Office 2011

Thanks for your response. I was about to pluck down $199 for that software. You saved me some serious headaches, because once I opened the box and broke the seal on the DVD package I would be unable to return it. Once again thanks for your prompt response.

I know what you are saying, however I asked you guys because some software said one thing and I later found out that it was not entirely true. For example Adobe CS4. When that first came out Adobe said the minimum requirements to use it was a G5 computer running Leopard OS 10.5. My instructor are many other student said that the have installed it on their G4 and it worked beautifully. So a lot of the times the minimum requirements are not always true in practice.

Well, in the case of PPC v x86, being that they're two completely different instruction sets, you can consider that a firm limit. G3/G4/G5 were all evolutions of the same instruction set, so it would theoretically be possible for a program intended for a G5 to run on a G3, much like you could theoretically run Windows 7 on a 386. To say it would be agonizingly slow would probably be a gross understatement, but it could theoretically be done.

If something says it requires an Intel chip for Mac OS X software, then it will NOT work on any G3/G4/G5 system.

Thanks for your help and response. I will keep that in mind in the future that when it says Intel Mac it cannot work on Power Mac.

Hi thanks a lot for alerting me. In that case I feel a better that I was not able to use Office 2011. I have Office 2004 and 2008 both installed on my G4. They both work without any problems, so I am just going to stick to what works and be thankful. Take care.

Nope, thanks to Rosetta, I have Office 2004 installed on my Mid-2010 iMac. Rosetta just isn't installed by default on 10.6, but it's still there. I just haven't bothered upgrading from 2004 since now that I'm out of school, I have almost no need for an office suite. Even if I've seen Office 2011 going for $100, I fire up a word processor (at home) maybe once every two or three months... For all of maybe 10-15 minutes.

But honestly, after you take a little time to adjust to the ribbon interface MS came up with in Office 2007, it's actually not that bad. It does a pretty good job of economizing screen space. Instead of 50 different toolbars all cluttering up the ever shrinking vertical screen real estate with widescreen monitors, you switch between them with a tab-like system on the horizontal axis.

Too many people just immediately fall into the mindset of "change is bad" and never even bother giving something a chance. I will give you that there's been an increasing Fisher Pricing of user interfaces globally across computer programs everywhere. Lots of bright pastel colors, "cute" little icons, hand holding "wizards" and what not that seem to assume you're a drooling moron who has only recently mastered See Spot Run. I will most definitely grant you that, and will join you on the protest line over it gladly, but that all being said, MS's ribbon interface is actually pretty good. It's not as good as Office 2004's Formatting Pallet, which is where the basic idea came from, but compared to the old style of huge numbers of toolbars with about 50 buttons each, all cluttering up the interface, this is better. It's cleaner, sleeker, and actually manages to draw out more features into the main UI that previously required you to open a dialog box from a menu.

to run PowerPoint 2004 on an intel Mac. Unless you used Word and Excel only, that might go. But PPT 2004 refuses to run on Intel architecture. I agree with your assessment of 2004 vs. 2011. Personally, I find more glitches and problems in Office 2011 than on Office 2004.

PowerPoint and the rest of Office 2004 runs well on my iMac with 10.6.6

It required Rosetta but that was an automatic process.

P

Just tried it and PPT 2004 started up just fine. I didn't test every single feature of it, so there may be a couple of things that don't work under Rosetta, but it's far from "refusing to run".

So if you can't get PPT 2004 to run, and have a "glitchy" experience with 2011, sounds to me like you may have an issue with some bad RAM or other minor hardware issue.

By glitches I actually mean some bugs or inconvenient features (like pasting pictures from other programs that it was possible to further ungroup in 2004 but not in 2008 or 2011). Nothing to do with my system. Opening PPT does not mean it will work steadily. I tried it on 3 different computers running different renditions of SL and eventually it crashed on all three and then refused to run. And all three do have Rosetta that runs other apps well. The same install on a G5 runs flawlessly. A reinstall would restore functionality but not for long. It could be a font issue actually, because PPT is stupidly dependent on some fonts; their lack in the system would prevent it from running. But I could not figure out this issue, so just moved to 2011. But even in Word, the ribbon is a big nuisance. You cannot customize it as you could every toolbar in 2004. For instance, styles occupies the bulk of the ribbon and, unless you are a graphic artist, it is useless. They say it is customizable, but not the main ribbon, which is called Home. What were they thinking?

