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Microsoft Businesses OS X Operating Systems Apple

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Released 134

Posted by pudge from the wheeee dept.
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."
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Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Released More

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Released

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  • Download locations (Score:5, Funny)

    by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @08:01PM (#9200359) Journal
    According to previous reports [slashdot.org], you can download Office 2004 from LimeWire.

  • I'll stick to LaTeX (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It works just fine for me.

    • Re:I'll stick to LaTeX (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @08:11PM (#9200426)
      \documentclass{article}

      \begin{document}

      \textbf{YES!}

      I agree \emph{completely}.\footnote{``Text markup'' is much more portable. I
      have 10-year-old \LaTeX{} files that are still usable on my \textsc{gentoo}
      box.}

      \end{document}
    • 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.

      • I have OO.o and AppleWorks installed. I can't remember when I last used either of them. TextEdit does everything I need a text editor to do, and for complex documents the semantic markup of LaTeX makes writing much easier than any WYSIAYG tool I've used. LaTeX and Keynote do almost everything I need an office suite for (a nice Aqua spreadsheet would be good though).

        P.S. Thanks for the link in you sig. I clicked on it a while back and have found it very useful a couple of times since then.

  • Features (Score:5, Funny)

    by Synesthesiatic ( 679680 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @08:09PM (#9200410) Homepage
    I hope they removed the "wipe my home directory" feature.

  • Yes, but... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by smoondog ( 85133 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @08:09PM (#9200411)
    Can it connect seemlessly to Exchange servers?

    -Sean

    • Re:Yes, but... (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Can it connect seemlessly to Exchange servers?

      I hear it's because the MBU hasn't paid up the $100,000 for access to the APIs...

    • Re:Yes, but... (Score:4, Informative)

      by nvrrobx ( 71970 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @09:16PM (#9200783) Homepage
      Yes.

      Read the Exchange Server Support info here [microsoft.com]

      • Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Informative)

        by jeffehobbs ( 419930 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @10:14PM (#9201059) Homepage

        short answer yes with an if, long answer no with a but... [microsoft.com]

        If you have an Exchange 2000 server (with Service Pack 2 or later) then it's as close as it gets. If you're running an earlier Exchange server, then you're still in the same boat as you were with Entourage 2001. In either case, there's still no real MAPI support.

        ~jeff

        • Re:Yes, but... (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          AAAAARGHHHH!

          PLEASE PLEASE,FOR THE LOVE OF GOD,STOP!!!

          MAPI is not the Exchange protocol, its the Mail API under Windows! It has no meaning outside the Windows world. It gives you an opertunity as developer to call the default mailclient and do basic mailoperations without knowing anything about which mailsystem that is used.

          The Exchange native protocol is just called that, and is a modified X.400 derivative.

          AFAIK the future of this protocoll is still unknown and there is parallel developments between sho

    • Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Informative)

      by amarquis ( 256762 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @11:04AM (#9204077)
      Works great with an Exchange 2003 server, but, inexplicably, does not sync Tasks or Notes. Doh!Email, Contacts and Calendar work well, but I'm extremely annonyed about the omission. (Yes, I know it was mentioned previously in the fine print.) I can't see any technical reason why they would omit such an important feature.
      Overall, a great upgrade, but I wonder what else is missing.

  • Let me be the first to say that (Score:5, Informative)

    by aflat362 ( 601039 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @08:10PM (#9200416) Homepage
    AppleWorks is way cheaper and is (for the most part) compatible with Microsoft Office documents.

    The only thing I noticed that doesn't transfer well so far has been bitmaps that are embedded in documents.

    • Had some problems with it. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Thinkit4 ( 745166 ) * on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @08:20PM (#9200485)
      The spreadsheet just wasn't up to task--printing was a real problem. Information will be free and consciousness will be hosted on computers some day. But for now, office just does more.
    • aye, but microsoft office is (IMO) infinitely easier to use, easier to look at, and more familiar to me, considering my windows background. you do get what you pay for. but what bothers me is people supporting openoffice.org on the mac. i have used the X11 version, and won't use it again until there is a native cocoa version.

