493 MB patches so far / M$ Office 2008 on Mac

[giletti]

* * DISCLAIMER: No real info here. I'm only venting - anybody feels the same ? * *

I need to vent and sorry in advance.

It's simply ridiculous how much one has to download these days. 493MB since May in 3 downloads each ~ 160 MB.

I already had this bad feeling when I bought it and the first release so full of problems it (Word) was really crashing twice an hour or so. Look at the defect list of the first service pack:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/952331/en-us

That reads like a beta 1 - not even release candidate - defect list.

I mean I really deserve it. I really, really do, because although I always hated most of the product I bought it for compatibility reasons. (BTW, I've always liked Excel)

 

[Clix Pix]

Three years ago when I bought my first Mac, I also bought Office 2004, as I figured I would need it and I figured it would ease my transition into the new territory of a Mac..... This past year, considerably more comfortable with Macs and no longer even using Windows-based PCs, also having moved into primarily using intel-based Macs, I realized that I probably didn't need Office at all (I'm not in an employment capacity where it is important to be able to exchange/edit work products or documents with others). I heard about the new Office for the Mac: 2008 version and began to seriously think about whether or not I needed it. First move I made was to stop using Entourage as my email client and to assess how often I used other bits of the Office software. By the time Office 2008 came out I had already realized that, no, I truly didn't need it at all. I still don't.

Three of my machines still have MS Office for the Mac: 2004 still loaded on to them but I don't use it at all, and I have not missed it one bit. I am glad that I came to this realization prior to plunking out money for the 2008 version.

I'm sorry that you're having difficulties with this and I hope that things smooth out for you eventually!

 

[bozola]

I agree with you Connie. Last mac I bought I was seriously thinking iWork. But I couldn't quite get there with some of the spreadsheets that I had. I have resisted 2008 even though it's native. Sounds like they are having a lot of problems with it. I might try open office.

Do you like Mail over Entourage?

 

[Clix Pix]

Yep, I really like Mail over Entourage! I had been thinking of making the switch but hadn't quite gotten to it, and then when I bought the MacBook Air I realized I had the perfect opportunity to try out Mail without goobering up anything else on the other machines. Tried it, liked it, and very soon made the switch on my other machines. Needless to say I never loaded any version of Office into this MBA and have no plans to do so. I have iWork '08 loaded on here and on the other machines and so far it has worked nicely for me.

However, as a disclaimer I must say again that as a retired individual no longer working, I"m not in a situation where I need to frequently exchange Word or Excel files with others. Apple's iWork software products work comfortably for me. Pages does fine for documents when I need to produce one and since I rarely used Excel in the past anyway, I'm just fine with Apple's Numbers now.

I really don't miss Office at all and now I get annoyed when on the other machines I still get updates to Office 2004 from time to time.....

 

[giletti]

[...]
However, as a disclaimer I must say again that as a retired individual no longer working, I"m not in a situation where I need to frequently exchange Word or Excel files with others.
[...]

That's my problem - I do need to be able to read and modify MS documents including i.e. from Excel. Otherwise I am totally fine with iWorks <2008, which I got first and which I prefer for all my personal stuff.

 

[AFS]

I use Office 2008 and iWork '08 side by side on a regular basis.

Except when doing a final format and master for a document that will be say a term paper with an electronic copy submission, or where I need to do a lot of tracking of changes and the like, I tend to prefer Pages over Word.
I also tend to feel that Pages is more efficient in use of space than Word, subjectively. I find myself almost always preferring Pages to Word on my MBAir...also, just open up each one and look at memory and CPU usage. I tend to find Pages much easier on memory and battery life

Microsoft needs to trim the fat.

 

[DigitalHeMan]

Yeah, I have to use it on my Mac at work to be compatible with everyone else I used to use NeoOffice which never had any stability problems, then Office 2004, which was fairly stable, and now Office 2008, which sucks :biggrin:

The only good thing about all these updates I am downloading is at least it is making it a bit more stable.....

There are only a few applications that cause my macs to have stability problems - MSN Messenger, Excel, and Powerpoint....... is it just a coincidence that they are all made by Micro$oft? :biggrin:

 

[speen]

I have been using NeoOffice for years on my Powerbook, and now my MBPs. The beta version of OpenOffice 3 is worth a look, however. Unlike older versions of OO, it doesn't require you to load x11 software first, etc. It also has a more "Mac-like" look and feel, as well as some interesting features, like the ability to attach a document to an email without having to open Mail, to export easily to pdf, etc. I have M$ Office 2004, but haven't used it in over a year. Unless you are a power user who has invested decades in creating macros, you don't need to pay the Redmond Tax.

 

[giletti]

I have been using NeoOffice for years on my Powerbook, and now my MBPs. The beta version of OpenOffice 3 is worth a look, however. Unlike older versions of OO, it doesn't require you to load x11 software first, etc. It also has a more "Mac-like" look and feel, as well as some interesting features, like the ability to attach a document to an email without having to open Mail, to export easily to pdf, etc. I have M$ Office 2004, but haven't used it in over a year. Unless you are a power user who has invested decades in creating macros, you don't need to pay the Redmond Tax.

I used NeoOffice for a while, but often enough it was not compatible - which is clearly not their fault - it's a problem of that darn .doc format! For business however I can't rely on it - same with Pages (M$ : Rest = 2 : 0 ). Funny enough when Office for Mac 2008 came out it had compatibility problems with it's windows version (fixed later) !! What the duck !

 

[giletti]

Yeah, I have to use it on my Mac at work to be compatible with everyone else I used to use NeoOffice which never had any stability problems, then Office 2004, which was fairly stable, and now Office 2008, which sucks :biggrin:

The only good thing about all these updates I am downloading is at least it is making it a bit more stable.....

There are only a few applications that cause my macs to have stability problems - MSN Messenger, Excel, and Powerpoint....... is it just a coincidence that they are all made by Micro$oft? :biggrin:

Actually, I only had stability problems with Word for Mac 2008 - pretty bad ones. All this got better when Service Pack 1 came out (MS internally SP1 is probably called release candidate 1 )

 

[catalyst]

I'm very satisfied with the current version of Apple's Mail, and only wish I could still use Word 5.1 to communicate with others alongside it. . .

Eric

 

[Walter Rowe]

I'm working on a revision to a book right now. Me and my writing partner are using Pages. Copy-n-pasted the text from the 1st edition of the book into a Pages document and have been passing it back and forth. I live in Maryland and he lives in central Mexico. No problems with formatting, etc. We both are Mac users.

I purchased Office for Mac 2008 for compatibility with clients. I haven't used it much. Never had a problem with it crashing (mostly use Excel and Word), but the documents I've edited are fairly simple in formatting.

I have grown very accustomed to iWork '08 and now prefer to work in that space when I can.