Well, just tried 2011 since it's about time for the annual resume refresh so if I ever need it, it's never more than a year out of date. I miss the formatting pallet from v.X-2008, but virtually all the same functionality is in the ribbon, so it's just a matter of it being at the top of the screen instead of a little box floating off to the side. Which is mildly annoying since I have far more horizontal screen than vertical, but I'll soldier on.

In any case, it's really just a matter of things being different as opposed to better or worse. In some ways the ribbon is better than the old formatting pallet, in some ways it's worse, but mostly it's just different. Neither better or worse, just different. Once you take the time to learn where things are now instead of throwing a tantrum like a little child because you can't be lazy anymore, you won't even think twice about it after probably a week or two. We humans are nothing if not adaptable. We also tend to get a little set in our ways, which isn't healthy.

As to what they were thinking... Probably that based on their research from that Office improvement program they've been running since like Office 2003, maybe earlier, those functions are the ones the bulk of people use most often. Maybe you don't, and well, sucks to be you I guess, but you can turn the ribbon off and create your own custom toolbars if you want. No one is forcing you to use the ribbon interface but you.

At the end of the day, it really comes down to a simple choice. You can continue wasting time and energy complaining about things you don't like in Office 2011... You can suck it up, accept that you're not going to change it, so there's no point in whining constantly about it... Or you can channel that energy into finding some kind of alternative program that may suit you better such as iWork or OpenOffice/LibreOffice. Of course everyone knows real men use vi. And MANLY men use ed. Formatting is for sissies.

Even after using it for 2 years straight, the icons are not as helpful as a word menu. Which, strange as it may seem to you, is why iconography and ideographs aren't as easy to use as phonetics.

I was not asking about your pontification, but was just voicing my opinion. Please reserve your uninformative rhetoric for kids.

I work on the Windows office version, and I exercise it heavily. The icons do get in the way. Some features are now buried one or two levels deeper than when in the menu version. And to make it even more ironic, after 20 years, Microsoft STILL hasn't fixed the problem with numbering streams or file corruption in large files.

The Ribbon Interface is totally unintuitive, and it hides functions away that force you to bounce back and forth between different ribbons.

Icon palettes are useful for small numbers of icons, not the whole pot full of functions.

What's your point? People ALWAYS complain when someone tries to do something new. Apple has a bunch of annoying groupies who will scream bloody murder if Apple moves something a single pixel. Microsoft isn't immune to this phenomenon either. XP comes out, everyone hates the new Luna UI. It's slow, it's buggy, it's ugly, it's bloated, yada yada yada. Give it about 5-6 years to grow on people, and suddenly people are claiming you'll pry their copy of XP out of their cold dead fingers, and using all the same complaints they levied against XP at Vista's new Aero UI. And actually, you could go all the way back to the launch of Windows 95.

Try to remember that your experiences and preferences do not represent the sum total of everyone else in the world. After I gave the new Ribbon UI a chance, I found it wasn't half bad. Took some time to get my bearings, but it required me to make fewer trips to a dialog box for the things I was doing, so that was a big plus in my book. It's not as slick as the old formatting pallet, but I can certainly understand the desire to have a consistent UI across platforms. Or at least largely consistent. Makes sense from a development and marketing standpoint.

But like I said, if you don't like it, you can either whine about it and be unhappy, accept that the old system isn't coming back and get over it, or find something else to use. I prefer people choose one of the latter two. I tend to quickly lose patience with people who constantly complain about something, but refuse to do anything about it. It tends to conjure up fantasies about what I'd do if I had both a baseball bat and air tight alibi.

