The bMighty Blog -- Apple

On March 20, I recommended two Mac books, one for Windows users moving to the Mac, the other for power users and IT staff supporting Macs. Today, I’ll recommend one more for Office 2008 users.

Office 2008 is truly a different animal, very different, from Office 2004 for the Mac. All but the geekiest users moving from older versions of Office will find the learning curve somewhat steep.

One of the biggest changes is that Office 2008 implements the new user interface elements that Microsoft brought out with Office 2007 for Windows, such as the ribbon. While those can help users become very efficient, they’re unlike anything else on the Mac – and will be quite jarring for Office 2004 users. In my experience, users take an immediate dislike to the new UI, but after a while, they get over it and settle down. Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual, by Jim Elferdink, can help ease that transition.

There are other issues as well. File compatibility has changed, since Office 2008 for the Mac uses the new XML-based file formats, not the familiar Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats that Mac users are familiar with. While Office 2008 can be set to default to the old file formats, again there’s a learning curve.

Plus, there are many new features and capabilities in Office 2008 — and features that went away. Power users will be frustrated by Microsoft’s removal of Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), for example.

Sadly, Microsoft’s own documentation for Office 2008 for the Mac is terrible. That’s why I recommend Office 2008 for Macintosh: The Missing Manual for both users and administrators using this application.

On a separate note: I was setting up a brand-new MacBook Pro for a user earlier this week, and noticed that Apple includes an Office 2004 Test Drive – but not an Office 2008 Test Drive. What’s with that? So far, I’ve had no response from Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit to that question.

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