Excel-Office 2008 for Mac

[turtlethom]

Excel 2004 had a very helpful menu tool called Print Preview. It allowed you to see what your formatting was going to look like in print before you actually had to commit to printing. You could make corrections, resize columns and rows to make things fit better and generally troubleshoot your workbook. I cannot find this extremely useful tool in Excel 2008 but it is hard to believe that Microsoft would have deleted one of the more helpful tools in the print arsenal. Can anyone give me further information?

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Excel 2004 had a very helpful menu tool called Print Preview. It allowed you
to see what your formatting was going to look like in print before you
actually had to commit to printing. You could make corrections, resize columns
and rows to make things fit better and generally troubleshoot your workbook. I
cannot find this extremely useful tool in Excel 2008 but it is hard to believe
that Microsoft would have deleted one of the more helpful tools in the print
arsenal. Can anyone give me further information?

Printing is a function of the Operating System, not the application.
Therefore, in Office 2008 it has been removed from Excel. You can still see
the preview by selecting print and then clicking on Preview.

 

[Phillip Jones]

Your actually making Print Preview in Excel a little simplistic.
in Excel in print Preview you had the ability to adjust Margins and even
font sizes and other formatting.

You can't do this in 2008 using Preview from the printer menu. All it
does is call up the Preview application.

Now in order to tweak a document you have to multiple steps using the
point size item Format Document, and other commands something that you
could one item to tweak 4 or 5 items you not have to do possibly up to
10 steps now in 2008.

Pre preview wasn't just a different way of using Printer > Preview. It
was much much more.

Now you just have to make sure you get it right the first time unless
you want to spend 20 minutes extra time fiddling with various setting to
make it right.

Its obvious you never used the feature in Excel 2004 or you could
realize what all it did.

Printing is a function of the Operating System, not the application.
Therefore, in Office 2008 it has been removed from Excel. You can still see
the preview by selecting print and then clicking on Preview.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

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<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[turtlethom]

Dear Mr. Bob Greenblatt and Mr. Phillip Jones,

I did not mean to make the print preview function in Excel 2004 for Mac seem simplistic. I did say you could "make corrections" and "generally troubleshoot" a workbook as a way of avoiding detailing the many things that could be tweaked from the Print Preview menu in the old version. But you are right, Mr. Jones, there is almost no formatting issue that you could not address in Print Preview 2004. And so it became an extremely valuable timesaver (and paper saver). As Mr. Jones suggested, now you have to go through many, many more steps to achieve the same result.

I would suggest, Mr. Greenblatt, that perhaps you never had occasion to use the old Print Preview function. I am sure that if you were familiar with its many capabilities you would not as quickly have decided it was removed because "printing is a function of the OS". To someone knowledgeable, that statement is misleading at best and I am reasonably sure that you would not mislead Mactopia users with forethought or foreknowledge.

The Print Preview function 2004 had less to do with printing and more to do with the ability to quickly and efficiently correct any and all formatting mistakes. Those mistakes, of course, become more visible in a print preview mode and the ability to make those adjustments right from Print Preview constituted a very valuable timesaver.

Quick and efficient functionality would certainly be at the top of most programmers list of Important Things To Maintain When Upgrading Software, so for Microsoft to glibly and rigidly proclaim that PRINTING IS A FUNCTION OF THE OS AND ERGO... NO MORE PRINT PREVIEW is all very nice but does not address the reality which is that the removal of this particular function surely qualifies as a Downgrade in a piece of software to which I thought I was Upgrading.

I hope that MS will put Print Preview back in the next upgrade of Office 2008 for Mac, otherwise I will return mine to my vender and go back Office 2004 for Mac and be on the lookout for appropriate substitutes in the marketplace.

Mr. Greenblatt, can you comment on any of this or on whether some of these deletions might be addressed in the next upgrade.

Thanks,

Thomas

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Thomas -

It's certainly understandable that some might not be happy with the change,
but there isn't much we in the newsgroup can do about it - we're users of
the product just like you, not MS employees if you want to register your
dissatisfaction where it will count, use Help> Send Feedback form Excel's
menu & fully support your preference.

