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Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Terribly disappointed

Written by RC from Nevada City

Jan 22, 2008

I was on the Apple waiting list to get Office '08 and couldn't wait to install it. A week later I have uninstalled it, gone back to Office 04 and now am unable to read the documents Word up-converted to 08. To say that I'm P.O'd would be a vast understatement.

Entourage '08 is like writing email with blunt scissors and Crayons. Why can't Microsoft (or Apple) come up with an email program even half as good as Outlook? Why does Entourage even exist? In the Microsoft Office suite, having Entourage instead of Outlook is an admission that MS doesn't want anyone to expect similar performance or compatibility (such as only being able to import 426 Outlook contacts out of my 2,600).

Word '08 is an upgrade and I generally find it more pro than '08. On the other hand, Excel '08 is juvenile . . . something you might expect in Works. Powerpoint '08 is incrementally improved, and I'd get used to it if I hadn't uninstalled the suite.

In short, DO NOT "upgrade" to '08, and if you are installing Office for the first time, I'd seriously consider shopping for the 2004 edition. Better yet, put VM or Parallels on your Mac and run the "real" Office from the Windows interface. I hate to slam a Mac product so badly, and I'm not into conspiracy theories, but it certainly seems like there is a concerted effort to keep Mac Office on a MUCH lower tier than it's big brother up in Washington.

370 of 416 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

ABOUT TO UPGRADE DONT DO IT UNLESS YOU WANT MASSIVE HEADACHES

Written by AD from SAN FRANCISCO

Jan 23, 2008

My Entourage was crashing every few weeks because my data base was too large. The MS guys at the Mac World Booth in SF told me this is the upgrade that would fix all that. HA!

You can't believe the number of things wrong with 2008.

#1 It changes docs to a format no one can read unless they have 2008! Wow! this is a light year jump backwards for compatibility - at least with 2004 PC users could read my Word Docs.

#2 It doesn't sync easily with your iPhone, at least 2004 managed to sync with address book

#3 They've removed VBA from Excel 2008 which means that users who depend on features like Solver, histograms, extended statistical analyses are SOL.

Overall MS 2008 has done a great job of making Apple look like a bad operating system.

372 of 438 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Extreme disappointment . . .

Written by CR from WHITEFISH BAY

Jan 23, 2008

Looking forward to the latestest and greatest Office available, I was slapped in the face with the simplistic and essentially worthless version of Excel that is provided. Why allow addins when there are none available? I am hopeful that they intend to rectify this sub standard offering.Quick list of why I am not happy - No recording Macros to make life easier, no Solver feature, No statistical add-ins. Maybe Great for simply balancing a checkbook, with the same tedium as by hand. I want to take it back , but am afraid I cannot. Don't make the mistake of purchasing until the offering becomes worth the price tag. Pretty graphics but worthless.

297 of 320 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Maths and science tools out - surprising for a "numbers-oriented" tool...

Written by JT from Charlotte

Jan 20, 2008

For those of you who use Excel to do bits of maths, science, stats, the very very useful tools available out there as add-in can not be used anymore in this new 08 version. I can't say how upset I am that I just spent 150 bucks for that. I can't believe they present this version as an upgrade. Sure, it has pretty icons and all that eye candy. But it doesn't have the SOLVER for God's sake! (Well, okay, it's just for my own sake...) Gone, plain and simple. From all these new versions. It has been in Excel ever since I started using it, i.e. more than 10 years ago. So now what? I'm gonna have to re-instal the 2004 version. And try to sell this on eBay. Anyone who uses Excel just to do pie-charts out there..? As a matter of fact, if you just want a pie chart and eye candy interface, you should buy iWork. It's a lot cheaper. That's what I use it for. Excel was just for the solver and the like. Now it's gone, there's really no need for Excel anymore.

259 of 282 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Let Down

Written by BS from Salt Lake City

Jan 19, 2008

I'm a college student using a Macbook. Screen size is precious on a notebook this size. In Office 2004 I typically used the formatting palette as little as possible. In Office 2008 Microsoft managed to combine the formatting palette and the toolbox into one monstrosity, then added control over more of your document to it. What I'm left with is a palette that chews up a huge chunk of my little screen, and now I need it more than ever. Take Excel for example. Creating a chart was simple using the chart wizard. Now you use the elements bar to create a basic chart, and use the formatting palette to add titles, labels, and such. Half the time I can't see the chart because the formatting palette is so big. Way to go Microsoft! Most Mac users have a Mac laptop...thanks for making a bulky interface that makes this must have tool impossible to use.

231 of 253 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Yikes!

