Office 2008 - What is it like?

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What are these VB Macros everybody keeps mentioning?
 

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Too bad they didn't add visual basic macros back. Its still not compatible with its own counterpart with excel or word macros that were encoded with the Windows Office VB macro set. I have lots of excel and word macro loaded workbooks and document forms from my job created with Office 2003 and 2007 for Windows and none of them work in Mac Office 2004 or 2008 which truly sucks. Thats the only reason I spent the money was to see if they would work at home where I wouldnt have to lug the office Windows laptop back and forth. The interface in excel and word is different. Not really better, just different. Functionality is basically the same as 2004 unless there is something hidden that I haven't found yet. I definitely will not be wasting my money on Office 2012 for Mac.


I agree. As an new convert to Macs, I wanted to be able to operate a simple ordering program that was created for me in Excel that has VB macros to allow me to save orders, print and load previous orders.

I am not a computer expert, so when it says it can be redone in applescript, I am stuffed.

Can anyone convert this for me?? Otherwise, I have just bought a piece of software that won't do what I bought it for and I will have to continue running it in windows, thereby making the purchase of this Macbook somewhat pointless so far!:(

Hope someone can help!

Gordon.
 
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Well VB is microsoft technology which I don't think will be coming to the mac just yet.

^^ Did you try the standard edition? It comes with a lot of Automator actions which are sort of replacements for macros. Applescript on the other hand is not at all difficult to learn, but given that most people don't have time to learn yet another language, it can be a bit annoying.
 
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Well I for one won't be redoing my macros, because my office has literally hundreds of VB macro encoded forms and data analysis tools that are for one thing, password-protected so I couldnt change them if I wanted to, plus and are updated and redistributed weekly. it really sucks that they didn't include that functionality because, hey they are Microsoft after all and this is a Microsoft product and Microsoft who just got my wasted $150. However, its ironic that although VB is a Microsoft product, Neo-office and Open Office do support those VB macros, I just like to use what it was written in instead of some other product.
 

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I just tested PowerPoint and it's compatible with the Apple remote!
 
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Entourage 2008 very unstable

I've been using Entourage for a few days now and so far it has crashed on me 4 or 5 times. I have it setup for IMAP with Gmail and I have several thousand emails dating back about 3 years. Entourage 2008 just isn't stable and when it crashed I get the dreaded Send Error Report to M$ message. I'm going to switch back to Mail which by the way has it's own issues and doesn't always notify me with an audible alert when new mail arrives. What is with these flaky OS-X apps? Makes me wonder if I made the right choice to switch from Windows..........
 
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I chose to buy Office when I got my MacBook because of compatibility reasons. I'm a college student and don't have the time or patience to be worrying about converting iWork documents to Office compatible documents. When I bought Office 2004, they had an offer to get Office 2008 for free. I only had to pay shipping and handling, but I haven't received it yet. Probably take a while for them to ship it.
 
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I've been using Entourage for a few days now and so far it has crashed on me 4 or 5 times. I have it setup for IMAP with Gmail and I have several thousand emails dating back about 3 years. Entourage 2008 just isn't stable and when it crashed I get the dreaded Send Error Report to M$ message. I'm going to switch back to Mail which by the way has it's own issues and doesn't always notify me with an audible alert when new mail arrives. What is with these flaky OS-X apps? Makes me wonder if I made the right choice to switch from Windows..........

You might want to check out Thunderbird. It's been rock stable on my machine since I installed it.
 
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You might want to check out Thunderbird. It's been rock stable on my machine since I installed it.

Thunderbird doesn't support IMAP which is why I don't use it. I've already switched back to Mail. At least it's stable and maybe Apple will fix it's other issues in the 10.5.2 update.
 
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I would hope Thunderbird supports IMAP, otherwise I have three accounts in Thunderbird that must have some pretty sick POP3 features ;P
 
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I would hope Thunderbird supports IMAP, otherwise I have three accounts in Thunderbird that must have some pretty sick POP3 features ;P

Well maybe I just overlooked the feature but when I installed it and setup my account there didn't appear to be an option for IMAP. I was only presented with POP3 and no way to change it that I could see.
 
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Well I assure you that IMAP works great in Thunderbird. Definitely give it another try.

Btw, the email account you're setting up, does it happen to be a free email service like Gmail?
 
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I personally prefer iWork over MS Office. I don't know why, I've tried them both and I just prefer iWork. iWork is not only faster but can do the same thing in a more simpler fashion

For example to put in a pie chart into a document, in pages you just click on chart and choose a pie chart, you can then edit the data via the data editor. However with MS Word '08, in order to edit the pie chart or the graph or whatever you need open up excel. thats just stupid!!!!

Basically iWork (pages and keynote especially, probably not numbers so much) has a nicer interface with more or less same features as in MS office '08 but they are presented in a simpler way. Typical Apple vs Microsoft.
 
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Well I assure you that IMAP works great in Thunderbird. Definitely give it another try.

Btw, the email account you're setting up, does it happen to be a free email service like Gmail?

It is Gmail and yes I have my Gmail settings configured properly. I've been using Mail and Entourage with Gmail IMAP for a long time now.
 
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Well I assure you that IMAP works great in Thunderbird. Definitely give it another try.

Btw, the email account you're setting up, does it happen to be a free email service like Gmail?

Ok, I stand corrected. I just re-installed it and after a few minutes of working with it I found the settings for IMAP. It does seem like a good email program, very snappy and responsive.
 
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Edit: Nevermind, looks like you got it ;P
 
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Which is better is really a matter of opinion.

But neither are that great if you don't have money. I vote NeoOffice ^_^

It's not opinion, it's fact. Pages is not as nearly full featured as word....period.

NeoOffice is complete, ugly, garbage IMHO. You can disagree with that. ;)
 
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I
Basically iWork (pages and keynote especially, probably not numbers so much) has a nicer interface with more or less same features as in MS office '08 but they are presented in a simpler way. Typical Apple vs Microsoft.

I disagree. First, iWork does not have equal features to Office. It has enough for the average home user, but it is far from equal.

Secondly, "simpler" is certainly opinion. I find Pages to be a nightmare to figure out compared to Word. Same with Numbers vs Excel. About the only app I'd give the nod to over its Office equivalent would be Keynote.
 
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Different people, different opinions. I just find pages easier to work with than Word. And this is not just coming from a macboy. I honestly feel that way. Maybe cause I'm very used to it. I just know that I never got good looking output from Word, the way I do with pages. The way you can drag and drop images, move them around, move text boxes, access iLife Media, it all just works for me.

You may just not be used to how to do those things in Word. I can create some very visually appealing documents in Word. I agree that Pages may be easier, but Word is just as capable if you know how to do it.

But aside from page layout design, I find Word to be much more powerful with regard to word processing. For example, I find iWork/Leopard's new grammar check to be utter junk.
 
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I disagree. First, iWork does not have equal features to Office. It has enough for the average home user, but it is far from equal.

Secondly, "simpler" is certainly opinion. I find Pages to be a nightmare to figure out compared to Word. Same with Numbers vs Excel. About the only app I'd give the nod to over its Office equivalent would be Keynote.

I don't understand what makes Office better then? I mean what features does office have that iWork doesn't?
 

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