Microsoft Office

If you've recently tried updating and downloaded it to encounter an error that says "You cannot install...... a version of the software required to install this update was not found on this volume" then the solution to your woes is here.

Given the huge numbers who clearly seem to be reporting this error when installing an update MS calls 'critical' it's astounding that MS haven't done something about it.

Edited by Desmond (Sat 13-Jun-09 14:59:42)

I'm still using Office 97. No problems and no need for more updates.

If it were possible I'd still be using Word 5.1.

Thinking about updating to 2008 from 2004 as I'm about to update my Mac. Any advice?

Thanks

If 2004 is working for you then don't bother spending the money. 2004 works perfectly well under Rosetta on an Intel Mac and will still be there in Snow Leopard so save it until you actually need to update it.

If 2004 is working for you then don't bother spending the money.

Couldn't agree more.

Actually, I had to revert from 2004 to Office X because of Word 2004's eccentric treatment of font fractional widths. Displayed and printed character spacing was a mess with any font format that I could throw at it and I never found a fix.

In a rash moment, out of curiosity, I upgraded one of the computers to Office 2008. Word 2008's font spacing is vastly improved over 2004 and quite usable but there are other issues that I find difficult to swallow:

In previous versions, I could disable virtually any feature that I didn't need - made Office quite snappy. In 2008 I've got an irritating little toolbar; Document Elements, Word Art, etc that I don't want and I can't get rid of.

Killer for me is that I can no longer disable font smoothing in Excel 2008. Excel is the only MS app that I use constantly and 'smoothing' a 9pt font makes a spreadsheet almost unreadable on screen. If anyone's found a solution to this, I'd love to hear about it.

I don't miss VBA in 2008 - Applescript suffices for my usage. Trouble is that Excel 2004 and 2008 are scriptable but not recordable - you can't record a script with Script Editor. I've found that capability very useful in Excel X and I'd hate to lose it.

So I've got a drawer full of pricey upgrades and I keep going back to Office X

Works fine on a PPC/Tiger and an Intel/Leopard so I'll stick with it now until I'm forced to upgrade.

The above applies to Word and Excel - I dont use Powerpoint.


lct

People should be more brave and avoid Office completely. Use alternatives.

HTML documentation is much easier to use.

Office and Windows are Microsoft's core cash cows. If you want a better computing world then avoid them.

People should be more brave and avoid Office completely.

Brave? I admitted on this forum that I was serial Excel user. That's brave

lct

I use iWork 09' - so much better than [censored] Office.

Another fan of iWork '09 here. Numbers is coming along nicely and being able to support Apple software makes me feel good too. Funny, I'm always getting asked by PC colleagues at work to convert the newer word/excel formats into old which I do through iWork - faster than asking the sender to provide a new document for people stuck on old software.

I'm always getting asked by PC colleagues at work to convert the newer word/excel formats into old which I do through iWork

From that, I gather that iWork 09 will open files in the Office 2008 format but which Office format does it use when saving back to Word/Excel? Can you choose between new and old?

Also, assuming Numbers 09 is scriptable, is it recordable with Script Editor?

lct

Unfortunately not the answer you'd like. iWork '09 can read MS open formats but export only to the older format. Numbers is scriptable in that it has an extensive dictionary but it doesn't seem to "record" with script editor - I don't use the record function but I just tried it, unless I'm doing something wrong.

To be honest, if you need to interface on a regular basis with PC users using Office I'd still keep a copy of Office for compatibility. iWork 09 has come along nicely, in many ways Apple's workflow is better than Office but the old compatibility headaches between Mac and PC still exist.

I still use Office 2000. I recently started to have problems with people sending me files from the latest versions of Office with the new file extensions.

If you go to the Microsoft download pages and get a copy of "FileFormatConverters.exe" it updates old versions of Office to accept the new extensions.

Saves having to save multiple times in multiple formats.

Yeah, I mean for what I use iWork 09' is perfect. Only really use Pages to write university notes and reports.

That's handy, thanks.

I use pretty much all the iWork apps, I like Keynote's ability to export as HTML so I can keep my design and pass to PC users to open in a web browser, or else PDF. Apple's presentation, the software, generally results in my work standing out from the PC crowd at the Office, I often get the "wow, how did you do that" comments to which I reply "made on a Mac, you could do it too, it's really not difficult". The crunch of it really comes down to OSX and the wonderful software we have at our disposal.

Thanks for that, bosie.

Not surprised about the recordability - not many apps seem to be Applescript recordable these days - Office hasn't been since X. Shame, I've always found the capability quite useful.

Unfortunately, PC compatibility is a bit an issue for me - means I have to have two partial copies of Office on my Macs; Excel X (last decent version, in my view) for my own use and Word/Excel 2008 for OpenXML compatibility.

I'll keep an eye open for new versions of iWork and see if compatiblity improves.

lct