      • Re:Let me be the first to say that (Score:5, Informative)

        by aflat362 ( 601039 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @11:54AM (#9204678) Homepage
        I don't like the openoffice product on the Mac either. I use AppleWorks. It is a product of Apple Computer. The interface is very similiar to the Microsoft Office product for the mac.

        Your windows background will help you zilch using Office for the Mac. It is a Mac platform product completely different from its Microsoft Windows Counterpart.

        Yes, MS Office does more. But since I get most of the important functionality out of AppleWorks I can't begin to justify the $320 price difference.

        MS Office for mac is $399 and AppleWorks is $79.

        Keep in mind that I am a home user and am not in a corporate situation where I need to work with Office documents. Though - AppleWorks does have limited support for viewing editing and creating Microsoft Office Compatible documents.

    • I use both MS Office and AppleWorks for school and have found AppleWorks handling of sections lacking when I need to format a paper in the Turabian/Chicago style. Word handles it very well as does OpenOffice. I usually still use AppleWorks to draft my papers but that is only becasue I am better at keyboard shortcuts with it which makes the initial writing process easier for me.

    • Re:Let me be the first to say that (Score:5, Interesting)

      by misterpies ( 632880 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @03:52PM (#9208004)

      Appleworks is just about passable if you don't need to write anything more complicated than a letter or a memo. For any substantial document, it's hopeless. It's the big exception to user friendliness in Apple's product range - trying to get auto-numbered sections or create and use custom paragraph styles is needlessly difficult. And it has a tendency to lose any advanced formatting when importing docs from Word. It took me less than a day to realise that I needed to by Office for mac.

  • does anyone know if this is the full version (including pro) or the student/teacher edition? i heard the pro version was not going to be released until vpc 7 is done. i doubt there's any difference between any of the versions though *shrug*

    • Re:which version (Score:5, Informative)

      by Exitthree ( 646294 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @08:18PM (#9200476) Homepage
      Standard and Student/Teacher have identical features, except the latter version is discounted for Academic users. Professional is identical to Standard with the addition of VPC 7. VPC 7 has been delayed, and as such, so has Office 2004 Professional.

      • Re:which version (Score:5, Informative)

        by Hes Nikke ( 237581 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @09:01PM (#9200702) Journal
        Don't forget that the Student/Teacher also comes with three CD Keys. Someone in your household is supposed to be a student or teacher if you want it though.

        Anyway, after playing around with Entourage 2004 (to me the only reason I need office, the new word, and excel are just gravy) for a few hours, I just wanted to share my first impressions:

        The Good:
        I like the little popup notifications in the corner when I have new mail. Although now that I think about it, its a bit Windowsish - not that's a bad thing.
        I like the grouped sorting. I always sort my messages in the order in which they are received, descending. Entourage groups them so I have little blue headings for Today, Yesterday, etc. This helps me organize my email better.
        The other nice thing is that you can tell it to hide read messages. I have this set on all my mailing list filtered folders to keep track of things a bit better.
        I'm quite happy to see that I can *easily* use certificates so that I can digitally sign my messages. (assuming that you can figure out how to import them in the first place, see below)
        Unicode Support! (need i say more?)
        The last new feature that I enjoy with the new Entourage is that you can finally control the autocorrect settings without waiting for word to boot.

        The Bad:
        The Entourage database is bigger than v.X.
        Grouped sorting sorts the groups ascending or descending, depending on your settings, but it only sorts the items in the groups ascending. I haven't found an option to fix that. (Yet. Anyone have any suggestions?)
        Changing folders with a lot of messages seems a bit slower, probably due to those Today, Yesterday etc. headers, and the hiding of read messages.
        Entourage still doesn't have a grammar checker.
        Creation and/or importing of certificates is anything but obvious. This isn't even made clear in Help. It took me 20 minutes just to find a link to the Microsoft website that than had links to several Certificate Authorities. Then the one I chose (because the page said that they are free and trusted) was anything but clear as to how to create a certificate (no longer Microsoft land I know) and Entourage doesn't trust them to boot, so I can only assume that neither does anyone else's email client.

