| Office 2008 for Mac, Home and Student Edition (Mac) | 
 enlarge | From: Microsoft
Category: Software
List Price: £106.99
Buy New: £78.99
You Save: £28.00 (26%)
Buy New from £78.99
Avg. Customer Rating:   (37 reviews)
Sales Rank: 17
Format: Dvd-rom
Platforms: Macintosh, Mac Os X
Media: CD-ROM
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: GZA00006
Model: GZA00006
UPC: 882224526302
EAN: 0882224526302
ASIN: B000X86ZAS
Release Date: January 16, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Worth the upgrade January 25, 2008
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
I've been using a Mac for about a year now and was disappointed with Office 2004 (compared to Office 2003 Windows) - not least because it wasn't running natively on my Intel Mac. I need to exchange documents (Word and Excel) daily with poor Windows users, so great through it is, iWork 08 is not an option. So it had to be Office 2008. Word is not much changed apart from the new formatting tools beneath the main tool bar. I don't use these, so can't comment on how useful they are. The overall look and feel is much improved compared to 04. Excel is even less different from 04 - there's not much you can change about a spreadsheet really. There are some features in iWork Numbers that would have been nice if incorporated into Excel - (but then there are many features in Excel that would be useful in Numbers). For me the most disappointing thing with Excel is that the formula bar is floating rather than attached to the document window. I really don't like this, but have learnt to double-click cells to enter formulas this way instead and I hide the formula bar altogether. Running natively means that the frequent force quits that were needed before are now a thing of the past. I've had no problems with running the apps and have noticed considerable speed improvements, especially in large tables in Word. Overall, recommended if you need to share doc's with Windows users and are running an Intel Mac.
Perfect January 18, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
After purchasing this the other day for my Macbook, I have found it nothing short of perfect for what I need it for.
Granted, like many people, I was using Office 2004 prior to this and there isn't an overwhelming difference between the two, just a bit of a prettier UI.
One part of this software that I thoroughly like is Entourage, which as a student is amazing for being able to organise absolutely everything. I can't comment on differences in Entourage 2008 and 2004 because unfortunately I never used it before; but I would imagine its just an updated UI again. Intergration with iCal and the Apple Address Book is fantastic, everything is constantly updated when you put it into Entourage; which is useful for me as I have a .Mac account.
All in all, highly recommended to anyone, you won't regret it.
 CAN'T USE IT January 17, 2008
3 out of 11 found this review helpful
Just received my Office 2008. So far I could not use it because WORD crashes right after launching. Microsoft's support was quite helpful but it couldn't fix it. During installation you are given an option to keep or erase previous versions. I strongly advise you to keep the older 2004. Hoping that Microsoft fixes this as soon as possible!
 Disappointing January 17, 2008
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
The lack of a decent equation editor, like the one that comes with Office 2007 is very, very disappointing. For me it's such a big issue that it almost wasn't worth the upgrade. You are stuck with Microsoft Equation Editor 3.0 from olden times, and compatibility with MathType seems to have been taken away. Nothing I can do can Word to recognise it. Maybe there'll be a fix for this in the future - I hope so anyway.
I hoped the interface would be similar to Office 2007, which I was very impressed with and got to grips with immediately, despite being initially a little dubious. Instead everything remains the same as 2004, except for the elements gallery which has nothing particularly useful in there and as far as I can see can't be turned off. It just sits in the way, taking up space on your screen and you'll probably not use it at all unless you're going to apply a pre-built background to your document, or something like that. Excel does keep its chart types in there though.
The toolbox stills exists. It is jam-packed with tiny icons, and arrows, that you have to hunt through, click to expand and then scroll through to find the right style. Not user-friendly at all in my opinion.
The positives: It's a universal application, so no more Rosetta! That said, it's not any quicker loading, although once loaded it's is noticeably faster and more stable. It's supposed to be 100% compatible with Word 2007. I take work between Mac and PC all the time and had many problems with Word 2003 and Word 2004. I'm still not sure how it handles equations: hopefully it doesn't convert Word 2007 equations into images, like it does for other versions. I haven't checked this yet, but I can't really see what else it could do without the new equation editor.
Overall, in my opinion it's nothing more than a Universal version of Office 2004 with a few new gimmicks for those who like desktop publishing and prettiness. For a technical user, such as myself it's disappointing and in some ways a downgrade. I'm keeping it though because I want to be sure of compatibility with Office 2007 and like the fact it's universal.
Migrating from Windows? Treat Office 2008 with caution. January 17, 2008
63 out of 67 found this review helpful
After years with PCs, I finally migrated to the Mac this Christmas. The whole experience has been remarkably painless. Everything worked, the software is for the most part beautifully designed, and I felt I had found a comfortable new home. Then I got Office 2008 Home and Student Edition, principally for Word and Entourage, so I could access all my Office 2007 files...and found myself back in the Windows world.
Word 2008 looks pretty, but is flaky. It sometimes freezes, and there's an odd problem with the document window sometimes refusing to overlay other windows that are open on the desktop. Also, the interface is different from Office 2003 and 2007, and in my opinion not as good.
Maybe I'll get used to these foibles, but the instability of the software is worrying. Worse, Office 2008 isn't fully compatible with Office 2007. Word will read documents written using earlier versions. But Entourage does not read Outlook pst files AT ALL. Migrating Outlook to Entourage is awkward to impossible without making big compromises and wasting lots of time and effort. Microsoft created an add-on for Entourage 2004 that apparently works with Outlook 2001 pst files, but there's no information from Microsoft on converting Outlook 2003 or 2007 files. There are other solutions for converting pst files, but I can find none that are simple and seamless (or free). And once they're in Entourage format, I notice that there's no way of exporting them to other email programs.
To add to the sense of a fundamental misfit between Microsoft and Apple, Microsoft's support pages for mac don't seem to work with Safari (but do with Firefox). In retrospect, I wish I hadn't tried this half-way house between the Windows and Mac worlds, but just started afresh.
|
|
|