When you do, though, it would be best if you have your facts straight
Print Preview has never supported *any* formatting changes to the sheets for
the very reasons Bob G. expressed - Print Preview is generated by the
printer driver & the OS and was simply hosted by the program. To that end,
Apple's OS X guidelines have been moving toward channeling developers toward
the Preview application interface provided by the OS.

What you are recalling is Page Break Preview - a totally separate & distinct
view which allowed formatting changes plus other sheet editing & page break
adjustment but didn't allow margin changes or other Setup options without
launching the Page Setup dialog.

Page Break Preview was replaced in 2008 by Page Layout View, which is more
or less a hybrid of the two but doesn't provide all the functionality of
either. Margins can be adjusted via the Ruler and all editing is enabled,
you just can't move the page breaks. [Quite frankly, that "feature" has
caused more grief & aggravation for most people due to its tendency to
impose unwanted scaling as well as induce other anomalies.] Additionally
Page Layout View allows direct access to Headers & Footers as well as other
Page Setup options (through the Formatting Palette) without having to launch
the Page Setup dialog.

It is unequivocally *different* than what we're used to, but many who have
chosen to work with it find that it's more versatile, more convenient and
overall an improvement over the old UI.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Your actually making Print Preview in Excel a little simplistic.
in Excel in print Preview you had the ability to adjust Margins and even
font sizes and other formatting.

You can't do this in 2008 using Preview from the printer menu. All it
does is call up the Preview application.

Now in order to tweak a document you have to multiple steps using the
point size item Format Document, and other commands something that you
could one item to tweak 4 or 5 items you not have to do possibly up to
10 steps now in 2008.

Pre preview wasn't just a different way of using Printer > Preview. It
was much much more.

Now you just have to make sure you get it right the first time unless
you want to spend 20 minutes extra time fiddling with various setting to
make it right.

Its obvious you never used the feature in Excel 2004 or you could
realize what all it did.

Hmm... I use the XL04 feature often, and I find nowhere the ability to
"adjust...font sizes and other formatting."

Perhaps you were thinking of Word, instead?

In XL04's Print Preview mode, you can adjust margins and column widths
(and the latter has always been a bit flaky), but that's it.

You *can* of course, change font sizes and other formatting in Print
Layout view in either XL04 or XL08. You can also set column widths and
margins in that view.

But if it takes 20 extra minutes to set those column widths and margins,
I suspect you're not working very efficiently.

 

[Phillip Jones]

Just to clear up a matter. I didn't say *you* were making it simplistic.

I was referring to Bob's comment that all Print Preview in 2004 was just
supposed to a function of the OS. I was explaining what all Print
Preview in 2004 could do. I also explained its obvious he never used it
or he would not have made it quite as simplistic.

Dear Mr. Bob Greenblatt and Mr. Phillip Jones,

I did not mean to make the print preview function in Excel 2004 for
Mac seem simplistic. I did say you could "make corrections" and
"generally troubleshoot" a workbook as a way of avoiding detailing
the many things that could be tweaked from the Print Preview menu in
the old version. But you are right, Mr. Jones, there is almost no
formatting issue that you could not address in Print Preview 2004.
And so it became an extremely valuable timesaver (and paper saver).
As Mr. Jones suggested, now you have to go through many, many more
steps to achieve the same result.

I would suggest, Mr. Greenblatt, that perhaps you never had occasion
to use the old Print Preview function. I am sure that if you were
familiar with its many capabilities you would not as quickly have
decided it was removed because "printing is a function of the OS". To
someone knowledgeable, that statement is misleading at best and I am
reasonably sure that you would not mislead Mactopia users with
forethought or foreknowledge.

The Print Preview function 2004 had less to do with printing and more
to do with the ability to quickly and efficiently correct any and all
formatting mistakes. Those mistakes, of course, become more visible
in a print preview mode and the ability to make those adjustments
right from Print Preview constituted a very valuable timesaver.