        The Ugly:
        I think the new icons are a throwback to the Office 98 days. They are flat and ugly, I want my aqualicious icons back. :(
        When I tried to install the new Handheld Sync Conduit, the authentication box said "Hendhel-" (with a cut off 'd') instead of OK. And than it turned out that it was the same old handheld conduit that shipped late in the Entourage X life.
        I don't get enough information in that little popup notification box. I would like to see *who* the message is from, as well as the folder it was filtered to.
        I can't move the little popup notification box. It is stuck in the lower right corner
        The popup notification box only seems to appear when I get new mail and Entourage isn't the currently running application.
        Preview Pane on the right doesn't give me enough options on the mail list on the left. I want more than 2 columns of information!

        I think I've run out of first impressions.

        • Re:which version (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Atsi Otani ( 731761 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @10:40PM (#9201175)
          I generally like Entourage and its interface (which is why I use it), but I can't stand how it stores my mail.

          In the Apple Mail app, mail is stored in .mbox files. I like this - all I have to do if I want to backup mail is copy the mbox file. On the other hand, Entourage stores mail in its own proprietary format, and I haven't been able to find out how to work with it.

          I only recently learned that when you drag Entourage mailboxes to your desktop, they are saved as mbox files (although I haven't tried it yet - haven't been doing backups lately). Of course, this isn't documented by Microsoft - could have saved me a lot of trouble if they had.

          Does anyone know whether you can do this in the new version? I really don't plan to get the new Office (give me a good reason why I should upgrade), but I was curious.

          • Re:which version (Score:1, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            ...all I have to do if I want to backup [Mail.app] mail is copy the mbox file. On the other hand, Entourage stores mail in its own proprietary format, and I haven't been able to find out how to work with it.

            What's to find out? Quit Entourage and copy ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data in its entirety to someplace else. Presto-- your mail is backed up.
            • ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data includes the Saved Attachments folder - which has copies of everything you've ever opened from within Entourage. Backing this folder up may or may not waste space. You technically only need ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Office X Identities/Main Identity for all your stuff. But storage media is cheaper than losing changes made to a document that were then saved back into the Saved Attachments folder. YMMV.

              Incidentally, I usually alias Saved Attachments to the users preferre
        • Don't forget that the Student/Teacher also comes with three CD Keys.

          Mine came with five. Guess I'm extra special.

        • Re:which version (Score:5, Funny)

          by Gorbag ( 176668 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @10:10AM (#9203564)
          Someone in your household is supposed to be a student or teacher if you want it though.
          Are we not all students?

          Are we not all teachers?

          • Are we not all students?

            Are we not all teachers?

            You mean here at Slashdot? We've got tons of underqualified "teachers" and nobody willing to be the "students".

        • Unicode Support! (need i say more?)

          Yes! Please tell us Word 04 also has Unicode support!! If I can go back to copying and pasting ancient Greek text directly from perseus [tufts.edu] directly into my word processor rather than copying it by hand, I will jump for joy.

        • Ahh the joys of self replies :)

          * Grouped sorting sorts the groups ascending or descending, depending on your settings, but it only sorts the items in the groups ascending. I haven't found an option to fix that. (Yet. Anyone have any suggestions?)

          I figured out how to get the behavior I wanted, but it isn't as strait forward as it should be. First, I chose View -> Arrange By -> Edit Custom Arrangements. The Custom Arrangements: Mail window opens.

          From here I can click New, give it a title and set th

    • Sig (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by Distinguished Hero ( 618385 )
      ruby -e 'require "base64";puts decode64("U3RlcCByaWdodCB1cC4gTWFyY2guIFB1c2gu")'

      -e:1:in `decode64': _deprecated_base64 is deprecated; use Base64._deprecated_base64 instead

      Might want to use:
      ruby -e 'require "base64";puts Base64.decode64("...")'

