Using Office on Mac: Some basic questions

P

paulinefiddle

I've been using a PC with Microsoft Windows for years, and I'm totally
fed up with it. I'm thinking seriously about getting a Mac, but I
need to have Microsoft Office. Is there a Mac version for this? Do I
need to install it in parallel? Does it work reliably?
 
C

Corentin Cras-Méneur

paulinefiddle said:
I've been using a PC with Microsoft Windows for years, and I'm totally
fed up with it. I'm thinking seriously about getting a Mac, but I
need to have Microsoft Office. Is there a Mac version for this? Do I
need to install it in parallel? Does it work reliably?
Click to expand...


check it out on http://www.mactopia.com
It works well with some limitations.
The current version doesn't supprot VBA (the next one will).
Entourage is Not Outlook, period. It's a good e-mail client, but it's
different.

Really, the best for you is to go to the MS website and see for
yourself.


Corentin
 
M

Megabyte

I've been using a PC with Microsoft Windows for years, and I'm totally
fed up with it. I'm thinking seriously about getting a Mac, but I
need to have Microsoft Office. Is there a Mac version for this? Do I
need to install it in parallel? Does it work reliably?
Click to expand...

You actually have a few options. I switched to Mac about 6 months ago and
am not looking back. I use Mac Office 2008 which seems to offer pretty
decent compatibility but I believe it is lacking the VBA features in the
Windows based MS Office. I also run Windows 7 in a VMWare Fusion virtual
machine and have MS Office 2007 and now the Office 2010 Beta installed in it
and it works fine. I'm using this on the base model MacBook Pro but have
upgraded the RAM to 4 GB. Performance is good.
 
J

Jeff Chapman

Hello,

You actually have a few options. I switched to Mac about 6 months ago and
am not looking back. I use Mac Office 2008 which seems to offer pretty
decent compatibility but I believe it is lacking the VBA features in the
Windows based MS Office. I also run Windows 7 in a VMWare Fusion virtual
machine and have MS Office 2007 and now the Office 2010 Beta installed in it
and it works fine.
Click to expand...

Begging your pardon, but you've still got Windows installed and
are running MS Office 2007 for Windows, so when you said
"I'm not looking back", it seems that you still are... :D

I don't mean to denigrate you for it. Many Mac users now are
in the same boat, myself included. I used Windows since Windows 95
(and probably since the days of 3.1, without my knowing!), and I
work in an office full of Windows users. Now that Macs are Intel-based
and can run Windows virtually or via Boot Camp, we have the option
of playing on the same turf as Windows users, while still enjoying
the benefits of Mac OS X (or Ubuntu, or Solaris, etc. etc.)
on the same machine.

That aside, we still didn't fully answer the questions of the person who
started this thread, did we...
I'm thinking seriously about getting a Mac, but I
need to have Microsoft Office. Is there a Mac version for this? Do I
need to install it in parallel?
Click to expand...

You install Mac Office just as you would on Windows, as an application
within Mac OS X. No need to install Office for Windows.
The drawback is the extra investment that is required to purchase
a copy of Office for Mac, unless your employer or school will purchase
it for you, of course.
Does it work reliably?
Click to expand...

When you have all of the patches, service packs and updates installed
in order and have also updated Mac OS X to the latest version, it
is generally reliable. There are some problems that users have reported
with using Office 2008 under Mac OS X Snow Leopard - check out the
forum for details.

You may lose or gain some functionality with Office for Mac as opposed
to Office for Windows, depending on which features you use most
often and what you are trying to do. The lack of Visual Basic for
Applications on Office 2008 for Mac was already mentioned, but
there are several other minor (?) differences.
To take a few examples, on the Mac version you cannot color the
worksheet tabs in Excel, or hide the whitespace at the top and bottom
of the page in Word, or subscribe to RSS feeds in Entourage, or
paste objects as JPEG and GIF files into PowerPoint slides, among
other things.
On the other hand, you have newsgroup support in Entourage,
the Formatting Palette for Excel, Word, PowerPoint,
out-of-the-box functionality to save to PDF from any Office file,
the Document Connection for Mac, and support for importing
photos from iPhoto or a folder of your choice via the
Object Palette.

Either way, there are tradeoffs and benefits you will gain.
Be sure to investigate the product closely before purchasing,
to ensure that the functions you use the most are covered.
In some cases, Office 2004 for Mac may actually be a better choice,
depending on your needs.

Jeff
 
M

Megabyte

Hello,



Begging your pardon, but you've still got Windows installed and
are running MS Office 2007 for Windows, so when you said
"I'm not looking back", it seems that you still are... :D
Click to expand...

