MS Office for Mac 2011 - Feedback

Ian (WA)

Ian (WA)

Evening All,

Have searched forum for any previous discussion but drew a blank. I'm after feedback from Mac users on this 2011 release of MS Office for Mac suite.

I'm torn between running Apples' i-Work or trying the Microsoft package. I am aware the previous versions of this software had very poor reviews and indeed the new version is causing headaches for people trying to drive it from Snow Leopard instead of Lion.

I have read many reviews over the last three days and i'm not filled with confidence with the MS product. :confused:

Your input please.

Cheers,

Ian.
 
Ok, I'll throw down....

I have an iMac, Macbook Pro, and Macbook 13in all running on Snow Leopard....

I'm running MS-Office 2011 & iWork on all 3 machines.

Issues to date: None. No stability issues, no functionality issues... nada.

Frequency of use: Daily.

Main applications used: Excel & Word.

Reason for use: Professional & home use.


Now for iWork.... I have this on all my machines and use it for some professional related stuff because it is a common file type of thing & they use Macs. I prefer the more powerful Excel over Numbers and to be honest, Word is every bit as useful as Pages. I do however, much prefer Keynote over Powerpoint due to slick transitions and ease of complex builds to better articulate complex concepts. Powerpoint is terrible at this.

Final thoughts: although I truly embrace Mac computing, the rest of the world hasn't. The reality is that MSOffice is an essential requirement for most people due to large scale corporate use & time consuming formatting when switching back & forth between competing applications. Microsoft has also created a better overall product for business related use with MSOffice.

I even Beta tested MSOffice 2011 before release. There were numerous bugs & stability issues early on, but the final release has proven to be very stable.
 
Thanks for the reply Indifference; it's a worry that a number (13 I think) of the feedback posts I read on the Apple website have really rubbished the MS product and only four or so applaud it.

I'm thinking i'll have to give MS a go and see for myself.

Purchasing an i-Mac & Macbook Pro and just wanted to be sure about the products to load onto them.

Cheers,

Ian.
 
Mate get Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac. It doesn't yet fully support some of the new OS X Lion features like fullscreen support however it runs fine and the latest 2011 version is really a good suite.

I am a HUGE Apple Person and own pretty much one of everything they have released over the past few years and love the products. iwork is pretty much the only product of theirs I own and am not fond of. Microsoft is so far ahead with these office suites it isn't even close.

I write that I have so many apple products partly to gloat (I stand behind almost everything apple and am very happy with the above purchases) but also to say that even as someone who loves Apple as much as I do, I regret buying iwork.

Pages is useless for word processing as even though Apple have tried and succeeded in some areas with making it compatible with Microsoft Word files there are still frequent hiccups particularly when there are backgrounds involved on MS Word documents and this makes it useless when 99% of people use Microsoft Office. Pretty much Pages will only ever be useful if you are typing something to print straight away, not to share with others in my opinion.

Numbers is just a mess, I won't even bother explaining that one. Keynote is a good program if you often do slideshows but many people are content with Powerpoint. I've heard Keynote is better if you scratch the surface than Powerpoint but in my experience Powerpoint has always served me just fine when I've needed it.

I believe many apple fans will complain about Microsoft products in particular purely because they want to feel superior for spending more money. For me, I don't need to justify my purchase because I truly believe in the Mac = BMW, Windows = Toyota analogy, if others dont and are content purchasing Dell or whatever for half the price then good for them. For this reason I wont ever lie and say a product is bad just because I prefer Apple. For every piece of absolute rubbish from Microsoft like Internet Explorer, Zune, Windows ME, Windows Vista, Microsoft BOB which taint its image, you end up with a few great ones like Windows 7, Xbox and the new Windows Phones. I believe Office for Mac 2011 falls into this list of very good Microsoft programs. Problem is, due to all the crap they release, a lot of people who have converted to the alternatives don't bother ever giving Microsoft products the time of day again.

Edit: By the way none of this is intended to go against the other poster who answered your question. Just my opinion.
 
Last edited:
Hi BJ87,

Thanks for the detailed response. I had some further discussion with apple store staff yesterday and I have decided to go with the MS product.

I thought about picking up Parallels as well, so I can run Quickbooks, but in the end I decided i'll just keep running QB on existing Sony Vaio but do everything else on the Macs.

Can't wait to get hold of our new Macs now.

Thanks again!

Cheers,

Ian.
 
Ian (WA) said:
Hi BJ87,

Thanks for the detailed response. I had some further discussion with apple store staff yesterday and I have decided to go with the MS product.

I thought about picking up Parallels as well, so I can run Quickbooks, but in the end I decided i'll just keep running QB on existing Sony Vaio but do everything else on the Macs.

Can't wait to get hold of our new Macs now.

Thanks again!

Cheers,

Ian.
Click to expand...
No Worries, anytime.

Apple do make a fantastic product in the Mac, so I'm sure you'll be very happy with your purchase.
 
Belbo said:
Reading this thread I think my brain just melted: Who's O/S, and why did I care? Ouch!!!
Click to expand...
OS = Operating System. Windows is an operating system, so is Linux and so is Apple's aptly named "OS X". Apple have named their latest Operating System OS X to symbolise the 10th version of their operating system in roman numeral.

Further to this, Instead of naming the minor updates to their operating systems simply OS X 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 etc, apple names them after large cats which is where the name Lion etc comes from (The current iteration). The previous iteration was Snow Leopard.

It's all nerd talk and when it comes to Apple I am a huge nerd. People who are content with Windows would have no need to follow the way Apple does things. One you use the systems though, it becomes much easier to follow.
 
billiejoe87 said:
OS = Operating System. Windows is an operating system, so is Linux and so is Apple's aptly named "OS X". Apple have named their latest Operating System OS X to symbolise the 10th version of their operating system in roman numeral.

Further to this, Instead of naming the minor updates to their operating systems simply OS X 10.1, 10.2, 10.3 etc, apple names them after large cats which is where the name Lion etc comes from (The current iteration). The previous iteration was Snow Leopard.

It's all nerd talk and when it comes to Apple I am a huge nerd. People who are content with Windows would have no need to follow the way Apple does things. One you use the systems though, it becomes much easier to follow.
Click to expand...

Thank you for that. I now feel like slamming my head in a car door.

O.S. That's better.
 
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