Microsoft Word Equivalent For Mac

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Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac applications: Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
Developer(s)Microsoft
Initial releaseJanuary 15, 2008; 11 years ago
Stable release
Operating systemMac OS X 10.4.9 or later
TypeOffice suite
License
Websitewww.microsoft.com/mac/products/Office2008/default.mspx
System requirements[2]
CPUPowerPC G4 or G5
(500 MHz or faster)
or any Intel processor
Operating systemMac OS X10.4.9 or later
RAM512 MB
Free hard disk space1.5 GB
Optical driveDVD-ROM (for local installation)
NotesUnofficially runs on PowerPC G3 Macs (like the iMac G3 in Bondi Blue) and with less RAM

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is a version of the Microsoft Officeproductivity suite for Mac OS X. It supersedes Office 2004 for Mac (which did not have Intel native code) and is the Mac OS X equivalent of Office 2007. Office 2008 was developed by Microsoft's Macintosh Business Unit and released on January 15, 2008. Office 2008 was followed by Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 released on October 26, 2010, requiring a Mac with an Intel processor and Mac OS version 10.5 or better. Office 2008 is also the last version to feature Entourage, which was replaced by Outlook in Office 2011. Microsoft stopped supporting Office 2008 on April 9, 2013.

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Release[edit]

Office 2008 was originally slated for release in the second half of 2007; however, it was delayed until January 2008, purportedly to allow time to fix lingering bugs.[3] Office 2008 is the only 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.[4]

Features[edit]

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.[5]

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.[6]

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Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications is not supported in this version.[7] As a result, such Excel add-ins dependent on VBA, such as Solver, have not been bundled in the current release.[8] In June 2008, Microsoft announced that it is exploring the idea of bringing some of the functionality of Solver back to Excel.[9] In late August 2008, Microsoft announced that a new Solver for Excel 2008 was available as a free download from Frontline Systems, original developers of the Excel Solver.[10][11] However, Excel 2008 also lacks other functionality, such as Pivot Chart functionality, which has long been a feature in the Windows version. In May 2008, Microsoft announced that VBA will be making a return in the next version of Microsoft Office for Mac.[12]AppleScript and the Open Scripting Architecture will still be supported.

Limitations[edit]

Error message in Microsoft Excel showing features that are not supported

Office 2008 for Mac lacks 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.[13] Other unsupported features include: OMML equations generated in Word 2007 for Windows,[14] Office 'Ribbon', Mini Toolbar, Live Preview, and an extensive list of features are unsupported such as equivalent SharePoint integration with the Windows version. Some features are missing on Excel 2008 for Mac, including: data filters (Data Bars, Top 10, Color-based, Icon-based), structured references, Excel tables, Table styles, a sort feature allowing more than three columns at once and 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.[15]

A using a program to remove application support files in unwanted languages), and which do not affect Office's operations, but which cause the updaters' installers to believe that the application is not valid for update. A small modification to the installer has been found an effective work-around (see reference).[18]

Microsoft

Another widespread problem 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 problem 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 are simply very old, or because some applications assign the older Type code when saving them to the disk. Users have seen the problem affect even relatively new Type codes, however, such as 'W6BN'. Microsoft is apparently looking into the problem, but it is unclear if they will reinstate the older Type codes, citing security concerns.[19]

Another problem with cross-platform compatibility is that images inserted into any Office application by using either cut and paste or drag and drop result in a file that does not display the inserted graphic when viewed on a Windows machine. Instead, the Windows user is told 'QuickTime and a TIFF (LZW) decompressor are needed to see this picture'. A user presented one solution as far back as December 2004.[20]

A further example of the lack of feature parity is the track changes function. Whereas users of Word 2003 or 2007 for Windows are able to choose freely between showing their changes in-line or as balloons in the right-hand margin,[21][22] choosing the former option in Word 2004 or Word 2008 for Mac OS also turns off all comment balloons; comments in this case are visible only in the Reviewing Pane or as popup boxes (i.e. upon mouseover).[23] This issue has not been resolved to date and is present in the latest version of Word for the Mac, namely Word 2011.[24]

The toolbox found in Office 2008 also has problems when the OS X feature Spaces is used: switching from one Space to another will cause elements of the Toolbox to get trapped on one Space until the Toolbox is closed and reopened. The only remedy for this problem is to currently disable Spaces, or at least refrain from using it whilst working in Office 2008.[25] Microsoft has acknowledged this problem and states that it is an architectural problem with the implementation of Spaces. Apple has been informed of the problem, according to Microsoft.[26] The problem appears to be caused by the fact that the Toolbox is Carbon-based.[citation needed] Using Microsoft Office with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard solves some of the problems.[26]

In addition, there is no support for right to left and bidirectional languages (such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, etc.) in Office 2008,[27][28] making it impossible to read or edit a right to left document in Word 2008 or PowerPoint 2008. Languages such as Thai are similarly not supported, although installing fonts can sometimes allow documents written in these languages to be displayed.

Moreover, Office 2008 proofing tools support only a limited number of languages (Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Swiss German).[29] Proofing tools for other languages failed to find their way to the installation pack, and are not offered by Microsoft commercially in the form of separately sold language packs. At the same time, Office applications are not integrated with the proofing tools native to Mac OS X 10.6 Leopard.

Microsoft Visio is not available for OS X. This means that any embedded Visio diagrams in other Office documents (e.g. Word) cannot be edited in Office on the Mac. Java update for mac os x 10.8. Embedded Visio diagrams appear as a low-quality bitmap both in the WYSIWYG editor and upon printing the document on the Mac.

