Read this reviews before You buy..."Office 2004 for Mac is a nice improvement", I bought the Office 2004 upgrade, finally, because certain minor misfits of Office X with current versions of Mac OS X became too annoying. It is an improvement. Those annoying crashes and refusals to bring the desired window to the front disappeared. It has a few nice formatting improvements, such as Page view in Excel. Powerpoint seems a little more refined. I thought that I'd like Word's notebook view, because I used the stand-alone product on Windows. I have not found it useful, however, partly because I like the Circus Ponies products.
"Some interesting improvements - but keep your Office v.X Entourage", Though there are improvement to the other programs, you'll want to keep your Entourage from the previous Office v.X version. The Office 2004 version of Entourage is more full of bugs than a bug-zapper on a Summer Sunday... during a picnic... at dusk... near a stagnant pond. You get the idea.
Try to get your email, get an error. Try to print your email, get an error. Tell it to refresh, get an error. In all honesty, I haven't found an Entourage 2004 command yet that doesn't seem to resullt in some kind of error.
The reason I'm still giving this three stars is my Excel and Word portions are responding faster and with greater ease than previously. Also, the fact that the standard installation does not include the whole-sale deletion of the previous version was the saving grace that still lets me get my email with the old Entourage. So kudos, because though the Office 2004 Standard Upgrade did put me up a river Entourage-wise, it did not leave me without a paddle.
"Cleaning up some confusion", In Office 2004, Microsoft continues to support most Palm handheld devices. However, one common situation Microsoft has seen is that people upgrading from Office X to Office 2004 do not install the Office 2004 Handheld Sync software (which is found in the Additional Tools folder). Failure to do so results in sync failure.
That said, Office 2004 Handheld Sync does not fully support the Palm Tungsten T3 or E [it is incorrect to say that it does not support any Tungsten T - it does!]. To enable sync with those devices, the user needs to go to the Conduit Settings and enable syncing capability with those devices. There are possible issues when this capability is enabled - and all of this is clearly documented in the read me that is installed when you install the Office 2004 Handheld Sync.
"Better than Office v.X", This new version of MS Office for Mac OS X is definitely a big improvement over the original version.
As a student I had the option of getting the full version for a reasonable price, so I did, mostly because several other students I know had problems with the upgrade version. I can't really comment on their experiences other than hearing their complaints and frustrations persuaded me to go with the full version.
I had no problems with the installation or the use of the Office 2004 full version.
Yes there are some (relatively) minor annoyances, but most of the major problems (text formatting, printing alignment issues-- the old version was definitely NOT WYSIWYG) are gone. Admittedly I have fairly low expectations after the disappointing original version. The new one has not crashed or lost data yet.
Although I find the Project Center (or whatever it is called) awkward to use, it is definitely a good idea. Hopefully it will become easier and more intuitive to use in future versions.
It is a big disappointment that it does not work with my Palm. I still have to use Mail.app and iCal because I rely on my Palm. It would be nice to have everything integrated into one environment.
Visually Office 2004 seems less clunky and more sleek than OpenOffice, which is surprising because it runs noticeably slower than OpenOffice.
"MS: I'd like to clear something up...", My friend worked with the MS team on this product. So reading some of the reviews, I've noticed quite a few inaccuracies. I personally have no direct connection with Microsoft and not interested in defending its interests much, but I'm against spreading bogus information.
First of all, there is no "3 strikes you are out" rule with the new Office 2004.
Some people seem to claim that Office 2004 can only be installed 3 times, after which user would have to do a clean re-install of the system. This is completely not true. Student and Teacher, Standard and Professional versions of Office 2004 do not have any special write protection and do not count how many times you install the program on your computer. However, license agreement for Standard and Pro versions states that you can only use one copy of software on one (1) desktop and one (1) laptop computer connected to the same network. Program does indeed check computers connected to the same network for opened Office 2004. If any Office 2004 program is opened on a desktop computer that is connected to the local network, it will refuse to launch until program on other computer is closed.
This is a security measure that doesn't affect regular consumers at all most of the time. The only reason for this is to make sure that small and even big businesses do not use one copy of a program on many computers. There is nothing new here either. Many companies have been utilizing similar security features for quite some time.
Student and Teacher edition which retails for a low price has ALL the features of Standard edition and can even be installed on three (3) computers at the same time.
The down side to it is that Student & Teacher edition cannot be upgraded in the future. But again, is not a big deal since upgrade for Standard version still costs more than full S&T edition. And of course, one must be a student or a teacher to purchase it.
I would recommend upgrading to the Office 2004 for many reasons. Not only you get a more stable programs now but also many new features like advanced Power Point timers, advanced printing themes and previews, audio note taking, a better option grouping and support for long file names, and many more. Most operations now also work faster and smoother.
Just like any new program, of course, Office 2004 will have a fair share of bugs, but they will be taken care of in a timely manner.
My Recommendation: Professional edition is a great buy for those who want to get Virtual PC 7.0 (included), as a VPC7 will retail for over half the price of the Office 2004.
If you are not sure about Office 2004 and would like to take it for a test drive, go to microsoft.com and download a "test drive" version. Try it out for yourself.
Hope this helps.