      • Re:Sig (Score:1, Offtopic)

        by Kethinov ( 636034 )
        Uh, why? It works perfectly fine without the 'Base64.' addition and Slashdot sig space is at a premium.
        • This is why:

          andrei@tux andrei $ ruby -v
          ruby 1.8.1 (2004-04-24) [i686-linux-gnu]
          andrei@tux andrei $ ruby -e 'require "base64";puts decode64("RnJlc2ggYmxvb2QgdGhyb3VnaCB0aXJlZCBza2l u ")'
          -e:1:in `decode64': _deprecated_base64 is deprecated; use Base64._deprecated_base64 instead /usr/lib/ruby/1.8/base64.rb:126:in `_deprecated_base64': super: no superclass method `_deprecated_base64' (NoMethodError)
          from -e:1:in `decode64'
          from -e:1
          andrei@tux andrei $ ruby -e 'require "base64";puts Base64.deco

  • Be careful... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @08:34PM (#9200573)
    I downloaded this the other day off LimeWire. I think there was a bug in the installer because it deleted a bunch of my files. So I tried it on a friend's Mac too. Same thing there. Leave it to Microsoft to not know how to write an installer.

  • More M$ Arrogance... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by shrapnull ( 780217 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @08:36PM (#9200579)
    The "professional version" will be released once they fix Virtual PC for Mac OS X Panther. That's right, MS Office Professional politely requests you install Microsoft Windows XP on your Mac.

    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.

    • Don't let me mislead you, they have support for Exchange, it's just not very complete or thorough...
      • That's interesting -- I found it just easier to not support Exchange (ever in any way shape, or form :). Frankly I've never missed it, a dead line, or any of my data or network due to this virus or that ... Microsoft based products are off limits in the data-centers.
    • You are free to abstain from purchasing it. It's like the open source "feel free to ask for a refund". Just don't buy it, stop bitching and use something else. Hey, it's a market they're losing, right? So what's the problem? You should be happy that "M$" is about to pooch the Mac market (according to your calculations, at least).

      How about you run OpenOffice on an emulator and call them "arrogant" because they won't port it to your OS of choice. Or, complain to Apple for not creating a usable Office suite,

      • I am happy, but this is a discussion. The information is presented in addition to what you read in the article.

        Take it or leave it. I'd rather leave it.

        There is a plan for OO on the OS X platform as native. You can run it in the mean time with minor modifications to your system. Microsoft is going backwards. They started native, and now they recommend an emulation OS for advanced administration (2 gigs worth).

        I'll admit that aside from security (maybe due to popularity), Microsoft makes as good a

        • Well, the first non-Windows platform we'll probably see .NET running in will be OS X (Mono notwhitstanding). After all, the SSCLI runs there "out of the box".

          Things might get interesting shortly =)

    • Defeats the purpose of getting an Apple to begin with if you ask me.

      When did I do that?
    • I'm afraid I don't understand. The only difference between the Professional and Standard versions are that the Pro version comes with Virtual PC. Of course you have to wait for Virtual PC to be ready! If you don't want VPC, just get the Standard version.

      Incidentally, I believe the delay is in getting VPC to run on G5s, not getting it to run on Panther.

      • Admittedly, I was mistaken, it's the G5 they're lacking support for. I just disagree with the notion that it requires VPC to become a "Professional User." Most professional users can use VNC for free to manage the server, or if need be add/remove/edit Exchange and SharePoint accounts via the web administration module with certificate security.

        Perhaps I'm missing the point, but "Professional" versions in years passed actually offered more advanced features, not just a copy of Windows.

        • On Windows, the Pro version adds Access and some other components. Access and these other components aren't available for Mac, so until the 2004 version, Microsoft never offered a Pro version (at least not in my memory). Yeah, you don't need VPC to be "Professional," but nor do you need Access. What's in a name? A skunk by any other name...
          • Exactly, someone missed the point that up until now there were only two versions of Office for Mac, Regular and Educational. He was a nice troll though.
            • Since the Mac "Pro" version simply includes Windows they still don't have a pro version for Mac.


              That is my point. Some will be thankful that Office Professional for OS X is being released, only to find that it is not comparable to the PC version of pro. Office for Mac has a history of having newer features then the PC version.


              I simply feel it's mislabled. It should be Office 2004 with Virtual PC 7.

    • Re:More M$ Arrogance... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Fuzzle ( 590327 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @10:07PM (#9201037) Homepage Journal
      Actually, VPC 6 runs fine in Panthurrr. The problem is getting VPC to run on G5's, because they don't have quite the same functions as the G4's (something about little-endian's or something I believe). They aren't shipping VPC with Office as a replacement for an Exchange client, but it's a nice conspiracy theory. VPC is just part of the Office Suite in this new version.

