25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - The Macintosh Business Unit (Mac BU) at Microsoft Corp. Today announced at the Apple Expo in Paris its product lineup for the upcoming Microsoft(R) Office 2008 for Mac release. The flagship product, Office 2008 for Mac, is the core suite that includes Microsoft Office Word 2008, Microsoft Office Excel(R) 2008, Microsoft Office PowerPoint(R) 2008 and Microsoft Office Entourage(R) 2008 for exceptional productivity on the Mac. A new combination for Mac users is Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition, which features the Office 2008 applications together with the Microsoft Expression(R) Media digital asset management system.
Office 2008 offers a bunch of improvements over Microsoft's last Mac office suite. But some new features are confounding. Kirk McElhearn is here, with answers to the most common Office 2008 questions. Automator Actions for Workflows in Microsoft Office enables you to automate Office 2008 with more than 70 pre-defined actions built to simplify your work and extend your productivity. (Available in Office 2008 for Mac and Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition.) Entourage 2008, the hub of Office 2008, helps it to happen, one task at a time. 'We developed Office 2008 for Mac as a comprehensive productivity suite that also helps people simplify their work.
Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition is geared toward professional users who need Microsoft Exchange Server support and Automator tools and are looking for one product to meet their productivity and digital asset management needs. Completing the product lineup is Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition, a specially priced version for users with basic productivity needs. (Logo: ) All versions of Office 2008 for Mac support the new Open XML file format and are Universal applications that will perform natively on Power PC- and Intel-based Macs. Each version will be available in Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Swedish, and, for the first time, in the Nordic languages (Danish, Finnish and Norwegian).
'We built Office 2008 with the unifying goal of making it easier for Mac users to access the tools they need to get the job done - whether it's creating a brochure for their business, managing their family schedule and finances, or finalizing a presentation to share between Macs and PCs,' said Craig Eisler, general manager of the Mac BU at Microsoft. 'And, of course, Office 2008 for Mac will provide the document fidelity with the 2007 Microsoft Office system that our users need to stay connected with their friends and co-workers on PCs.' Delivering the Industry Standard Office 2008 for Mac features a leading suite of applications that Mac customers rely on to get their work completed with Word 2008, Excel 2008, PowerPoint 2008, Entourage 2008 and Microsoft Messenger for Mac. Mac users can simplify their day by using powerful new tools and easily located classic Office for Mac features. As showcased at Macworld Expo 2007, Office 2008 for Mac is designed to help users get more from their Macs by making key functions accessible through a more intuitive design and by introducing smart features such as Ledger Sheets in Excel 2008, My Day with Entourage 2008, Publishing Layout View in Word 2008 and SmartArt graphics in PowerPoint 2008 that are simple to use and yield powerful results.
Entourage 2008 also features improved Windows(R) Exchange Server support, with enhanced reliability and functionality. 'We've worked closely with Microsoft since it launched the first version of Office for Mac more than 20 years ago,' said Ron Okamoto, vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations at Apple. 'Office delivers tremendous compatibility across platforms for Mac and PC customers, and we look forward to another great user experience with Office 2008 for Mac.' A Suite to Meet Every Need The Mac BU will offer two versions in addition to Office 2008 for Mac that meet distinct user needs: - Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition features the complete Office 2008 for Mac productivity suite specially packaged with a full version of Microsoft Expression Media for Mac to empower the media-savvy Mac user with smart digital asset management tools. Expression Media is a powerful and customizable image management software application for importing, annotating, organizing, archiving, searching and distributing users' ever-growing collections of digital files. Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition provides the basics of Office 2008 for Mac for home and school users.
This version includes three user licenses for use by consumers and students but does not include connectivity to Microsoft Exchange Server or support for automated workflows. Pricing, Availability and Technology Guarantee Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac will be available in the United States beginning Jan.
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The Good Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 offers good looks that encompass deeper features than other Mac productivity software; business users get full Word mail merge, robust Excel spreadsheets, and better tools in Entourage; amateur desktop publishing features more polished documents; runs on Intel-based Macs. The Bad Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 is pricey; saves work in new file formats by default; Excel drops Visual Basic support; features don't match the depth of those in Office 2007 for Windows.
The Bottom Line Office for Mac 2008 may be the best pick for business users, but most people can get by with less costly alternatives. After a, Microsoft plans to release Office for Mac 2008 to brick-and-mortar and online stores on January 15, making this the first update in nearly four years.