Not looking back in the sense of my future computer purchases will be Mac
computers not regular Windows PC's. Unlike some, I have no aversion to
using Windows or for that matter Linux on the Mac as well as OS X. The Mac
allows me to run all three and use programs from each of the three platforms
reliably.
I don't mean to denigrate you for it. Many Mac users now are
in the same boat, myself included. I used Windows since Windows 95
(and probably since the days of 3.1, without my knowing!), and I
work in an office full of Windows users. Now that Macs are Intel-based
and can run Windows virtually or via Boot Camp, we have the option
of playing on the same turf as Windows users, while still enjoying
the benefits of Mac OS X (or Ubuntu, or Solaris, etc. etc.)
on the same machine.

That aside, we still didn't fully answer the questions of the person who
started this thread, did we...
Click to expand...

I think we did if the OP was referring to Parallels. He can run Mac Office
in OS X or MS Office 2003\2007\2010 in a Virtual Machine.
You install Mac Office just as you would on Windows, as an application
within Mac OS X. No need to install Office for Windows.
The drawback is the extra investment that is required to purchase
a copy of Office for Mac, unless your employer or school will purchase
it for you, of course.


When you have all of the patches, service packs and updates installed
in order and have also updated Mac OS X to the latest version, it
is generally reliable. There are some problems that users have reported
with using Office 2008 under Mac OS X Snow Leopard - check out the
forum for details.

You may lose or gain some functionality with Office for Mac as opposed
to Office for Windows, depending on which features you use most
often and what you are trying to do. The lack of Visual Basic for
Applications on Office 2008 for Mac was already mentioned, but
there are several other minor (?) differences.
To take a few examples, on the Mac version you cannot color the
worksheet tabs in Excel, or hide the whitespace at the top and bottom
of the page in Word, or subscribe to RSS feeds in Entourage, or
paste objects as JPEG and GIF files into PowerPoint slides, among
other things.
On the other hand, you have newsgroup support in Entourage,
the Formatting Palette for Excel, Word, PowerPoint,
out-of-the-box functionality to save to PDF from any Office file,
the Document Connection for Mac, and support for importing
photos from iPhoto or a folder of your choice via the
Object Palette.

Either way, there are tradeoffs and benefits you will gain.
Be sure to investigate the product closely before purchasing,
to ensure that the functions you use the most are covered.
In some cases, Office 2004 for Mac may actually be a better choice,
depending on your needs.

Jeff
Click to expand...

Good information above. Also Entourage, Mac Office's answer to Outlook is
supposed to be replaced by a version of Outlook for Mac in future Mac Office
offerings. No word on when the next version of Mac Office will be offered
but 2011 may be a good guess. For now if you need 100% compatibility with
MS Office on the PC run MS Office in a VM but if you can live with the
differences some of which are noted above Mac Office is an alternative as
are iWork, OpenOffice and NEO Office, each offering various degrees of
compatibility with Office on the Windows platform.
 
J

Jeff Chapman

Hello again,

Not looking back in the sense of my future computer purchases will be Mac
computers not regular Windows PC's. Unlike some, I have no aversion to
using Windows or for that matter Linux on the Mac as well as OS X. The Mac
allows me to run all three and use programs from each of the three platforms
reliably.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's kind of the issue here, isn't it.
If the OP wants to get away from the Windows platform
entirely and migrate to Mac apps only, there will be
some tradeoffs to consider. She said, "I've been using a PC
with Microsoft Windows for years, and I'm totally
fed up with it." I guess we would need to address why
she wants to move to the Mac and what Windows is or isn't
doing for her. Then we can say whether just migrating
to Office for Mac is going to solve problems or cause
more headaches than it solves.
Good information above. Also Entourage, Mac Office's answer to Outlook is
supposed to be replaced by a version of Outlook for Mac in future Mac Office
offerings. No word on when the next version of Mac Office will be offered
but 2011 may be a good guess.
Click to expand...

The Mac BU blog says it will launch in time for
the "2010 holiday season", but as with all software development,
that's a best guess, not a guarantee.
Also, I would be a little skeptical to recommend Outlook 2010/2011
for Mac as a substitute for Entourage right now - we don't
know anything concrete about the feature set for Outlook, how
much will be added or stripped down, whether Outlook for Windows
data can be safely exported to Outlook for Mac, or how reliable
the software will be coming out of the starting gate ;-)
For now if you need 100% compatibility with
MS Office on the PC run MS Office in a VM but if you can live with the
differences some of which are noted above Mac Office is an alternative as
are iWork, OpenOffice and NEO Office, each offering various degrees of
compatibility with Office on the Windows platform.
Click to expand...

Definitely. (Not even sure if the OP is still with us on this,
but we are running with the ball and scoring some goals, eh. :D )

Jeff
 
Top