| Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition | 
 enlarge | From: Microsoft Software
Category: Software
List Price: $149.95
Buy New: $109.00
You Save: $40.95 (27%)
New (46) Used (4) from $89.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  271 reviews
Sales Rank: 2
Format: Dvd-rom
Platforms: Macintosh, Mac Os X
Media: DVD-ROM
Edition: Home & Student
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: No
Shipping Weight (lbs): 3
Dimensions (in): 0.1 x 0.1 x 0
MPN: GZA00006
Model: GZA00006
UPC: 882224526302
EAN: 0882224526302
ASIN: B000X86ZAS
Release Date: January 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Almost, but not yet there! February 23, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I like the new interface, and most importantly, the speed of Office 2008. (Native on an Intel Mac) But, I use a lot of macros and this version of Office doesn't allow me to do that. So, I now have two versions of Office on my computer. I am almost positive that a true "UPGRADE" would allow me to eliminate the older version. So...almost, but not yet there.
 Stunningly Bad February 23, 2008
30 out of 31 found this review helpful
These comments focus primarily on Word and Excel, which are the applications I use. I have a 2.2 Ghz Core Duo 2 MacBook Pro with 4 gigs of RAM, so this is a very fast computer by most measures. Keep this in mind while reading my comments.
Pros:
1. The toolbars are better integrated into the workspace.
2. The graphics look a lot better.
3. File sizes are smaller in the new native format.
Problems:
1. Resizing a window is incredibly slow and takes 100% of the available computer power. It feels like you're using a computer from years ago.
2. The first launch of an office program after a restart takes a very, very long time - at least twice as long as a Office 2004 program.
3. You can't edit equations from the Windows document format of Office 2007.
**edit this is supposed to be fixed now (not sure because I went back to Office 2004)
4. Any equations you make in Microsoft Word print fuzzy unless you reopen each one prior to printing. For a long document, this process sometimes takes me about 10 minutes just to print a document I created years ago and resaved in the new format.
5. Excel crashes about twice per day, even when working on new documents with just a few cells.
**edit this is supposed to be fixed now (not sure because I went back to Office 2004)
6. Documents created in the new native format take much, much, much longer to open than the exact same documents in the old format.
7. Compared to Office 2008, Office 2004 is amazingly fast and is much more stable.
8. The overall program is buggy. Things like adjusting or removing tabs don't work correctly - generally, it only registers something after a long delay.
9. Every document I create double-spaces between paragraphs. I can turn this feature off for a given document, but I can't save a default. Every time I save the default document template, it ignores this setting for some reason.
**edit this is supposed to be fixed now (not sure because I went back to Office 2004)
In short, this is stunningly poor software, with a new challenging annoyance around every corner I've turned. I'm continually surprised by how unresponsive and slow the software is, and compatibility with older versions of Office is fairly bad. I would recommend staying with Office 2004 or buying it instead of Office 2008.
March 24, 2008: I deleted Office 2008 from my system and reinstalled Office 2004. I'm much happier, and things work again!
 Microsoft office 2008 for Mac Home & Student Edition February 23, 2008
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
It's great! I don't really like Microsoft products but it really enhances my mac. I can do work and send it in and have it received without problems.
 solid so far -- a bit slow on tiger February 23, 2008
good interface, meshes well with Mac OS appearance-wise. loading program is a bit slow on my G4 ibook running tiger(1.0 ghz), but apart from that it is fine. Formatting & compatability with windows word program is much much better than the old edition (blech, it was bad on the mac)
Good, but with its bugs February 22, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Office 2008 in ways makes a nice sequel to 2004. The interface is improved by allowing users to further customize toolbars and have easy access to templates and themes. Office 2008 also now supports OpenXML documents. For those who us who have Intel macs you may notice an increase in performance as far as loading.
There are some downsides to 2008, which are notable. One is that 2008 does not support visual basic scripts. Another downside which I find a big problem is that 2008 does not play well with Exposé. When using exposé 2008 will constantly fail to be selected and focused on and while moving between spaces 2008 will often change which space it's in when switching to it. In addition I've had many instances in which 2008 has crashed on me while working on important documents only to be saved by its recovery feature. While these issues will likely be fixed in an update, it's a problem as it is.
Pros.
+ Improved Interface
+ More Document Support
Cons.
- No VB Support
- Lots of bugs
- Stability
- Price
I recommend waiting until some patches come out before upgrading. More than likely you can get by with 2004 for now.
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