Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
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 Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Entourage; plus Word Publishing Layout and Word Notebook Layout views) running on Mac OS X v10.5 |
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| Developed by | Microsoft |
| Latest release | 2008 (v12.1.0) / 13 May 2008 |
| OS | Mac OS X |
| Genre | Office suite |
| License | Proprietary EULA |
| Website | Office 2008 for Mac |
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is the most recent version of the Microsoft Office productivity suite for Mac OS X. It supersedes Office 2004 for Mac and is the Macintosh equivalent of Office 2007, the latest version for Windows. It was developed by Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit and released on January 15, 2008.
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[edit] Overview
Office 2008 for Mac was originally slated for release in the second half of 2007, however it was delayed until January 2008, citing the need to fix lingering bugs.[1] Office 2008 is the first version of Office for Mac supplied as a Universal Binary.
Unlike Office 2007 for Windows, Office 2008 was not offered as a public beta before its scheduled release date.[2]
[edit] Features
Office 2008 for Mac includes the same core programs currently included with Office 2004 for Mac: Entourage, Excel, PowerPoint and Word.
Mac-only features included are a publishing layout view, which offers functionality similar to Microsoft Publisher for Windows, a "Ledger Sheet mode" in Excel to ease financial tasks, and a "My Day" application offering a quick way to view the day's events.[3]
Office 2008 supports the new Office Open XML format, and defaults to saving all files in this format. On February 21, 2008 Geoff Price revealed that the format conversion update for Office 2004 would be delayed until June 2008 in order to provide the first update to Office 2008.[4]
Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications is not supported in this version.[5] As a result such Excel add-ins as solver, which are dependent on VBA, were not bundled in this latest release. [6] Excel in Office 2008 for the Mac also still lacks Pivot Chart functionality, which has long been a feature in the Windows version. Microsoft has announced that VBA will be making a return in the next version of Microsoft Office for Mac[7]. AppleScript and the Open Scripting Architecture is, however, supported.
[edit] Criticism
Office 2008 has been criticized[who?] for the lack of feature parity with the Windows version. The lack of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) support in Excel makes it impossible to use macros programmed in VBA. Microsoft's response is that adding VBA support in Xcode would have resulted in an additional two years added to the development cycle of Office 2008. [8] Other features unsupported include: OMML equations generated in Word 2007 for Windows [9], and an extensive list of features are unsupported on Excel 2008 for Mac, including: data filters (Data Bars, Top 10, Color-based, Icon-based), structured references, Excel tables, Table styles, more than one filter on a sort.
Benchmarks suggest that the original release of Office 2008 runs slower on Macs with PowerPC processors, and does not provide a significant speed bump for Macs with Intel processors.[10]
A data-compatibility issue has also been noted with CambridgeSoft's chemical structure drawing program, ChemDraw. Word 2008 does not retain the structural information when a chemical structure is copied from ChemDraw and pasted into a document. If a structure is recopied from a Word 2008 document, and is pasted back into ChemDraw, it appears as a non-editable image rather than a recognized chemical structure. There is no such problem in Word 2004 or X.[11]
On May 13, 2008, Microsoft released Office 2008 Service Pack 1 as a free update. However, there have been many reports of the updater failing to install, resulting in a message saying that an updatable version of Office 2008 was not found.[12]
Another widespread issue reported after SP1 is that Office files will no longer open in Office applications when opened (double-clicked) from the Mac OS X Finder or launched from other applications such as an email attachment. The trigger for this issue is that Microsoft in SP1 unilaterally and without warning deprecated certain older Mac OS 'Type' codes such as "WDBN" that some files may have, either because they're simply very old, or because some applications assign the older Type code when saving them to the disk. Users have seen the issue affect even relatively new Type codes, however, such as 'W6BN'. Microsoft is apparently looking into the issue, but it is unclear if they will reinstate the older Type codes, citing security concerns.[1]
[edit] Editions
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is available in three editions. All three editions include Entourage, Excel, PowerPoint and Word.
- Office 2008 for Mac Home and Student Edition (without Exchange Server support or Automator Actions)
- Office 2008 for Mac Standard Edition (adds Microsoft Exchange support)
- Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition (Microsoft Exchange support and Expression Media)
[edit] History
- See also: Microsoft Office
Office 2008 for Mac is the latest in a long line of versions of Microsoft Office on the Mac OS platform. In fact, Office made its first appearance in 1989 on Mac, with a version for Windows following it in 1990.[13]
[edit] Version history
| Package Name | Applications and comments | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| Office 1 | Word 3, etc. | 1990 |
| Office 2 | Word 4, etc. | 1992 |
| Office 3 | Word 5, Excel 4, PowerPoint 3, etc. | 1993 |
| Office 4.2 | Word 6, Excel 5, PowerPoint 4, etc. | 1994 |
| Office 4.2.1 | Word 6, Excel 5, PowerPoint 4, etc. (first release designed for the PPC, final release for 68K) | 1994 |
| Office 98 (version 8) | Word/Excel/PowerPoint 98 | March 15, 1998 |
| Office 2001 (version 9) | Word/Excel/PowerPoint and Entourage 2001 (final release for Mac OS 9, latest update 9.0.6) | October 11, 2000 |
| Office (version X) | Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Entourage X (first release for Mac OS X, latest update 10.1.9) | November 19, 2001 |
| Office 2004 (version 11) | Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Entourage 2004 (latest update 11.4.2) | May 11, 2004 |
| Office 2008 (version 12) | Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Entourage 2008 (the first release that runs natively on both PPC and Intel without the use of the Rosetta emulation layer, latest update 12.1.0) | January 15, 2008 |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ It's Coming: Mac BU Announces Intent to Deliver Office 2008 for Mac. Microsoft (9 January 2007).
- ^ Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac delayed until January 2008. TUAW (August 2, 2007).
- ^ Microsoft starts testing Office 2008 for Mac. Cnet (02 April 2007).
- ^ MS Office Mac Discussion Board (2008-01-15).
- ^ Saying goodbye to Visual Basic (2006-08-08).
- ^ MS Office Mac Discussion Board (2008-01-15).
- ^ Microsoft Office Update, and Visual Basic for Applications to Return - Mac Rumors (2008-05-13).
- ^ MS Mactopia Blog (2008-03-13).
- ^ Known issues in Word 2008 – Equations saved from Word 2007 for Windows do not appear in Word 2008 for Mac
- ^ MS Mactopia Blog (2008-03-13).
- ^ CambridgeSoft Website.
- ^ New installer for 12.0.1 (The Entourage Help Blog)
- ^ The History of Computing Project. Microsoft Company (2006-10-26). Retrieved on 2006-11-09.
[edit] External links
- Microsoft Office for Mac 2008
- MacBU interview: Office 2008 Exchange Server support
- Office 2008: lush "Escher" graphics engine
- First look: Office 2008
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