Office for Mac includes Word, Excel for spreadsheets, PowerPoint for presentations and Entourage for e-mail and time management. There's no Microsoft Access database application for the Mac, although Filemaker's upcoming release of offers Mac users a new choice. Unlike, the interface changes don't look radically foreign next to the 2004 edition. That's good news for anyone who doesn't want to relearn the locations of common functions. The 2007 applications for Windows arrange functions within tabs, while the 2008 Mac software largely clusters functions within the same drop-down menus including File, Edit, and View. By and large, most of the changes focus on attempting to help users craft more attractive documents.
For instance, Office for Mac features the same templates and Smart Art graphics as the Windows counterparts. These are premade templates with 3D and translucent designs. There are more welcome and substantial changes as well. Now you can save to PDF, and Automator actions are supported. The new My Day widget for Entourage floats on the Mac desktop displaying calendar items and to-do lists. This is handy if you rely on Entourage but don't want to run it all the time.
Office 2007 for Windows clusters functions within a contextual 'Ribbon' toolbar that displays different options. Office for Mac lacks the Ribbon, but some menu items appear only in step with the task at hand.
We found the shape-shifting neither terribly distracting nor useful. For simple tweaks such as changing fonts, you'll need to consult floating formatting boxes. Being accustomed to Office for Windows, we'd rather find all these options at the top of the screen.
Office for Mac saves work in the same, new Open XML formats used by Office 2007 for Windows. We're not thrilled about this being the default option, even though you can save your work in the older DOC, XLS and PPT formats. Won't be available until as long as 10 weeks from now, or 8 weeks after the applications are available in stores. That means for now, should you save work in a new OOXML format in a hurry, someone with the older software won't be able to open it. Although we're glad that Microsoft offers free converters, we find the forced extra steps annoying in Office 2007.
That said, the new document types are smaller and purportedly more secure than their predecessors. You'll need a Mac with 1.5GB free on the hard drive, running at least OS 10.4.9, with 512MB of RAM and a 500MHz Intel or PowerPC processor. Installation took about 20 minutes on our MacBook running the. The least expensive option is the $150 Home and Student edition (formerly Student and Teacher), which lacks support for Exchange and Automator.
At $400 or $240 to upgrade, the full Office for Mac that we reviewed feels pricey, even though it includes Exchange support. The $500 Special Media Edition handles Exchange and adds media-management software. Fortunately, those who have recently purchased Office for Mac 2004 can for free.
Simplify Your Work: Office 2008 For Mac Mac
Still, the fees feel hefty next to the $80. Indeed, seem like a bargain, even though they offer fewer tools.
Simplify Your Work: Office 2008 For Mac Torrent
Mac users can choose from iWork '08, the free OpenOffice 2, or tools with free online components including ThinkFree, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, and Zoho Office. These are all dandy for composing and editing text documents, juggling spreadsheets, and creating slide-show presentations.
Word Although the look and feel are refreshed, Word isn't drastically different from its predecessor. Its changes should mostly please those creating documents they want to show off. We really like Publishing Layout View's elementary desktop publishing tools.
Document Elements building blocks make swift work of adding cover pages, tables of contents, and the like. OpenType ligature support improves the appearance of fonts in Word. Those in academia should appreciate new reference tools, although there are only four citation styles. Users who wrangle with form letters will find that Mail Merge has become more intuitive, with step-by-step instructions. Bloggers don't get a custom layout in Word as with Office 2007, but that's not a big loss given Microsoft's lack of support for the latest Web coding standards.
Perhaps the biggest selling point for the new Word is the ease with which it can make documents easy on the eyes. Excel As well as making charts easier on the eyes, Excel for Mac 2008 adds tools for stepping through complex formulas. Formula Builder walks you through building calculations, keeping recently used ones at the top of its memory. As you type in the Formula bar, Excel will autofill values that may match. Excel has expanded and can now handle a total of 17.18 billion cells, as many as its Windows cousin. The Elements Gallery offers Ledger Sheets, templates for commonly used tasks such as juggling a household budget or managing company payroll. We find these handy for getting started with a project.
However, we prefer the elegant layouts, outside-the-grid setup, and print preview tools within Apple's Numbers for light users of spreadsheets.