Missing Features in Excel 2008!?

[Phillip Jones]

He say someone at MS told him they forgot to put in. were they pulling
his chain just to get the phone call over with? If so sound like
someone's backside need a little spanking.

They did not forget! The DATP is in VBA and Excel 208 does not support VBA.
Thus no DATP. But, all the functions of the DATP are included in Excel
functions.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[BGMurphy2008]

Excel for Windows has a feature that allows stock quotes to be downloaded into a spreadsheet. Is there a way to do this in Excel 2008 for the Mac?

Thank you.

BGM

 

[kappa]

I am a new Mac user. The excel I have on my MacBook pro is totally different frm what I have been using in my office , which is Windows.
Is there a book that I can get for reference ? I have spent 2 days going back and forth with the Help on line, and it is getting rather tiring... But there is nothing I can find in Hong KOng which I am currently living. Can anyone help if I could order on line or something fr such a book just fr Excel for Mac ? I dont need one for Windows...

 

[Courtney]

Can you use 'Chart Wizard' on Mac?

 

[jumanju]

"error bars- customize"

has this already been fixed? or when can it be implemented?

customization of error bars is an essential tool for scientific applications. I urgently expect an update.

 

[ghoffman]

At our grad school, this year, more incoming students than ever before chose to purchase a Mac to meet their laptop requirement. They were assured that Microsoft's Office suite is compatible between platforms. We urged PC users to get Office 2007 for Windows but now the new file formats are driving us all crazy. The solution is for faculty and staff to upgrade to 2007 as well. Of course, we were ready to recommend Mac users that they upgrade to Office for Mac 2008, but we can't since they lose VBA capabilities.

Quantitative analysis is an important part of our school's curriculum. Over three quarters, we lead our grad students through Excel's Solver to a full Stata installation. So now our Mac users, including the professor, are stuck in the 2004 version. Of course, if they upgraded on their own during spring break, they are in deep doo-doo.

Has anyone heard of any Solver replacement in the form of Automator actions or other technologies or plug-ins? I have to recommend a school-wide solution by next Monday.

 

[Marc B]

I concur. I have many macros that no longer work. As an engineer, this will be an incredible effort to redo them, and at this point even more importantly, I won't be compatible with other engineers using PC's. Brutal. Perhaps this was hinted at, but I was completely taken by surprise. I will certainly send feedback.

 

[Phillip Jones]

If on a Mac using office 2008 go to help menu and send Feedback, explain
this problem. Very firmly (but no insulting) and forcefully, and with
documentation or very cogent argument. Maybe if they get enough
complaints from Colleges and Universities it was bad to assume that only
lightweights use Mac's and Office for anything useful. BTW your not the
only college/University that has expressed displeasure.

At our grad school, this year, more incoming students than ever
before chose to purchase a Mac to meet their laptop requirement. They
were assured that Microsoft's Office suite is compatible between
platforms. We urged PC users to get Office 2007 for Windows but now
the new file formats are driving us all crazy. The solution is for
faculty and staff to upgrade to 2007 as well. Of course, we were
ready to recommend Mac users that they upgrade to Office for Mac
2008, but we can't since they lose VBA capabilities.

Quantitative analysis is an important part of our school's
curriculum. Over three quarters, we lead our grad students through
Excel's Solver to a full Stata installation. So now our Mac users,
including the professor, are stuck in the 2004 version. Of course, if
they upgraded on their own during spring break, they are in deep
doo-doo.

Has anyone heard of any Solver replacement in the form of Automator
actions or other technologies or plug-ins? I have to recommend a
school-wide solution by next Monday.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Phillip Jones]

Please read my response to previous poster. instead of College
University. document the company you work for or College university you
work for.

I concur. I have many macros that no longer work. As an engineer, this will be an incredible effort to redo them, and at this point even more importantly, I won't be compatible with other engineers using PC's. Brutal. Perhaps this was hinted at, but I was completely taken by surprise. I will certainly send feedback.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Bas Jansen]

Hi JJ

Market penetration of the Apple computers on the whole is one thing, but the perception is that Mac users are "consumers" and "creative types" who really don't use or have much use for VBA or any products created using VBA.

VBA is often considered something for "developers" and "business" people, not us Mac users.

Which shows you how ignorant MS actually is. There are A LOT of people in academia, and I'm not talking about the Faculty of Arts and Humanities types, who use Macs for their work. And I can assure you they're not amused.

Bas

 

[MichaelP]

&gt; Just installed Office 2008 and came to use Excel. Can't find the following
&gt; that were in 2004, can any one help?
&gt; 1. Print Preview command button

Doesn't exist - all print functions are performed by the OS, including
print preview.
[/QUOTE]
IF THIS DOES NOT EXIST AND IF THIS IS BECAUSE IT IS CONTROLLED BY MAC-OS, THEN HOW COME I CAN GET THIS PRINT PREVIEW FEATURE IN "WORD 2008?

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

IF THIS DOES NOT EXIST AND IF THIS IS BECAUSE IT IS CONTROLLED BY MAC-OS, THEN
HOW COME I CAN GET THIS PRINT PREVIEW FEATURE IN "WORD 2008?

Because the Word product managers decided not to dedicate the effort to
standardize page setup per apple's standards. And stop shouting with all
caps.

