iPhone sync with Office 2008 - Student version

[A10]

Version: 2004
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel
Email Client: pop

Ok I'm a new boy - so be gentle!

I am running office 2004 and syncing my iPhone to Entourage - no problems.

I have recently purchased Office 2008 - "July 2008 Applications Student Media".

If I load and run with this Student version of Office will I still be able to sync my iPhone with Entourage?

 

[Jeff_Chapman]

What information do you want to sync? Calendar appointments? Tasks? Notes?

Regardless of what version of Office 2008 you purchase, you may encounter serious problems with syncing functionality. I own an iPod Touch and have had zero success in getting sync set up between the iPod Touch and Entourage. I think you will find dozens and dozens of similar complaints. Entourage does not offer a dedicated sync conduit with Apple mobile devices - it uses Apple's iSync functionality as I understand it, which has many reported problems and bugs.

You may be able to use MarkSpace's product "The Missing Sync" to sync your iPhone's notes with Entourage. You might also have some hit-and-miss success with syncing your calendar with iPhone to iCal via iTunes, and then syncing Entourage to iCal. I have never gotten it to work satisfactorily, however, and many people have reported problems with this. I have also tried Spanning Sync (a third-party product) to sync my iCal data with Google Calendar and then the Entourage calendar with iCal, but again, mixed results.

The fact of the matter is, you will not be able to sync certain information between iPhone/iPod Touch and Entourage, no matter how hard you try. They are two different products. You will be unable to sync categories or Entourage project data, for instance.

Basically put, I would advise you to forget about syncing Entourage data with your iPhone, unless you have a lot of time to waste, or wish to spend more money on third-party products that may or may not be satisfying. I use Cultured Code's Things to manage my tasks on the iPod Touch, which syncs very well with the OS X standalone app. I use iCal to manage my calendar data, which does a fine job of syncing with iPod Touch calendar data via iTunes. Basically put, I've chosen to leave Entourage out of the picture. Its import/export functionality, lack of a dedicated sync conduit, and lack of cloud storage capabilities makes it a poor partner with Apple's mobile devices.

Your mileage may differ, however. If you have the time and money, experiment and see if something works for you. Just don't expect it to work out of the box - it isn't designed to.

Jeff

 

[A10]

I am a "light" user of data.

As I said I have no problem syncing Calendar data and contacts between the iPhone and Entourage when using the Office 2004 version.

I can't hack iCal. I just don't like it.

So to refine my question:

If I load and run with this Student version of Office 2008 will I still be able to sync contacts and calendar information between my iPhone and Entourage?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

If I load and run with this Student version of Office 2008 will I still
be able to sync contacts and calendar information between my iPhone and
Entourage?

Jeff porovided you with most of the information you needed.

The short answer is yes.
You can use SyncServices to have Entourage sync the address book to the
System one and the events to one and only calendar in iCal.
Categories won't sync. Contact pictures won't either.
There are a few additional limitations like that.
From there on, the data syncs through iTunes.
E-mails sync providing you set up the accounts the same way on the
iPhone (I strongly encourage you to use IMAP or Exchange but not POP if
you don't want headaches)

The main issue, as Jeff mentioned is the lack of reliability.
SyncSerivces are a pain and data often gets corrupted.
Avoid using the middle-initial field in the SYstem address book
(Entourage doesn't support it and the contacts gets duplicated).

I would also systematically assign categories to your events in
Entourage.
Categories do not sync so it makes it easier to figure out duplicates
there: they are the ones without categories.

Corentin

 

[A10]

Thanks for the replies and info.

Sorry, but I don't have the knowledge to understand the difference between POP, Exchange and IMAP.

My email accounts are POP accounts.

However some where are this site I read a post that said that the Student version of Office 2008 only supported syncing with Entourage and the iPhone via Exchange.

Is this right?

This is getting very, very technical for me!

 

[Ed Kimball]

Thanks for the replies and info.

Sorry, but I don't have the knowledge to understand the difference between
POP, Exchange and IMAP.

My email accounts are POP accounts.

However some where are this site I read a post that said that the Student
version of Office 2008 only supported syncing with Entourage and the iPhone
via Exchange.

Is this right?

This is getting very, very technical for me!

The Home and Student version of Office 2008 does NOT support Exchange, so I
can't imagine that any syncing that requires Exchange will work with that
version.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Thanks for the replies and info.

Sorry, but I don't have the knowledge to understand the difference
between POP, Exchange and IMAP.

POP: e-mails are downloaded from teh server then deleted from there.

IMAP: e-mails and downloaded from the server but stay there until you
delete them in your e-mail client application: That allows you to check
your e-mails from multiple computers without any problem./

With IMAP, you can keep everything in sync for the e-mails. E-mails
marked read on one computer will be read on the other, and vice versa.

POP requires some juggling around and you are going to have a difficult
time with the iphone.

My email accounts are POP accounts.

Check to see if they can be used as IMAP instead.

However some where are this site I read a post that said that the
Student version of Office 2008 only supported syncing with Entourage and
the iPhone via Exchange.

Well that's a different issue.
With an Exchange account, you can (like IMAP) sync your e-mails, but you
also can sync contacts and events, directly throug the server.

You don't have Exchange and your version of Office doesn't support it.

Instead, you can go to the preferences in Entourage and enable
SyncServices.
These will sync events and contacts to the System on your Mac, allowing
you to get them synched to the iPhone every time you sync with iTunes on
your Mac.

Corentin

 

[A10]

I have just posted a long long reply saying thank you and also explaining that I have upgraded and everything is fine.

I tried to publish the reply and it's disappeared!

I hope someone can pull in it out of the ether - I can't face trying to write that agin.

Anyway thanks a lot as I am all sorted and I certainly will be back as and when I hit problems / need advice.

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I have just posted a long long reply saying thank you and also explaining
that I have upgraded and everything is fine.

I tried to publish the reply and it's disappeared!

In any case, I'm glad it's working the way you wanted now


Corentin