apcmag.com— Microsoft's long-awaited Office 2008 has now stepped into the beta stage with a streamlined interface and an all-new "Escher" graphics engine to deliver lush graphic effects and impressive charting.
Mar 30, 2007View in Crawl 4
@danielwsmitheeActually it does. In fact it sucks so bad, I've had my company bye me a /shudder/ Dell which I use primarily for working with my companies Exchange server. Lookout... umm Outlook I mean has lot's of nifty useful things that if the rest of your company uses, you've really gotta use too.
I agree cmer. Although, I will take it a step further and say that Office 2007 for Windows is the best Office EVER made honestly. Why can't the MacBU just take what is already almost perfect and port it to Mac? It wouldn't be that hard and actually, Office 2007 is more "Mac-like" than any other Office version prior. The ribbon is the best UI choice Microsoft has made in years.
i have office 2007 at home, never use it. But i can't go a day without office 03 at work. Outlooks is the lifeblood of my office. Everything is managed though there. people put flash games into excel and pass them around.
I really hope the new version being a Universal Binary lives up to expectations on speed, specifically with relation to rendering embedded graphics files in Word documents. I've a 2.16Ghz MBP with 2GB RAM and while the current Office is ok for most simple Word documents, many Word files I have to work with on customer projects have pictures in them. Even worse, VISIO drawings. I tried to write a 10 page report the other week and include 4 very complicated VISIO drawings of fully populated computer racks (supplied by a colleague). Word on my Mac couldn't handle it. Scrolling up and down would take 10's of seconds to redraw each tiny movement whenever the page view included a VISIO drawing. In the end I had to give up and pass it back to my colleague to finish. It was embarrassing and now I'm seriously considering CrossOver Office for Mac, as I've seen a guy who works for a customer of mine using CrossOver on Linux and its performance is the same as on Windows.And before anyone suggests NeoOffice; yes I have that too. Writer doesn't help me out much in this case. It's a bit better, but has some strange behavior around resizing VISIO images. Sometimes it just refuses to do it, and other times the changes get lost between edit iterations of the same documents. Plus what looks right in Writer doesn't always look the same to an MS using customer. In addition I've thrown 50-60 page docs at it (with graphics) and it just disappears into a tight loop grabing all available CPU, and I've had to kill it. I do love NeoOffice spreadsheet though. It's fast, looks better than Excel and is easier to use. There are very few incompatibilities with MS Excel too. It's my default app for all spreadsheets now.Office 2008 for Mac will have to address these crippling performance problems before I'm going to spend my money this time. Hopefully I can get my hands on a trial copy first and give it a good work out.
skribbleMar 30, 2007
@danielwsmitheeActually it does. In fact it sucks so bad, I've had my company bye me a /shudder/ Dell which I use primarily for working with my companies Exchange server. Lookout... umm Outlook I mean has lot's of nifty useful things that if the rest of your company uses, you've really gotta use too.
bmobileMar 30, 2007
I agree cmer. Although, I will take it a step further and say that Office 2007 for Windows is the best Office EVER made honestly. Why can't the MacBU just take what is already almost perfect and port it to Mac? It wouldn't be that hard and actually, Office 2007 is more "Mac-like" than any other Office version prior. The ribbon is the best UI choice Microsoft has made in years.
Closed AccountMar 30, 2007
People who need to do things in Office are losers anyway, who cares
dragon76Mar 30, 2007
Microsoft UIs always defy reason, common sense and the laws of physics. It's fitting their new engine is called Escher
sirbotchnessMar 31, 2007
i have office 2007 at home, never use it. But i can't go a day without office 03 at work. Outlooks is the lifeblood of my office. Everything is managed though there. people put flash games into excel and pass them around.
blacksheep720Mar 31, 2007
lovin' the glass effects
uraniumMar 31, 2007
that's the only reason i'm gonna get it. i hate ribbons (i've used it on word for vista) but UB is more important.
neondietMay 13, 2007
I really hope the new version being a Universal Binary lives up to expectations on speed, specifically with relation to rendering embedded graphics files in Word documents. I've a 2.16Ghz MBP with 2GB RAM and while the current Office is ok for most simple Word documents, many Word files I have to work with on customer projects have pictures in them. Even worse, VISIO drawings. I tried to write a 10 page report the other week and include 4 very complicated VISIO drawings of fully populated computer racks (supplied by a colleague). Word on my Mac couldn't handle it. Scrolling up and down would take 10's of seconds to redraw each tiny movement whenever the page view included a VISIO drawing. In the end I had to give up and pass it back to my colleague to finish. It was embarrassing and now I'm seriously considering CrossOver Office for Mac, as I've seen a guy who works for a customer of mine using CrossOver on Linux and its performance is the same as on Windows.And before anyone suggests NeoOffice; yes I have that too. Writer doesn't help me out much in this case. It's a bit better, but has some strange behavior around resizing VISIO images. Sometimes it just refuses to do it, and other times the changes get lost between edit iterations of the same documents. Plus what looks right in Writer doesn't always look the same to an MS using customer. In addition I've thrown 50-60 page docs at it (with graphics) and it just disappears into a tight loop grabing all available CPU, and I've had to kill it. I do love NeoOffice spreadsheet though. It's fast, looks better than Excel and is easier to use. There are very few incompatibilities with MS Excel too. It's my default app for all spreadsheets now.Office 2008 for Mac will have to address these crippling performance problems before I'm going to spend my money this time. Hopefully I can get my hands on a trial copy first and give it a good work out.
sharly2007Oct 6, 2007
That looks pretty good. I liked the Mac Office 2004 interface but ever since I got Office 2007 on my desktop, it has been ruined for me. This is definitely a step in the right direction. I do most of my Office stuff on my Mac anyway so I'm actually really excited for something that's not running in Rosetta and has a decent interface. I just hope they get it out quick so I can get it for $20 from work while I still work where I do. <a class="user" href="http://www.gwafi.com/home.html">http://www.gwafi.com/home.html</a> <a class="user" href="http://www.gwafi.com/links.html">http://www.gwafi.com/links.html</a>