 

[dr.nixon]

I seriously cannot understand how a company with the resources and programming skills Microsoft has can release a program suite that is as screwed up as Mac Office. Long-time Mac Office users will likely see the current set of applications as an improvement (except for the VBA scripting loss) but anyone who has used Windows Office prior to switching to a Mac is in for a shock. There is absolutely no reason for Microsoft to continue developing two separate code bases for Office. They ought to have one team working on one set of products that is released cross-platform. If Adobe can release the entire Creative Suite cross-platform without reducing functionality between operating systems, there's no reason at all that Microsoft cannot do the same with Office. They have the money to do so and they have the expertise if only they would actually give it any priority. While I'm sure the Mac BU do a valiant job of trying to put together the best product they can, the lack of effort Microsoft as a whole gives to their Mac team really disappoints me. It also shows in the product. I don't think that asking for feature parity with the Windows version is an excessive request.

Lack of VBA support is understandable given the issues faced in making it work (and the security problems), but using a host-specific scripting tool is not really a great decision either. How do I share files with Windows users if I can't use their macros and they can't use my AppleScript? Dropping the Ribbon interface idea in favor of the floating toolbox is in my mind one of the worst decisions Microsoft has made in Mac Office 08. The Ribbon might be a bit weird, and it certainly is different than previous Office interfaces, but it does put all of the important commands within easy access and unlike the Toolbox it doesn't helpfully cover up 1/4 of my screen when I'm working.

A truly cross-platform program suite would solve these issues. To be perfectly honest, if OpenOffice supported EndNote I don't know if I'd use Office 08. I know for a fact that the shortcomings in Mac Office are big enough issues with me that I would not have any version of Mac Office installed if I were not able to obtain it for free via my University site license. If I had actually paid for it, well, I'd be just as ticked off as many of the other people commenting here.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I seriously cannot understand how a company with the resources and programming
skills Microsoft has can release a program suite that is as screwed up as Mac
Office. Long-time Mac Office users will likely see the current set of
applications as an improvement (except for the VBA scripting loss) but anyone
who has used Windows Office prior to switching to a Mac is in for a shock.
There is absolutely no reason for Microsoft to continue developing two
separate code bases for Office. They ought to have one team working on one set
of products that is released cross-platform. If Adobe can release the entire
Creative Suite cross-platform without reducing functionality between operating
systems, there's no reason at all that Microsoft cannot do the same with
Office. They have the money to do so and they have the expertise if only they
would actually give it any priority. While I'm sure the Mac BU do a valiant
job of trying to put together the best product they can, the lack of effort
Microsoft as a whole gives to their Mac team really disappoints me. It also
shows in the product. I don't think that asking for feature parity with the
Windows version is an excessive request.

Lack of VBA support is understandable given the issues faced in making it work
(and the security problems), but using a host-specific scripting tool is not
really a great decision either. How do I share files with Windows users if I
can't use their macros and they can't use my AppleScript? Dropping the Ribbon
interface idea in favor of the floating toolbox is in my mind one of the worst
decisions Microsoft has made in Mac Office 08. The Ribbon might be a bit
weird, and it certainly is different than previous Office interfaces, but it
does put all of the important commands within easy access and unlike the
Toolbox it doesn't helpfully cover up 1/4 of my screen when I'm working.

A truly cross-platform program suite would solve these issues. To be perfectly
honest, if OpenOffice supported EndNote I don't know if I'd use Office 08. I
know for a fact that the shortcomings in Mac Office are big enough issues with
me that I would not have any version of Mac Office installed if I were not
able to obtain it for free via my University site license. If I had actually
paid for it, well, I'd be just as ticked off as many of the other people
commenting here.

Just because you can not understand how the decisions were made, nor how
resources are allocated, does not mean that a viable solution exists. While
I agree with your assessment of the product, it does not qualify either of
us to set market, development, and revenue targets for Microsoft. Make sure
you express your concerns through send feedback in the help menu.

 

[Cristina]

I've investigated this and agree that it's a pain, however I have a work around for you (for dates).

1. Enter the data column with years as a Date format. This will require entering in dates ending in the year you want.
2. Format the data column as a custom format of "yyyy" to display only the year.
3. Select the two columns you want and plot the chart. Excel appears to recognise dates and uses it for the horizontal axis labels/ intervals.

Hope this helps.

Bob

Bob,

I had this same problem and couldn't figure out what was happening! Your tip worked, thank you so much!!

 

[BobP]

&gt; I've investigated this and agree that it's a pain, however I have a work around for you (for dates).

&gt; 1. Enter the data column with years as a Date format. This will require entering in dates ending in the year you want.
&gt; 2. Format the data column as a custom format of "yyyy" to display only the year.
&gt; 3. Select the two columns you want and plot the chart. Excel appears to recognise dates and uses it for the horizontal axis labels/ intervals.
&gt;
&gt; Hope this helps.
&gt;
&gt; Bob

Bob,

I had this same problem and couldn't figure out what was happening! Your tip worked, thank you so much!!

Hi Cristina,

you're very welcome! Glad it was helpful. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Daniel Sandoval]

I have a question, in windows if you wanted to modify a cell i just pressed F2, but in Mac I don´t know how, does anyone knows???

Thank You!!!!

 

[Bill W]

I have a question, in windows if you wanted to modify a cell i just pressed F2, but in Mac I don´t know how, does anyone knows???

Thank You!!!!

Ctrl + "u"

 

[jpdphd]

I have a question, in windows if you wanted to modify a cell i just pressed F2, but in Mac I don´t know how, does anyone knows???

Thank You!!!!

Double clicking on the cell works quite well, too.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Double clicking on the cell works quite well, too.

Note: double clicking on the cell ONLY works if the Edit directly in cell
preference is turned on.