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Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Released
kylea writes "Office 2004 for Mac OS X has finally been released. From the Apple page: The latest improvements to the Office productivity suite promise new approaches to create, manage and distribute your projects. New features and tools in the programs help you get work done more efficiently. And now you can extend your reach beyond Office with greatly improved AppleScript support."
This is due to a lack of both Exchange server support and .NET technologies on the Apple platform.
Their answer? Run XP. Defeats the purpose of getting an Apple to begin with if you ask me.
Stick with the Mono project for .NET compatibility, and wait for a OS X Native Open Office port while using Appleworks in the mean time.
If you're half as beautiful naked, you'd be 4 times as beautiful with twice as many clothes on.
Seriously. I have a copy of office, but it is mainly to read other people's office files (OO.o just isn't there yet--I'm not going to deal with an X11 interface just to open MS Office files).
My theory for anything that I write has been that anything more complex than a plain text document generally deserves LaTeX.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
The single biggest block to my using Entourage for my email rather than Mail.app is the fact that Office X did not integrate at all with OS X's built in address book or calendaring functionality. While I can live without iCal integration (maybe) the plain fact is that I'm damn sick of massaging my address book data every time I need to use it somewhere else - usually because MS has stupid import/export options. Can anyone using the new version tell me if Office talks to the system Address Book, and if so, how well it does so? I like syncing my Palm directly to the System (iSync) and hence to .mac, rather than to a MS sandbox and then having to pry my data out of there with a crowbar.
Now, there may be very good reason(s) why the MacBU chose not to integrate with the system PIM services (and yes, I know Office X predated stable versions of those services!). If that's the case, an informed explanation of why this is so would also be much appreciated.
Thank you!
A hero is someone who knows when to run away. I am a hero. -Trent the Uncatchable
Word = TextEdit (reads/writes Word files)
PowerPoint = Keynote (reads/writes Powerpoints)
Entourage = Mail/Address Book/iSync (I will never give up my Bluetooth)
Excel = Mariner Calc
Two of those you have to buy. Keynote is $100 CDN, Mariner Calc is around $160. Panther was around the same and includes the rest. This is all cheaper - combined - than the standalone version of Word, last I checked.
Don't shell out the massive cash for Office Mac unless you really think you need it. Mostly what I deal with day-to-day is Word and PP files, and I do just fine with the above.
Sure, TextEdit isn't Word, but on the other hand.. it isn't Word, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Why would you spend thousands of dollars on a proprietary hardware/software combination only to top it off with a poormans office solution? That's very inconsistent.
I can appreciate your argument about most people not needing certain features but price aside, that seems to be the only argument against microsoft office. There are numerous open source and commercial alternatives that offer interesting subsets of features that are good enough solutions for most people. Some alternatives even have features that are better than the ms office equivalent. At the end of the day however, the full set of features found in ms office is pretty much unrivalled by any other product or collection of products.
People with macs like to pay for quality so it would be natural for them to consider ms office 2004. MS seems to have pulled of some nice improvements over the previous version. Compatibility is good, it integrates with OS X better than most other office suits. It's hard not to like it if you have the money and a taste for quality hardware & software.
Jilles
I have tried the demo. I have found nothing else new worth paying for.
So this bug fix will cost me 300 euro. Yes, I will pay up, but I will spit at the receipt.
Besides there is still no support for right-to-left writing (like in Arab and Hebrew). I guess they will add that to the next version in three years together with a new boring clip-art of a grey over-head projector, so they can charge another 300.
"So when and more importantly, WHY do you shell out cash for an Office upgrade?"
Only two valid reasons:
1) you NEED to
2) you WANT to
What else?
I think, therefore I am...I think.
Since Windows 2000 (and then XP), I haven't had any major problems with MS products, and think Office XP was pretty good. So this isn't a "I hate microsoft" post. And I'm a RECENT (2 months) Mac convert (though not zealous).
Microsoft's "Mac Business Unit" is suprisingly good. I personally think that Office X and Office 2004 are the best pieces of software to ever come out of there.
It would be a shame for them to dismantle such a good team. The offices for Macs lately have far surpassed the offices for Windows. If nothing else, it gives them a foot in the door, and some respect by the Mac users that they're at least writing some software for the platform.
I doubt they'd risk being split up, especially when they have such a good core product here. I haven't seen the new version yet but I expect it's not utterly different. As long as Apple keep Carbon I can't see it being worth the risk for them to stop producing a native version.
If your other criticisms weren't better than this I would think you were trolling.