Document Connection for Office 2008 Home & Student

[Deko]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Hi all,
does anybody know, if the Document Connection which came with SP02 is also for the Home & Student Edition of Office 2008.
Does it work for anybody?
Many thanks!
D.

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi,

Document Connection also works with the Home & Student Edition. There is one
drawback, though, as it only allows you to connect to Office Live
workspaces; SharePoint is not supported with the Home & Student Edition.

 

[Deko]

Hi Michel,
thanks for this info. This is realy sad, as I have to use the SharePoint to work on documents. Is there any workaround or do I have to buy the very expensive Business Edition, just to work on SharePoint docs?
Thanks,
Deniz

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Deniz,

you simply need to be running any edition of Microsoft Office 2008 other
than the Home & Student Edition to be able to access SharePoint. Keep in
mind that now that the Business Edition is out, you can get copies of the
Special Media and Standard Editions for much cheaper than usual; just keep
looking online.

Other than that, you might perhaps have access to Windows and Office 2007 on
your Mac in an emulated environment (via Parallels or Fusion), or perhaps
through Boot Camp. I am not entirely sure how to access SharePoint via
Windows, so you will have to ask that question in the appropriate newsgroup
if you want to try this solution.

 

[Rob Schneider]

It's easy. I do it all the time. Even works with Safari.

In SharPoint (via Safari) check out the document manually. Then right
mouse click on the link and save to a local location. I usually just put
into the Downloads folder. Open and edit. When done, in SP, upload and
check in.

All you are missing by the connector is the automation that we get for
"free" in Windows Office.

This all very deliberate by Microsoft since SP is their future and,
frankly, why give this away for free on the low cost Office 2008 for
Home and Office?

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Rob Schneider]

Micel,

With due respect, this is not true. As described in my reply to Deniz,
just do it manually. Works fine even with Safari. You can use
Sharepoint with Safari on a Mac. I do it all the time. What you can't
do is some of the advanced features (datasheets, for example) that
require IE (Internet Explorer) and desktop components (some active x
controls, and whatever...who knows?) which are not provided in Office
for Mac).

When I want that more sophisticated use, I flip over to XP running on
VMware on the Mac and use IE Office 2007 for Windows and it works just fine.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Michel Bintener]

Hi Rob,

I agree with everything you say, but Document Connection offers a number of
features which are not accessible via web browser. I was perhaps careless
when I stated that you can only access SharePoint via Document Connection,
but the fact is that you only get an extremely diluted version of SharePoint
if you access it with a web browser on the Mac. With Document Connection,
you can open (and save) the files on SharePoint directly, without having to
manually download a copy and to upload it when you are done with the
editing.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Yes, I agree it is "diluted" as you say, but it does work well and I
would temper using the "extremely" adjective. <===smile.

it's not a bad thing to do to "check out", download, edit, upload, check
in. Help's people understand what's going on.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Deko]

Hey Rob,
many thanks - that's really a good tip!
Cheers,
D.