Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac (Home and Student Edition) review

An old stalwart gets a makeover and some minor feature changes

Our Score 4

Last reviewed: 2008-02-01February 1st 2008

Business and finance software Review

Our overall impression of Office 2008 for Mac is that itâ��s a good product.

Although the toolbars are easier to handle in Office 2008, when active, they still take up a lot of space and make Word seem top-heavy.

My Day is a new addition to Entourage. Itâ��s a floating, widget-like device that gives you a snapshot To Do list.

Finally, you can see a quarter of a year at a glance! Just click on a date to jump to Entourageâ��s Calendar function.

You can easily use multiple themes in your presentations, and you can filter the list to show only those themes that you have already used in one file.

Elements Gallery runs through all the separate parts of Office, but the tabs differ in each app. In PowerPoint, you wonâ��t see the same tab options as in Word or Excel.

Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit, the largest gaggle of Mac programmers outside Apple, has produced a new Mac Office suite for the first time since 2004. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac comprises new versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Entourage and Messenger.

Office 2008 for Mac is available as a Home and Student Edition, a standard version, plus a Special Media Edition. We’ve reviewed the Home and Student Edition. Its price is closest to that of Apple iWork ’08, which offers a useful comparison in this review.

Essentially, all the suites have the same tools, except that the Home and Student Edition lacks Exchange Server support and Automator tools that you get in the standard version, while the Special Media Edition adds Microsoft Expression Media, the fruit of Microsoft’s purchase of iView a year and half ago; it’s a clever database app for viewing digital media assets and files.

Office 2008 for Mac has some suite-wide changes. Firstly, it’s a universal binary version for PowerPC or Intel Macs; it was faster on our new MacBooks than the 2004 edition, but slow on PowerPC Macs.

Secondly, file format support has broadened and covers all the Open XML file formats used by Office 2007 for Windows. This makes life easier for those with colleagues using Office 2007 for Windows. Due to licensing conditions, you’ll need the pricier, commercially licensed, standard or Media Edition to use Office in a business environment.

Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage have not been massively overhauled, but have had tools repositioned and made more obvious. Microsoft told us that most of the requests for new features were requests for tools that already existed in Office 2004 for Mac, but were hard to find.

We’ll comment on the value of the different packages at the end of the review. For now, let’s crack open the box and take an in-depth look at what’s new in the different apps.

Word

Word 2008 for Mac looks cosmetically different to Word 2004 for Mac. However, with the exception of Elements Gallery and a few minor points, the feature-set is almost intact. The only reason we can see for upgrading is to get better interoperability with Office 2007 for Windows.

Word 2008 for Mac supports the XML files that Word 2007 for Windows creates, and vice versa. Word 2004 for Mac can’t handle these files without a translator, which at the time of writing Microsoft had yet to release. This forces Mac users who often transfer files with Windows users to upgrade. We had more issues opening XML files from Word 2008 for Mac in Word 2004 for Mac than we did opening the same files in Word 2007 for Windows.

Sure, you can choose to save files from Word 2008 for Mac as .doc rather than .docx, but as .docx is the default format in the Windows edition too, you would have to constantly nag Windows colleagues to do the same if you stayed with Word 2004 for Mac. Plus, you would lose any dynamic elements of the document enabled by the XML format.

Placing artwork in Word 2008 documents is much cleaner than before, thanks to the Elements Gallery. You can clearly see elements like charts and tables laid out in the Elements Gallery, and double-click them to the page. These can easily be coloured or resized. Pages and Swift Publisher offer many more template backgrounds to choose from, but fewer charts and tables.

When you do enter charts, Excel comes to life with cells of formula, waiting for your data. Input data and the chart in Word changes form to reflect your numbers. This is all very easy. We liked the SmartArt tab too, which produces flowchart-style artwork for text to be added into.

Mercifully, font handling has improved, which has been the thorn in Word’s side. It now supports OpenType, which reduces those weird moments when your fonts change in size or type inexplicably after, say, cutting and pasting. There’s also a new Publishing Layout View, which pretends to have professional layout tools like InDesign or XPress. A floating tools palette called Toolbox removes the need for toolbars clogging up the header space, but you can still have toolbars if you want them (they just don’t float about any more).

After typing in Word for a few days, we reverted back to using Scrivener to type this review. For pure text work without charts, we find it more Mac-like and intuitive. In comparison, Word feels bloated and a little clumsy.

You don’t need 30 tools standing by, just in case you need to cycle through SmartArt graphics options, or Track Changes, or alter the background colour behind the text. You want those tools hidden until needed!