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Word Processing, Spreadsheet, Presentation software - 'Office Suites'
- Details
- Category: Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
- Published Date
- Written by angusf
- Hits: 322
Original Office Suite Contents
- Word Processor
- Spreadsheet
- Presentation Graphics
Often bolted on additional premium content in the early suites
- Database
- Communications program
- Email Client
- Calendaring or personal information management
- To do list or Notepad
Mature office suite additional applications
- Picture Manager / editor
- Collaboration
- Web Site editing
Misfit Office suites for the Internet era
One problem Office Suites have for me is that they are largely based upon software originally designed for printing items out on paper. Printing things out is so very yesterday. I hardly ever print anything out anymore but I generate content in a 'final form' such as PDF files or HTML web pages, and I find that yesterdays Office Suites are not really all that great at doing that.Heres my jarring list of office foibles
- Paper formatting. Im not printing it on paper so why do I care
- Moving things from word procesor to presentation and back isnt identical
- I'll never understand sub-totaling in spreadsheets
- I dont like commands changing. I know how to insert a date until it moves and I cant find it
Office 2.0
Online office suites are all the rage, but they have to be online so I just wonder how they work when you can't get online. fashionable they may be, and useful, but not useful everywhere, like on a train.Which Mac OS X Leopard Office Suite?
Microsoft Office 2008
You dont have to run Microsoft Office on Mac OS X Leopard, but it remains a good choice for lots of reasons. Office 2008 us the first 'universal' release from Microsoft which means it works on Intel Macs at proper speed. Unfortunately it doesnt support macros in VBA, doesnt have the same user interface as Office 2007 (or Office 2003), Cant support 'add-ins' for Office, and has had lots and lots of stability and functionality issues.In particular its important to look hard at Entourage, the equivalent of Outlook for the mac. It has its fans in the old 'Claris Works' world where I think the development team came from but I hate it! It locks one big file breaking file synchronisations, its hard to use because it has a non standard edit field for to:, cc: and such like. Its address book integration is wierd and its sync sercvices have both duplicated all my data and deleted all of it at different times. My Day the eye candy app for looking at your dats calendar and tasks is oddly jarring to the rest of Office and I dont like it either. Entourage doesnt adopt the iCal model of calculator granularity so theres only your Entourage calendar and thats it. Avoid unless like me you have to connect to a clients Exchange Server - Entourage has one redeeming factor - that it uses the Outlook Web Access WebDAV access to get email from Exchange which is a way of avoiding using Outlook. Small beer and probably not worth it for everyone.
Home Edition
Home and Student edition is cheap. Under 100 GBP if you look hard (try ebay).It contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. The version of Entourage cant connect to Exchange Server through native protocols however. Its licenced for up to three computers in one household.
Office 2008
The standard product is more expensive reflecting the perception that business use can be more expensive, it is licenced for use in business on one desktop and one laptop used by the same person.It contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. The version of Entourage contains Microsoft Server Exchange Support, and there are Apple Automator Actions for common Workflows in Microsoft Office
Home Edition
Home and Student edition is cheap. Under 100 GBP if you look hard (try ebay).It contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. The version of Entourage cant connect to Exchange Server through native protocols however. Its licenced for up to three computers in one household.
Office 2008 Special Media Edition
The media edition product is even more expensive. It is licenced for use in business on one desktop and one laptop used by the same person.It contains Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage. The version of Entourage contains Microsoft Server Exchange Support, and there are Apple Automator Actions for common Workflows in Microsoft Office. It also contains Microsoft Expression Media, a digital asset management application acquired by Microsoft but really nothing at all to do with the other 'Expression' product set.
Mariner Pak
Mariner Write and Mariner Calc are great applications which provide direct replacement for Word and Excel. I use both all the time. No issues - they just work well. They look a little different to Word and Excel but thats all.iWork 09
TBD - Im waiting for a copy.Pages, Numbers and Keynote.