on 12-13-2007
Amen!
iDarbert said 9:29AM on 12-13-2007
Hey, I wasn't expecting this... I thought it was supposed to be released on 2008.
This is great news for my father, working with big files is a real pain for him.
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William Beem said 9:38AM on 12-13-2007
Many Student versions of software (including Apple's) do not allow for an upgrade. Are you sure that Microsoft will upgrade a Student license?
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Christina Warren said 9:57AM on 12-13-2007
Yup - the current promotion provides either a free copy of Office 2008 Student Teacher Edition (which provides 3 computer licenses) or a free upgrade to the Office 2008 Special Media Edition (only one license), you pay only shipping and handling. Any version of Office 2004 purchased within the time period specified on the rebate form (I don't have mine near me to check the specifics) qualifies -- including upgrade editions, student teacher editions, etc.
This isn't a traditional "upgrade" per se - they'll ship you the retail equivalent of the software (and you can choose either Student Teacher Edition or Special Media), not the typical "upgrade" media that checks to see if you have the older CD or whatever first.
Basically, Microsoft is subsidizing some of the cost or users to upgrade to 2008, in order to get those conversion/adoption numbers as high as possible and get a better installed userbase. In the long run, they think it will be more beneficial to have more people using the software early on, and thus, keeping their lead in the Mac productivity suite arena, than to get as much profit as they can off the software itself.
I bought iWork '08 because I needed Word '07 compatibility, but I'm looking forward to Office 2008. Microsoft had a day after thanksgiving $100 rebate for the student edition that will ultimately get me Office 2008 Special Media for $32 -- or $40 less than iWork '08's student price. I like Word/Excel better than Pages/Numbers anyway. I just wish Entourage had PST support (though the new Exchange server support is 1000x better).
tevetorbes said 9:38AM on 12-13-2007
Mat, you said you were able to move your academic writing to iWork. I was wondering what this is like?
I create presentations with Keynote (far better than Powerpoint imo) but cannot rid myself of Word because of EndNote. What sort of reference software do you use with Pages (if any at all)?
The only thing holding me (and probably alot of other scientific writers) back is lack of a good reference manager like EndNote to work with Pages.
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tevetorbes said 9:38AM on 12-13-2007
Mat, you said you were able to move your academic writing to iWork. I was wondering what this is like?
I create presentations with Keynote (far better than Powerpoint imo) but cannot rid myself of Word because of EndNote. What sort of reference software do you use with Pages (if any at all)?
The only thing holding me (and probably alot of other scientific writers) back is lack of a good reference manager like EndNote to work with Pages.
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Dextro said 10:36AM on 12-13-2007
I don't know what kind a scientific stuff you publish, but give LaTeX a try. BiBDesk is a ful featured reference manager, i use it daily for my scientific publishing (post-doc political sciences).
The stuff you produce even looks better :-)
Alan said 11:21AM on 12-13-2007
Agreed. LaTeX isn't for everyone, but if you use it, BibDesk is absolutely fantastic as a reference manager.
It took me forever to decide to give LaTeX a real try. I only did it when I realized all I was doing in Word was applying styles, so why not do that in text? The initial learning curve to LaTeX is a challenge (you pretty much have to buy the book with the St. Bernard dog on the cover), but once it's set up it's so much more efficient than Word, and what's more, it's dependable and bulletproof. Widow/orphan control *always* works, even across new sections, multiple tables of contents and appendices aren't hit and miss like Word, it's just nice. I'm not even in an academic field that typically uses LaTeX, but it's really surprised me.
tevetorbes said 11:30AM on 12-13-2007
Yeah, I have LaTeX and have used it in the past. I absolutely prefer a WYSIWYG editor hands down. Journals to which I would be submitting manuscripts (ACS) provide Word templates which may (or may not) work in Pages- I haven't tried. For sure, however, they will not work with LaTeX.
My university has provided LaTeX templates (is this what they are called?) to prepare your dissertation in the past, but I am unsure if they do this anymore. The sad fact is that I am (and many others are) locked into Word because of templates, .docx attachments, etc.
Oh well, /rant off- thanks for the LaTeX suggestion. I may dig it back out and see if I can't make a go of it for my next paper...
Alan said 11:36AM on 12-13-2007
Give iTexMac2 a try... you have to hunt around the site to find out how to download the latest version (it's not obvious), but it does have a continuous synchronization mode, where you've got a WYSIWYG representation of your document continuously updated in a window.
I personally use TexShop though. Occasionally pressing the preview button is fine with me. If you're using styles for everything (as everyone should be), WYSIWYG doesn't really give you anything extra.
Leonard Nimrod said 9:58AM on 12-13-2007
How TUAW,
Can we get a poll for Office 2008 here?
1) I'll be buying Office 2008
2) I'll stick with office 2004
3) iWorks '08 suits my needs fine
4) I prefer Open/Neo-Office
5) I just use Gmail's online Docs for periodic use
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