Written by ER from Glencoe

Mar 25, 2008

I just tried the 2008 standard edition on my friends Macbook Pro, 2 Duo, 2.4Ghz, and 4GBs of ram. And I can't believe I'm about to say something so obvious, but I was SHOCKED at how Sllloooowwww this Microsoft software ran. I mean come on! On a 2 Duo Intel with 4Gigs of ram? And every time I tried to simply drag an open word document an inch across the desktop, I got at least 5 seconds of spinning ball before it actually moved. It was as if I were running it on my old Powerbook G3 or something. I don't know, maybe there was a problem with the install, or the files, or something. But if Office 2008 runs that poorly on a fully loaded, top of the line laptop, I'm saving my money and sticking with version 2004.

161 of 185 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Excel 2008

Written by MG from Manchester

Feb 7, 2008

I have used Excel on Macintosh and PC computers since it first became available. I even taught Excel as part of an Introductory computing course. Unfortunately the latest version, 2008, is the most disappointing version to date. Gone are a number of features including Data Analysis Toolpack which made it such a useful product for students in particular. I have found installing it on the latest Intel iMacs has resulted in a product which is so slow (at least a factor of 2 slower than 2004), with such unacceptable screen update times and bugs as well as prone to crashing , that it is virtually unusable. I shall not be recommending this product to anyone until Microsoft fix the problems and indeed I intend to return it to the vender as soon as I can.

147 of 163 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Thanks Microsoft for ruining my Mac

Written by MM from Berwick

Feb 8, 2008

My Mac ran like a Mac. No bugs, no crashes, no annoying "windows" messages that cannot be understood.

Now, thanks to the installation of this piece of software by Microsoft, I get Safari Keychain error after Safari Keychain error. I thought I was alone until I spoke to a mate in Sydney. He, too, has the same problem.

PLEASE Apple, could you help Microsoft out next time when they decide to write some Windows-style install program???

139 of 157 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Not compatible with Word 2007?!

Written by MG from Norfolk

Jan 19, 2008

I am HIGHLY disappointed - after months of waiting for Office 2008 I finally have it - and it is not easily compatible with my old files, which all have to be saved in a special "compatible" format on my mac in order to be viewed - worse, is that when I email my clients a document they can't view it correctly unless they have office 2008 - what is the point? I may as well keep using Pages and export files to Adobe each time I need to email. The functions and programs all seem nice (especially the ledger), but seriously, this compatibility issue is a major bummer considering it's the main reason I purchased the software - to have access to my old files & email clients with windows word docs.

122 of 132 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Office 2008 Word crashes frequently

Written by MH from Redwood City

May 26, 2009

I am very disappointed with the lack of stability in this version of Word. It crashes frequently. While it offers to recover my lost data, I can often do better by carefully copying the backup files just before re-launching Word. Also, it carefully forgets the correct recovered filename upon recovery, so I have to retype it.

In my view (having worked with founding members of the Microsoft Word team 30 years ago) this is a disappointing and unprofessional piece of commercial software, not worthy of its brand name.

117 of 126 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Wait to buy

Written by EH from Mooresville

Mar 22, 2008

Please, please, wait to buy. I purchased in order to do MS Office 2007 homework at home instead of having to go the the college lab. Lot of things missing. 2008 version is useless to me and my money wasted I agree w/others that it should not have been released incomplete. Should have listened, but thought it could not be that bad, but it is.

132 of 160 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

An April Fool's Joke of the N'th Degree

Written by MN from Hoquiam

May 4, 2008

Recently, one of my clients decided to make the switch to Mac from a Windows environment based on my recommendation. Sadly, I stated that Office 2008 would provide the law office with platform compatibility, although we knew we'd have some transition issues given the differences between Outlook and Entourage. Regretfully, I didn't have experience with 2008, as I'd been running 2004 for some time. Mistakenly, I thought 2008 would be an improvement. Stupid me...

2008 is a major re-work of the code from Office 2004. Along the way, Mac users were taken for a ride... Office 2008 causes a significant issue for Mac users since they took away our ability to run scripts based on Visual Basic - a major problem. Now, many Excel spreadsheets fail to run -- and we have no choice in the matter. Another big problem I've noted - start-up speed can become very slow. I'm running a Quad-Core MacPro with a ton of RAM and 10.5. Office 2004 applications start up in seconds - typically 2-5. Office 2008 can take up to a minute and a half to load. I've worked through the suggested fixes, to no avail.

Then there's the sync issues... We use iDisk and iSync services to coordinate contacts, tasks and schedules. Under Office 2004, things have been fine. 2008 has been a nightmare. Tasks aren't handled the same way between 2004 and 2008, which means they don't migrate well. Even better, there's the hiccups of sync events that eat contacts, etc., in Office. Some speculate that the failure is in iSync, but we don't encounter the problems with 2004 on the same system. That leaves the problem squarely on the steps of Microsoft.

