Office 2008 for Mac...

[daviejones]

Used Office 2008 since it came out and not had a single issue with it. Never had it hang, or error etc.

Sounds like PICNIC to me...

[bogeyman]

Originally Posted by daviejones

Used Office 2008 since it came out and not had a single issue with it. Never had it hang, or error etc.

Sounds like PICNIC to me...

Well lucky you! Perhaps you're not using the same features I am.

[Spacecadet]

Originally Posted by bogeyman

Well lucky you! Perhaps you're not using the same features I am.

I've used it a fair bit with XP (not on an apple)

Most of it is fine once you get around the new menus

Access on the other hand (some people still insist on using it and then sending db files to me for help) is a pile of tosh and crashes more times than it doesn't

[expat]

I thought a Mac "just works"? You mean it just works except when it doesn't, like with the single most pervasive application on the planet?

[Spacecadet]

Originally Posted by expat

I thought a Mac "just works"? You mean it just works except when it doesn't, like with the single most pervasive application on the planet?

A couple of weeks ago I was at the pub with a few friends, one of whom is a keen apple mac user and promotes them as being "the best" whenever he can.

This time however a friend of his had turned up, another mac user.
Great, now I'll be getting it in stereo.

In the end, they spent most of the night talking to each other about apple stuff that doesn't work... including one interesting tale about an errant mouse being thrown against the wall so hard it ended up in bits and was left there for a week as a warning to it replacement

[daviejones]

Originally Posted by bogeyman

Well lucky you! Perhaps you're not using the same features I am.

Possibly, or it could be user error?

[bogeyman]

Originally Posted by daviejones

Possibly, or it could be user error?

Google for Office 2008 Mac hang crash or whatever.

If you only use it to write letters to your mum or spreadsheets of what you want from Santa then I'm sure it's fine.

When you get all sorts of documents from clients created with God-knows-what version of MS Office then its shortcomings will soon become apparent.

I'm also still on Tiger 10.4.11 so don't know if upgrading to 'Leper' will help.

[daviejones]

Originally Posted by bogeyman

Google for Office 2008 Mac hang crash or whatever.

If you only use it to write letters to your mum or spreadsheets of what you want from Santa then I'm sure it's fine.

When you get all sorts of documents from clients created with God-knows-what version of MS Office then its shortcomings will soon become apparent.

I'm also still on Tiger 10.4.11 so don't know if upgrading to 'Leper' will help.

I use it for graphs etc based on stats given to me by client. I do all my Xmas
lists for Santa in Word...

I also do it for all my expenses etc.

Like I say, not had an issue....I am not saying I won't, just haven't yet...

[ratewhore]

Originally Posted by expat

I thought a Mac "just works"? You mean it just works except when it doesn't, like with the single most pervasive application on the planet?

In my experience, it is the MS Office Suite which is responsible for 99% of the times my powerbook has hung.

The other 1% being crap websites...

[NickFitz]

Originally Posted by expat

I thought a Mac "just works"? You mean it just works except when it doesn't, like with the single most pervasive application on the planet?

The Mac works. The software Microsoft produce for the Mac doesn't.

It's a shame - MS's Macintosh Business Unit used to be renowned for writing some of the best Mac software going. Unfortunately MS seem to have cut back on their investment at around the time OS X came out, and now they can't write Mac software to save their lives.

Even when Office for Mac manages to function correctly, the usability aspects are crippled by the interaction design being copied from the Windows version, and therefore not working like any other Mac application on the planet. In addition it usually attempts to replicate functionality that is already part of the operating system, yet does so in a way that doesn't integrate with the system in any useful way.

I gave up on Office ages ago, as my need for such applications is virtually non-existent. If I need to run it, I just do so in a Windows VM under Parallels.

Remember the good old days when IE for Mac (which shared zero lines of code with the Windows version) was the best browser on any platform, full stop? Of course that's not been true for a number of years, as MS stopped developing it when Safari came along, but the forthcoming IE 8 for Windows will only just about manage to get to the level of standards compliance that IE/Mac boasted eight years ago.

Oddly enough, an extremely obscure CSS comment-parsing bug from IE/Mac reared it's head in the early beta of IE 8 - I strongly suspect that the new rendering engine is actually based in part on a port of the old Mac code. (It can't be the same coder repeating his mistakes, as he doesn't work at MS anymore.)