For those of you have said it- why doesn't Office for Mac work as well?

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>I currently use an HP owned by my school (for most school related things) and own a 3-4 year old Macbook. I'm thinking about passing my Macbook to my younger sister when I leave for college next fall. Laptops are optional at her school, and they don't require a certain type. Anyway, now I'm thinking about a new PC vs new Mac for college and leaning toward a Mac. </p>

<p>I keep reading on here that Office for Mac doesn't work as well as the normal Office. What types of issues do you run into? I mostly use Microsoft Office Word, OneNote, and PowerPoint on my HP for notes and essays. That's about it. I don't need a whole lot of fancy stuff, do zero gaming, and I just like the way Macs run better. Do you think I'm going to have issues? I'm probably going to be majoring in Biology.</p>

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<p>I have a Macbook Pro and run Office 2008. I’ve experienced no difference in productivity. The only “issue” is finding where certain options (like page margins) are in the Mac version. Coming from Windows, I have found nothing wrong with my Mac’s hardware, OS X, or software by Microsoft.</p>

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<p>you could also use Pages and Keynote instead of Office for Mac if it bothers you that much.</p>

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<p>^ That’s true, too. I have iWork and Office. You can export iWork files into .docx so it’s compatible with Windows.</p>

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<p>The biggest problem with Office for Mac is that it isn’t a great Mac app, but it doesn’t behave exactly like the Windows version either. The Office for Mac team is in a tough position: they can make a clone of the Windows version and have it feel strange on the Mac, which has very different UI paradigms, or they can make a very Mac-like app that is nothing like the Windows version, which negates most of the reason to buy Office.</p>

<p>They chose an uncomfortable middle ground. Its just different enough from the Windows version to have a learning curve, but it still doesn’t feel like a Mac app. In 2008, after 2007 introduced the Ribbon interface (which I like; its like a larger version of iWork’s inspector built in to the toolbar), the Mac version added a template chooser that visually looks similar to the Ribbon, but does something completely different. It just feels reallh odd.</p>

<p>There are some other issues as well. For instance, Office 2008 feels slow and bloated to me, and there are some minor file conversion issues. All different versions of Office can exhibit this problem–2007 might render a complex document slightly different than 2003.</p>

<p>In my opinion, few people actually need Office. They need a good word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation app that works with the industry-standard formats (the Office formats). iWork fits the bill nicely. It’s clearly a Mac app, but it does all of what most people use Office for very nicely. </p>

<p>If someone truly needs Office for highly complex documents or something, I’d suggest running the Windows version in VMWare. There will be fewer compatibility issues, and the interface will, literally, be the same as on Windows (because it is on Windows). But again, if you can’t think of a reason why you need Office, you probably don’t.</p>

<p>You mentioned using OneNote. There are a lot of great Mac notetaking apps, including Circus Ponies Notebook and OmniOutliner. If none of them work for you–they’re not OneNote clones–you can always run the Windows office in VMWare.</p>

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<p>The only potential issue that I know of concerns Excel spreadsheets that contain macros. The current version of MS-Office for Mac cannot run those macros - this is not an issue for many users, but I would point it out. It is my understanding that the next version, due in the last quarter of 2010, will be able to run macros.</p>

<p>Other than that, I find MS-Office on the Mac OSX to run in a similar fashion to MS-Office on Windows Vista/7. It isn’t terrible, but it is indeed bloated and sometimes a little clunky. If I did not need to have compatibility with other PC users, I would use iWork more, but I do, so I use MS-Office for Mac on a daily basis.</p>

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<p>Just get open office. It does all the same stuff for free.</p>

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<p>I don’t know, I’m really liking Office 2010, esp the ability to sync all my files and notes between my desktop and laptop. Given, this is probably irrelevent to most people since most people don’t have two computers, but it’s a great feature that I don’t think I can give up.</p>

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<p>r31ncarnat3d, ever heard of dropbox?</p>