I don't recommend Office 2008 if you actually need to rely on the software.

110 of 125 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Waste of money!

Written by CP from Mystic

Dec 18, 2008

This new version of Microsoft Office shows just how bad a company Microsoft is. Excel is useless in this version for anything except making charts. You cannot perform data analysis and there are no available add-ins and microsoft has no plan to make them available. Keep Office 2004 (even though excel crashes constantly with the Intel Macs, its better than 2008)
DONT WASTE YOUR MONEY!

114 of 134 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Wish I hadn't bought it.

Written by DG from Boiling Springs

Jan 18, 2008

Kudos for "My Day"--which, except for its eye-straining glossiness and a few bugs, actually has the potential to be a great coordination tool.

Other than that, Microsoft has once again padded their update with "features" that presume the programmers know better than I what I want my documents to look like, how I want to use my computer, and what my work schedule is.

AND, they've eliminated HotSync support for Palm devices, and still haven't added Exchange support.

At least I got an educational discount, so I'm not out the full $150 they're charging for this mockery.

134 of 175 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Don't buy use iWork or NeoOffice or OpenOffice

Written by CG from Stuttgart

Sep 15, 2009

I bought MS Office 2008 for Mac (MSOM) on the assumption (wrong) that it would be good at opening MS Office for Windows (MSOW), all versions, and that I would be happy with it.

I had occasional compatibility issues with NeoOffice (NO) and OpenOffice (OO) and was dissappointed with the availability of shapes in iWork.

Besides getting more shapes than iWork, I have been very dissappointed with MS Office for Mac. Here a list of some of the issues I have experienced:

1. Compatibility - MSOM is generally less compatible with MSOW than iWork '09 and in most cases than both NO and OO. This is especially the case with PowerPoint where either paragraphs are completely messed up and no-longer editable (try working with a paragraph that converts to one letter per line) or graphics simply don't show up (frame is there but no image - go figure).

2. Stability - the system has often crashed when copying tables from excel into PowerPoint or Word. To top it off, following the latest crash I learned that auto-recover did not work with excel for some reason (yes I know save your work etc.) but why did auto-recover work when powerpoint crashed ?

3. Dual window support in powerpoint is weak. I often work with large power point files and like to refer to previous slides. In MSOW I would open a second window and could easily work side by side. In MSOM you can do it but you can only edit on, get this, the new window you open. The original takes edits but slowly and clumsily.

4. Interface - well compared to iWork 09, the closest comparison, is clumsy and slow

5. PDF creation poor - I converted a 4.9 MB Powerpoint file to PDF and found it ballooned to 17.6MB!!!! I did the same exercise on iWork and it grew but to a more respectable 6.2 MB - I could at least e-mail it.

108 of 124 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Another terrible Microsoft product.

Written by JE from Bristow

Jun 7, 2009

Bought the student version and it only crashed and crashed and crashed. I switched over to iWork which is much cheaper and in fact transfers better to Windows OS. Just fuels my distaste for Microsoft's below par products.

126 of 161 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Should be called Office 1995

Written by PG from Blaine

Dec 19, 2008

I bought this product and when I use it I feel like I've been transported back to 1995. Compared to the Windows version, this product is terrible! I'm so disappointed - it's clunky, awkward, archaic...and a waste. You've been warned.

131 of 171 people found this useful

Office 2008 for Mac - Home and Student Edition

Great Interface/Features But One Fatal Flaw

Written by MP from Orange

Jan 18, 2008

I can’t believe how disappointed I am. I don’t know if this is Microsoft’s fault or Apple’s, but shame on both companies for not including direct support for iPhone from Entourage. I have high expectations of Apple and Steve Jobs and they really disappointed me this time.

If this shortcoming does not affect you, the other features of Office 2008 are really great and Microsoft should be proud of the rest of the product line. I felt the improvements to Word and PowerPoint very impressive.

PowerPoint power users (and perhaps not-so-power users since it is so easy to use,) will really love the graphics and easy interface.

If you are an occasional user of Adobe inDesign, you may find yourself migrating to Word for those tasks - it is really that good. I am considering moving all of my company’s brochures, quite a few hundred pages of text and graphics to Word from inDesign.

Excel graphics are easier to implement as well with improved graphs.

Entourages…hmm…just don’t believe the nonsense that it syncs well with Apple’s iCal and Address Book - it does not. The features of Entourage’s calendar are much better that iCal. I give a slight advantage to Address Book because searches are instantaneous - an import advantage when you have a couple thousand contacts.

Apple, Microsoft, PLEASE GET OFF THE STICK AND PROVIDE IPHONE SUPPORT!

145 of 209 people found this useful