      Btw, after using it, it's very similar to v.X from what I can tell.

      • Re:More M$ Arrogance... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 20, 2004 @05:41AM (#9202341)
        x86 is little endian. PowerPC (at least as used in Apple) is big endian (it may be in the spec that it can support a native little endian mode; I don't know.) The G3 and G4, AIUI, have operands that perform little endian operations (add, subtract, shift, etc.) on registers, as well as the regular operands that do big endian operations. The G5 only has the big endian operations. (Note: if PowerPC can switch its endian mode, read the above as "non-endian-mode-endianness operations on registers".)

        Virtual PC took advantage of the afore-mentioned instructions to gain a speed boost. Without them, you have to do a few byte swaps (eg: an integer of the form ABCD becomes DCBA, but you need to keep strings in the same byte order, etc...) before doing the calculations. This means that Virtual PC simply will not run on the G5, and needs to have the optimised code re-written to work properly without those instructions.

        Presumably, they'll introduce a second code path: one that makes use of those instructions and one that doesn't. Of course, that depends on the code structure; it may be easier to just ditch those optimisations and keep it generic.

    • The "professional version" will be released once they fix Virtual PC for Mac OS X Panther

      I have a copy of Virtual PC and it runs flawlessly on Panther. I think that you mean "once they fix Virtual PC for G5":

      " Virtual PC relies on a feature of the G3/G4 processors called 'pseudo little-endian mode' for increased performance when emulating a Pentium processor.... Because the new G5 processor does not support this feature, large portions of the VPC for Mac program must be rewritten and carefully tested

  • Using the test drive now (Score:3)

    by geek ( 5680 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @09:20PM (#9200804)
    And I was so impressed I bought the student/teacher edition. The improvements to Entourage alone make it worth it to me but the compatibility with windows versions is also a big plus. Yes it's expensive, yes it's microsoft but the MacBU is very much a mac unit, they love the mac and take a great deal of pride in this app. It's very elegant and easy to use. The only problem I'm having is with IMAP in Entourage, it seems to have trouble with the mailbox lock where as the older Entourage didn't. Hopefully the full version doesn't have this trouble, but if it does screw it, I'll switch to pop3, it's just that good of an app.

    • Comments regading teacher/student version (Score:5, Interesting)

      by CaptainAbstraction ( 43162 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @12:34AM (#9201602)
      I have the (full) teacher/student version. I get the mailbox lock error constantly for my IMAP account. I have it checking for new mail every 5 minutes, and about half the time I get an error.

      On the web, people have suggested unchecking "send commands simultaneously" from the Account configuration menu (just google for it). But that doesn't seem to help. Any other suggestions?

      Also, the "live sync" option for IMAP accounts doesn't seem to work. I expect to be notified immediately when I get new mail, but it only notifies me when I'm actively doing something with Entourage (reading old messages, etc.).

      Finally, if you have "live sync" on AND have the account included in your "send & receive" schedule, Entourage seems to get the mail twice, resulting in duplicate mails appearing in my inbox. And then you can only "delete" one of them. To get rid of the second one, you have drag it to the trash.

      I ran into all these problems the first hour of using Entourage. Very disappointing.

      -Andrew
      • I already unchecked send simultaneously and it seems to have fixed my problem. Live sync was killing me. Keep in mind those are both functions of the server, if the server doesn't support them the client will error. The error messages should be more descriptive however. I wasn't recieving messages twice, that sounds like you may have some screwy rules set up.

        It works dandy for me now, granted live sync would be nice but at least my messages are stored in a central location.

        -todd
      • if you're doing this on an NT/AD MS Domain, change your username to DOMAIN\username -- I've seen a lot of lockups happen because of this; it's wierd because it'll let you do it a few times and then start to lock the account.
      • The only way to get around this problem is to use a server that uses Maildir instead of mbox. When I upgraded my Linux box to maildir, everyone was quite happy.

        Andy

  • Question for early adopters - address book/iCal? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sierran ( 155611 ) on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @10:42PM (#9201188)
    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!

