Microsoft Office 2008 Suck!

OMG! I am having a super hard time creating a single Word Publication. I only got to page 2 when I already started getting the spinning wheel with saving, converting to PDF and printing.

Yesterday, I spent over an hour trying to create the exact same document, I though I had clicked the save button. Needless to say, I didn't and Word crashed (Apple's version of "Illegal Operation"), all that work went down the drain.

Rebooted the Mac before starting work did not help in any way. I kept getting constant crashes.

Now, I click on save after typing every word

I've never had Word crash on me and I've been using it for 2 years now.

2008? Have you tried creating a publisher style doc from scratch, including graphics etc..?

how much ram have you got, sounds like you either have too little or there are too many running applications sucking up your available memory when you are using word
I have absolutely no problem with just 2Gigs

CrimsonRequiem said:

I've never had Word crash on me and I've been using it for 2 years now.

Click to expand...

I had it crash on a brand-new iMac that's only three weeks old. Even so, I have few complaints about Office 2008. I definitely like it better than Office 2007 and that **** ribbon.

I have a 24" imac, OSX 10.5.5, 2.4ghz with 4gig of ram, so I don't think RAM was the issue. I checked the istat monitor and there's always at least 2gig free. Word was the only app I have running, so too many apps open wasn't the it either.

Don't get me wrong, 2008 has great features, but it's useless to me if I can't even create a simple doc I need. Also, after converting to PDF (2pg, 5MB file), Preview also took forever to open the embedded pictures/graphics; printing was also an issue.

One last thing I did was saving as a 97-2004 format (1.3MB file), that opened up fine and printed without any problems. It seems theres difficulty wih the .docx format.

Can MS Office 2008 work on a OSX 10.5.5? And if there's any free fully activated one? Like seriously, it's going to be really expensive if I buy it from the Apple store here in my country, especially because there's only ONE!

08 works on 10.5.5. It is not free.

vpkb said:

I have a 24" imac, OSX 10.5.5, 2.4ghz with 4gig of ram, so I don't think RAM was the issue. I checked the istat monitor and there's always at least 2gig free. Word was the only app I have running, so too many apps open wasn't the it either.

Don't get me wrong, 2008 has great features, but it's useless to me if I can't even create a simple doc I need. Also, after converting to PDF (2pg, 5MB file), Preview also took forever to open the embedded pictures/graphics; printing was also an issue.

One last thing I did was saving as a 97-2004 format (1.3MB file), that opened up fine and printed without any problems. It seems theres difficulty wih the .docx format.

Click to expand...

I haven't really had any problems with Word 2008 but when I compare it to my Windows version from Office 2007, it's not the same. I much prefer Word 2007, too bad it has to be run from Windows.

One thing I might suggest: Instead of using the DOCX format, run Word in compatibility mode. In other words use the Office 97-2003,2004 compatibility DOC format instead. Try that and see if it relieves some of slowness and crashing. In any event, Word takes forever to convert and open large documents to PDF format. That occurs even with the Windows Office 2007 version.

Regards.

As chscag advises change the default document saving from .docx to .doc. Also have you updated to 12.1.2? There were a couple of very large updates for Office 2008.

I'm an update freak, so yes, got all the latest updates.

I will change the compatibility format to .doc. Will this limit any functionality?

Not at all, quite the opposite as your PC friends will be able top read .doc files sent as attachment whereas Windows is unable to read the .docx format.

harryb2448 said:

Not at all, quite the opposite as your PC friends will be able top read .doc files sent as attachment whereas Windows is unable to read the .docx format.

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Not sure what you mean. If they have Office 2007, they shouldn't have any problem opening a .docx file. If they have Office 2003, they can download a free plug-in from Microsoft that converts .docx files to .doc format.

i haven't had any trouble with office 2008 either, i think you should try reinstalling office

I heard that Windows is only honoring support for prior Office '07/'08 files for another two years. After that everyone will be forced to fork over the loot and pay to upgrade.

Wow I never knew I couldn't even use WORD

As I've mentioned many times I'm a total mac n00b....feel free to insult as often as you like

Anyway here's my problem:
How do you insert multiple images in a word document?
I stumbled across this way on the net:
"
I was able to do this by creating an Automator workflow.

1. Go to Spotlight and type "Automator" and Return to launch.
2. In Automator, create a Custom workflow by selecting the Custom icon.
3. Drag the following steps from the action list (at left)
to the workflow step pane (at right) in order:
(1) Get selected Finder objects
(2) Copy Finder items (objects).
(Select a folder to save to here as well.)
(3) Insert contents into Word document/file
(Select "at the beginning of a new page in a document" or
something similar.)
4. Save the workflow to a location you desire.
5. In Finder, select several photos.
6. In Word, open a new blank document, and switch to Print Layout view.
7. In Automator, run your workflow.
"
but I can't seem to find the third action.
I downloaded some office actions and made a catastrophic mess of my document. If ANYONE could help I'd be eternally greatful.

Thanks in adv

Dont take me for granted but, i have been writing i suppose you could call them my memoirs for later re production to a future blog. Im not a Word expert or anything but all i did to insert * images * or photos in my case was to drag said image to my desktop then just dragged them straight into the document i was working on. On one page i have 4 images on it. Im using the template with the binders on it but not sure if that makes a difference... As i said dont take my word on it. It might not be even what you mean or looking for

in other news my MS excel crashed 5 times in a row (mac "stability" I guess) as soon as I got the solver app
Then the night I had to hand in my project MS Word told me that I couldn't make my final save because there was "not enough space on the disk" and to please use an external drive

Word is made as messed up as it gets...no auto language and images are placed in "tight" by default

Excel is pretty crap too.....Bill Gates in all his fury

For a free Office suite try the following instead of MS Office:

OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite
http://www.neooffice.org/

pjhutch said:

For a free Office suite try the following instead of MS Office:

OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite
http://www.neooffice.org/

Click to expand...

thanks I will...before I do though....is there the equivalent of the solver app there? I'm doing my M.Sc in Coastal Eng and need to run a bunch of equations that solver would help greatly with. thanks in adv.