Editions[edit]

Comparison of different editions of Office 2008 for Mac
Applications and servicesHome & StudentStandardBusiness EditionSpecial Media Edition
WordYesYesYesYes
PowerPointYesYesYesYes
ExcelYesYesYesYes
EntourageYesYesYesYes
Exchange Server supportNoYesYesYes
Automator ActionsNoYesYesYes
Office Live and SharePoint supportNoNoYesNo
Expression MediaNoNoNoYes

See also[edit]

References[edit]

Download Microsoft Word For Mac

  1. ^'Microsoft Support Lifecycle - Office 2008'. Microsoft. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
  2. ^'Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Specs'. CNET. January 15, 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2017.
  3. ^'It's Coming: Mac BU Announces Intent to Deliver Office 2008 for Mac'. Microsoft. January 9, 2007. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007.
  4. ^'Microsoft Office 2008 for the Mac delayed until January 2008'. TUAW. August 2, 2007.
  5. ^'Microsoft starts testing Office 2008 for Mac'. Cnet. April 2, 2007. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved September 19, 2007.
  6. ^'MS Office Mac Discussion Board'. January 15, 2008.
  7. ^'Saying goodbye to Visual Basic'. August 8, 2006.
  8. ^'MS Office Mac Discussion Board'. January 15, 2008.
  9. ^'Excel 2008 and Solver'. June 26, 2008.
  10. ^'Solver For Excel 2008 Is Available'. August 29, 2008.
  11. ^'Solver is Back for Microsoft Excel 2008 on Macintosh'. August 29, 2008.
  12. ^'Microsoft Office Update, and Visual Basic for Applications to Return - Mac Rumors'. May 13, 2008.
  13. ^'MS Mactopia Blog'. March 13, 2008.
  14. ^Known issues in Word 2008 – Equations saved from Word 2007 for Windows do not appear in Word 2008 for Mac
  15. ^'MS Mactopia Blog'. March 13, 2008.
  16. ^'CambridgeSoft Website'.
  17. ^New installer for 12.0.1 (The Entourage Help Blog)
  18. ^MacFixit article: More Fixes for Problems InstallingArchived January 26, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^http://www.microsoft.com/mac/help.mspx?target=0b9aa757-50ab-443b-8b0e-3a50ece1d5451033&clr=99-4-0
  20. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on June 26, 2008. Retrieved June 30, 2008.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  21. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on July 2, 2009. Retrieved July 9, 2009.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  22. ^'IT training – IT training – IT Services – Administrative and academic support divisions – Services and divisions – Staff and students – Home'. Ittraining.lse.ac.uk. May 7, 2010. Archived from the original on February 27, 2009. Retrieved May 30, 2010.
  23. ^[1][dead link]
  24. ^http://officeformac.com/ms/ProductForums/Word/11634/0
  25. ^Bugs & Fixes: Office 2008 and Leopard’s Spaces don’t mix, Macworld, December 8, 2008
  26. ^ abOffice 2008 for Mac and Mac OS X Spaces, Microsoft
  27. ^Help and How-To for Microsoft for Mac Office Products | Mactopia
  28. ^Higgaion » It’s official: no RTL support in Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
  29. ^Proofing tools that are available for each language

External links[edit]

What Is The Microsoft Word Equivalent For Mac

  • MacBU interview: Office 2008 Exchange Server support[permanent dead link]
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Microsoft_Office_2008_for_Mac&oldid=917961707'

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Microsoft Office is one of the most frequently used application suites across the globe. It has been a business staple for decades and is also frequently used in homes and schools. Many Windows users who consider switching to the Mac often cite the need for Office among their biggest hesitations or concerns about making the switch.

While a Mac version of Office has been around as long as Office itself, it’s a costly prospect for many consumers, and the Mac version often lags behind the release cycle of the Windows version. Add to that the fact that an Intel-native version of Office has yet to be released, and it becomes clear why alternative products are something worth exploring for any Mac user—especially when there are some great alternatives available.

iWork

One of the first alternatives that spring to mind for many people is Apple’s iWork, perhaps because a trial version is included with every Mac (along with a demo version of Microsoft Office). iWork consists of a word processing tool called Pages and a presentation tool called Keynote (Apple is rumored to be developing a spreadsheet tool to be included with the next release of iWork).

While Pages can technically be called a word processing application, it’s actually a combination word processor and layout tool. For consumers and small organizations, it can function as both an alternative to Word and as a low-cost alternative to the basic features of InDesign or Quark.

Pages, which features an interface that’s similar to iWeb’s interface, lets users easily add pictures via the iLife Media Browser, develop charts, create pages of text or text boxes, insert tables and columns, and make use of a variety of formatting tools. Like iWeb, it features an Inspector palette that can be used to apply all manner of effects to included text, shapes, charts, tables, and images—making it easy to create visually stunning documents quickly and easily.

Pages supports importing from and exporting to Word format, although it cannot directly open or save Word documents. Imported documents do maintain Word formatting and styles and if a document is created from a Word template, all style information will be retained. Pages does have a user interface that is a complete departure from that of any office suite. Combined with the fact that it works much like a layout tool, this can make transitioning between Pages and Word a bit of a challenge. Also, it doesn’t offer support for many of Word’s advanced features.

Keynote is, in some ways, more impressive than PowerPoint. It offers a wide variety of templates and transitions that are visually stunning. Like Pages, it offers access to photos and other digital media via the iLife Media Browser and offers a wide range of effects that can be easily rendered to any slide elements. Keynote’s user interface includes many elements similar to iWeb and Pages (including the Inspector). However, its interface remains more standard than that of Pages. Unfortunately, while Keynote is an amazing tool, it offers no compatibility with PowerPoint or other Office file formats—meaning that to play a presentation requires Keynote (although presentations can be exported as QuickTime video files).

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