    • Re:Question for early adopters - address book/iCal (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 20, 2004 @12:24AM (#9201582)
      I'm using Office 2004, and as far as I have been able to tell it still doesn't integrate at all with Address Book or iCal.
    • have't played with the new version but both are address books are scriptable so it should not be hard to write an applescript studio app to sync them. Not sure ab out the calenders though might ave a look when I get access to a copy. The applescript on entourage is intprevious verions has been some of the best I have seen
    • "Now, there may be very good reason(s) why the MacBU chose not to integrate with the system PIM services"

      It probably shouldn't be called a very good reason, but Entourage does have it's own integrated, competing calendar and address book, and Microsoft isn't exactly known for going out of their way to make their products bypass built-in features to interoperate nicely with the competition. Few programs from any vendor do.

      In fact, it seems to me you may as easily ask why Apple didn't write open API's f
      • In fact, it seems to me you may as easily ask why Apple didn't write open API's

        Ummmm... They did. [apple.com]
        • I didn't read the entire document, but my understanding of the API's in there is that they are only to allow other applications to interface with Address Book, not to replace Address Book, and to provide the address book's system-wide services with another applicaton.

          Allowing other aps to interface with Address Book doesn't allow MS to sell a competitor that also provides system services using the same interface.

          I mean, it would help them to write an equivelent interface using those API's, but they'd b
          • Actually, you are misunderstanding the APIs. Or I assume you are. These APIs are not so-called automation APIs such as the ones exposed to Applescript on the Mac, or VBA on Windows. The are full APIs that expose an interface to an address-book system. You could perfectly well delete AddressBook off your system and still use these APIs to store and retrieve your contacts.

            AddressBook is Apple's front-end for this system. Entourage could just as well use these same APIs, and be Microsoft's front-end.

            App
        • I didn't read the entire document, but my understanding of the API's in there is that they are only to allow other applications to interface with Address Book, not to replace Address Book and allow another application to provide the address book's system-wide services.

          Allowing other aps to interface with Address Book doesn't allow MS to sell a competitor that also provides system services using the same interface.

          The published API's would help a third party to write an equivelent interface using those

  • Some features ... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Draoi ( 99421 ) * <draiocht&mac,com> on Wednesday May 19, 2004 @11:45PM (#9201438)
    Well, I've been using it all day here and one of the features I've seen so far is that the startup time has been drastically cut back from the old Office.X version. Previously, it took an age for stupid Word to fire up in the first place.

    One other thing is that the floating toolbars alpha fade after a few minutes of inactivity. They go opaque again after you mouse over them. That's a nice touch and indicates as to a lot more MacOS X native integration under the hood.

    Other than that, well .... :-/

  • Am I the only one who thinks this is actually a step backwards? Couldn't they have better spent the effort on making it more compatible?

    Oh wait...
  • It has been on sale for about a week at the Apple Retail and Web Stores.

  • Here's the *real* Office 2004 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thatguywhoiam ( 524290 ) on Thursday May 20, 2004 @01:30AM (#9201775)
    There once was a time when you really really had to have Office X on your Mac to interact with the vast majority of the Windows world.. while it certainly continues to work well (for Office anyways), I no longer think this is the case. I bought Office v.X but I haven't actually used it in quite some time.. instead:

    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 you want a word processor that's more powerful than TextEdit, WordPerfect 3.5e for Classic [columbia.edu] can still be found on the web, Remember that Corel released that version as a free download.
      I keep it going on my powerbook running under classic (works wonderfully) out of nostalgia, but it is still a very capable and quick word processor.
    • TextEdit is not a word replacement when you have to exchange documents.
      Here's a little experiment: put a table in a word document, edit with TextEdit, re-open with word.
      That's trivial for home use, but even if you're only doing the minutes of the local tart-society, this is killing.

      As long as MS can treat their doc types as non-standard while in reality they are a standard (real world can be a bitch) you'll need to have MS Office to exchange.
  • I'd like some honest feedback: Who upgrades MS Office and why?

    My Macs are running Mac Office v.X, which was an upgrade from Mac Office 2001 whcih only ran under OS 9. But I don't see anything compelling me to upgrade to Mac Office 2004. I like the idea of Virtual PC, but I can't think of a single Windows Only app I need to use so I'll take a pass on VPC for now.