This isn't whining. IF customers don't make their problems with software known to the maker then nothing will ever get done. Customer pressure is the only thing that does work. Unfortunately Microsoft is so ubiquitous that it's products, like Word are used as primary tools for activitites that they were not designed for, don't support well, and are chosen by people other than the primary user.

In my job as a Technical Writer, I advocate for using the proper tool for the task. It's difficult to do when the perception is that Word is just fine for putting words down and formatting them. As I stated before, there are things about Word that have been broken for 20 years that make it an inadequate tool in certain instances.

That is information that people should be made aware of.

That Microsoft doesn't heed its customers is not an unknown fact. But if the community of users doesn't make its displeasure known, then Microsoft or any software producer will continue to produce a product that isn't as useful as it should be.

On the other hand, I find your attitude and dismissive comments insulting, and unhelpful. YOU are whining about legitimate concerns that users have. YOU are part of the problem, accepting software that isn't made better, just different.

I am very aware of the difference between preference, experienc, functionality, and form. Perhaps my experiences in my job of documentation of software, hardware, and processes better qualify me to comment on the inadequacies of this specific software than do your experiences.

As is often the case in any product changes are not always for the better, though the intention may be to improve its funcationality and provide a better experience for the users. There is also a case for not providing wizards for everything under the sun, because it can get in the way of the workflow. Just as putting everything under an icon.

As I state previously, there is a reason that Romanized alphabets are easier to learn to read than are iconography or ideogram writing. Likewise, written menus can convey more precise and immediately understandable meanings than can icons or ideograms.

Second that. There will always be the debate over whether MS Ribbon sucks or rulez. The bottom line is what users REPORT, not on everyone's individual cup of tea.

For example -- I shared the same grave experience with other users who have reported that to get to some simple function, you had to wade through several levels of stupid icons. Having no icon titles didn't help -- you had to GUESS what it did, and some of those icon designs changed -- making the guesswork a little (or a lot) longer.

I also encountered a situation where I could get the function through right-clicking in the older version. Unfortunately in the new version, the function wasn't in the right-click menu. WHY did it have to be removed? I forget what the function is now -- as I'm safely on my mac at home now (and not in school where I encountered it).

So it doesn't matter who likes it or not. Everyone eventually learns it, no matter HOW crappy it is, but that doesn't mean you have to put up with a crap interface just because you got used to it. 2 facts are still out there on ribbon:

1.) It is NOT intuitive and does NOT make the interface significantly easier/quicker to access.
2.) Even after time, (some/a lot of) users are still finding it fidgety to work with.

It's hard to think Microsoft actually did a usability study on this. Perhaps they did what they always like to do, which is throw money at the situation and see if the problem goes away. Everyone wants a job at Microsoft. What other company doesn't mind if they hire a couple overpaid deadbeats and still be able to keep their (bad) reputation for (sub-quality) products and interfaces?

I don't get it... MS Office programs haven't had text on icons since like ever. I started using Word at version 6, which didn't have text, Word 95 didn't, 97 didn't, 2000 didn't, XP didn't, 2003 didn't, 7 didn't, 2010 doesn't... v.X didn't, 2004 didn't, 2008 didn't, 2011 doesn't. So where this particular complaint is coming from is quite the mystery to me. It's been like this for the better part of two DECADES, Mac AND PC.

Toolbars have always had just little icons on them. No text; tooltips, but no text, and tooltips still exist in ribbonized versions.

And again, we need to remember that our singular experiences do not represent the sum total of everyone else. Microsoft is a company that bends over backwards to please customers, whereas Apple tends to just kick you in the teeth saying take it or leave it.

I do share some of the pain of creating complex layouts in Word, or really any general purpose word processor, but word processors weren't designed to create complex layouts. They were made to create simple documents that tend to follow an established pattern. So it's kind of like blaming Ford because your F-150 pickup doesn't make for an effective boat.

If your employer is requiring you to use Word for your job, then that's an issue you should take up with your employer, Microsoft doesn't even factor in here except as a target for your misplaced passive-aggressive frustration. Talk to your boss, and lay out the case that you'd be a lot more efficient if you used this or that program, and that the up front cost would be more than made up for by your increased productivity, not to mention the increased quality of your work.

And since sometimes people have difficulties following, the previous two paragraphs were intended as a response to sturner.

is to the point. FYI, all icons in menus have hidden text in all versions of Word - just hover the mouse over the icon and it tells you what it is. On another note, despite your inadmissible tone and way of treating others here, I have to thank you for a valuable tip about reverting to just toolbars in Word 2011 (also concerns PPT and Excel). Because ribbon is not up to snuff and barely customisable, I just killed it as you rightly suggested and customized the remaining toolbars (the idiots of Microsoft have killed the drawing toolbar - so they do not really bend backwards) nearly to the level of Word 2004 or 2008. This is my suggestion (seconding Mr. Greystone's) to those who are unhappy with ribbon.

That's called a tooltip, which I just assumed was one of those things most everyone knew.

Besides, virtually everything in the drawing menu of Word 2011 can be put into a toolbar if you want. There may not be a specific ready made one for you anymore, but this is seriously like a 5-10 minute bit of effort that's a one off deal. You should know which functions you use most often, so stuff them onto a toolbar and quit whining.

I just don't understand the disconnect you people seem to have. You bemoan the fact that Microsoft keeps adding all kinds of wizards and fisher price style icons, but then in the very next breath you basically make it clear that you're unwilling to spend even 5-10 minutes to basically fix the "problem" yourself. Which is exactly WHY Microsoft keeps adding all these wizards and whatnot, because people are too lazy to spend a few minutes to do it another way. There is a fine line between efficiency and flat out laziness. Right now we're deep in laziness territory. Efficiency would be spending 5-10 minutes now, to create a toolbar or toolbars that contain all your most commonly used functions so that they're right there, at the ready, when you need them in the future. Laziness is not even doing that much, just whining about it, blaming Microsoft for something that is more your fault than theirs, and refusing to accept any level of responsibility. Pragmatically speaking, even if it WERE all Microsoft's fault, you STILL could, and should, just say that regardless of who's fault it is, you will just have to make due as best you can with it. Throwing a tantrum like a child only makes you look like one, it doesn't make the real and perceived problems go away. Any parent will tell you you don't give in to a child throwing a tantrum, so why should it be any different for adults? Act like a child, expect to be treated as such. When you're ready to act like an adult, there are several possibilities open to you.

Than simple toolbars will correct.

The GUI design of Word in 2007 and beyond isn't conducive to efficient use. At best it's no better than the menu driven system, at worst it adds layers of interaction that weren't there before.

Everybody is sick and tired of your tone. You write a lot but there is little substance. Nobody's throwing any tantrums except for you. And when told to cool it, you still continue. Older versions of Word were more intuitive and had all features in your face, rather than hidden stuff in the latest version. We are workers/users, not designers. We need a reliable and feature-rich text editor, which Word definitely is. However, the new version is overly complicated with some features that lack customization. And why do you think that we are lazy and not willing to adapt ourselves to a twisted Microsoft logic? This is what everybody is doing for ages. Even if you work for Microsoft, your logic defies the normal one, as many posts here show.

Most tech writers loathe all versions of Word for very simple reasons.

I'm surprised they don't use something else.
Bob

But only if the company will purchase the software.

For most technical writing jobs a program like inDesign or FrameMaker is more approriate than Word. For very long, complex structured documents I prefer to use FrameMaker. It's much cheaper and easier to maintain than Epic Editor, and a lot more template and rules oriented than the layout program inDesign.

Let's say you work for a company that supplies you tools that take longer to do the job. There's not much to complain about as you are on the clock and if it takes a little longer then it takes a little longer.

But to let it annoy you takes a personal toll which I won't pay for.
Bob

refuse to allow for additional time. Some don't even assess the amount of time required for a project before assigning a timeline for completion.

Let's just say that there are a lot of management decisions made that subscribe to the "toss it over the wall and put a check mark in the completion box" mentality.