    In the Windows world, I can tell you that I only ever upgrade MS office when I get a new computer and it comes with the whole package. It would be
    • The only reason for me to upgrade is a really huge bug-fix, which they call "unicode support". Why on earth was that not properly included in Office v.X?

      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 o

    • "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'll probably upgrade, mainly for two reasons:

      1) Unicode support
      2) Long filename support

      -B
  • I have OfficeX running under Panther and generally it is nicer than the Windows version of Office. On my big machine I have Office 2K running under WindowsXP and the problem I have been having is that when I create a file on the Mac the formatting goes a bit screwy on the PC. Fonts change, characters just simply vanish. A case in point, I wrote a doc using OfficeX but when I opened it using Office2K a table that had * in it had lost them. I put them back and saved it. When I opened it again with Office
    • I know the compatibility can be shaky, but I have one example of the opposite. We got a huge Word document created using Rational Rose and Office 2K, and it just refused to print from Office 2K. No one knows why.

      Finally someone got the bright idea to transfer it to a Mac, open it in Office X, save it as PDF and send it back to the PC. It worked like a charm. The printing from Acrobat on Windows 2K was perfect and all formating was fine.

      In this case MacOS X actually helped us with an MS document that Windo

  • I skipped the upgrade from Office 98 to Office 2001 because according to accounts I read in mailing lists, virtually none of the bugs that had (and have) been plaguing me in Office 98 were fixed.

    (The worst is: unwanted and seemingly unpredictable behavior in the numbering and formatting of numbered lists when minor edits are made in other portions of the document).

    I was unable to obtain from Microsoft anything corresponding to what other vendors refer to as "release notes" for Office 2001, or any list of

  • Does this version have product activation? Does it force you to register, and force you to sign up for a Passport account in order to register?

    I use and like a number of Microsoft products. But there are some things I won't do. Activation and Passport are among them.

    • Who says you need a Passport (or Net account) to activate? All you do is press the Next several times, and you are done. Filling personal information is optional. I doesn't even bother to do it as long as I can use my copy of Office. Have you actually do the activation process for Office 2004?

  • NeoOffice (Score:3, Informative)

    by mr100percent ( 57156 ) * on Thursday May 20, 2004 @11:33AM (#9204410) Homepage Journal
    I use NeoOffice [neooffice.org], a version of OpenOffice that runs natively on OS X (using some Java code). There's also an X11 version of OpenOffice [openoffice.org] for Mac OS X as well.

  • I still say [slashdot.org] that Microsoft will stop making Office for the Mac and instead replace it with Office for Windows and a PC Emulator running a stripped-down Windows (VirtualPC which they bought from Connectix).
    • 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
      • They actually are a good team. That's surprising for MS. Still I think it's going to happen. It's costing them a small fortune to develop a handful of duplicate products just for the Mac community. I can't think of any other non-Office applications that they make for the Mac anymore with the exception of MSN and Windows Media Player. I think if they could emulate that and use the same player for both platforms they would. I too hate to see the team get broken up. Maybe Apple or Adobe could hire them.
        • It's a small price to pay to not be seen as monopolistic. Macs are pervasive in media circles, and any mention of stopping a unique mac version and requiring a Windows licence and virtual PC to run Office would create some pretty big ripples which may lead to bad things for them.

          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 ri

          • Well, the thing is it probably wouldn't require a Windows license. I'd expect Windows to be completely transparent to the user. Basically a stripped down version of Windows. You know, the kind they claim they can't create without breaking Windows. ;-) It might happen. Might not either. I won't be surprised if/when it does though. Economics always wins in the end.

  • MS did something a little different this time! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rspress ( 623984 ) on Monday May 24, 2004 @09:29AM (#9237031) Homepage
    Instead of the usual MS tactic of going for full bore feature bloat they really cleaned up the rough edges and most new features were done with restraint....a word not usually present in the MS dictionary.

    I wish my Windows XP version of Office looked and acted a lot more like the latest version for OS X. This has just added yet another reason for me not to fire up the XP box when I need to edit a word document. Thanks Microsoft!

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