Quick and efficient functionality would certainly be at the top of
most programmers list of Important Things To Maintain When Upgrading
Software, so for Microsoft to glibly and rigidly proclaim that
PRINTING IS A FUNCTION OF THE OS AND ERGO... NO MORE PRINT PREVIEW is
all very nice but does not address the reality which is that the
removal of this particular function surely qualifies as a Downgrade
in a piece of software to which I thought I was Upgrading.

I hope that MS will put Print Preview back in the next upgrade of
Office 2008 for Mac, otherwise I will return mine to my vender and go
back Office 2004 for Mac and be on the lookout for appropriate
substitutes in the marketplace.

Mr. Greenblatt, can you comment on any of this or on whether some of
these deletions might be addressed in the next upgrade.

Thanks,

Thomas

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Phillip Jones]

Never mind, at some point in word and excel you could grab vertical and
horizontal lines and dynamically resize a document. as well as change
Fonts size of the entire document. maybe it was in 2001 or even in
word6/Excel5. I can't find it may be it was some customizing I had done
at one point. I don't see it now. My apologies. So the way I see it
setup now its not much different than going to print menu and call up
Preview application. its still a few more steps.

Hi Thomas -

It's certainly understandable that some might not be happy with the change,
but there isn't much we in the newsgroup can do about it - we're users of
the product just like you, not MS employees if you want to register your
dissatisfaction where it will count, use Help> Send Feedback form Excel's
menu & fully support your preference.

When you do, though, it would be best if you have your facts straight
Print Preview has never supported *any* formatting changes to the sheets for
the very reasons Bob G. expressed - Print Preview is generated by the
printer driver & the OS and was simply hosted by the program. To that end,
Apple's OS X guidelines have been moving toward channeling developers toward
the Preview application interface provided by the OS.

What you are recalling is Page Break Preview - a totally separate & distinct
view which allowed formatting changes plus other sheet editing & page break
adjustment but didn't allow margin changes or other Setup options without
launching the Page Setup dialog.

Page Break Preview was replaced in 2008 by Page Layout View, which is more
or less a hybrid of the two but doesn't provide all the functionality of
either. Margins can be adjusted via the Ruler and all editing is enabled,
you just can't move the page breaks. [Quite frankly, that "feature" has
caused more grief & aggravation for most people due to its tendency to
impose unwanted scaling as well as induce other anomalies.] Additionally
Page Layout View allows direct access to Headers & Footers as well as other
Page Setup options (through the Formatting Palette) without having to launch
the Page Setup dialog.

It is unequivocally *different* than what we're used to, but many who have
chosen to work with it find that it's more versatile, more convenient and
overall an improvement over the old UI.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Dear Mr. Bob Greenblatt and Mr. Phillip Jones,

I did not mean to make the print preview function in Excel 2004 for Mac seem
simplistic. I did say you could "make corrections" and "generally
troubleshoot" a workbook as a way of avoiding detailing the many things that
could be tweaked from the Print Preview menu in the old version. But you are
right, Mr. Jones, there is almost no formatting issue that you could not
address in Print Preview 2004. And so it became an extremely valuable
timesaver (and paper saver). As Mr. Jones suggested, now you have to go
through many, many more steps to achieve the same result.

I would suggest, Mr. Greenblatt, that perhaps you never had occasion to use
the old Print Preview function. I am sure that if you were familiar with its
many capabilities you would not as quickly have decided it was removed because
"printing is a function of the OS". To someone knowledgeable, that statement
is misleading at best and I am reasonably sure that you would not mislead
Mactopia users with forethought or foreknowledge.

The Print Preview function 2004 had less to do with printing and more to do
with the ability to quickly and efficiently correct any and all formatting
mistakes. Those mistakes, of course, become more visible in a print preview
mode and the ability to make those adjustments right from Print Preview
constituted a very valuable timesaver.

Quick and efficient functionality would certainly be at the top of most
programmers list of Important Things To Maintain When Upgrading Software, so
for Microsoft to glibly and rigidly proclaim that PRINTING IS A FUNCTION OF
THE OS AND ERGO... NO MORE PRINT PREVIEW is all very nice but does not address
the reality which is that the removal of this particular function surely
qualifies as a Downgrade in a piece of software to which I thought I was
Upgrading.

I hope that MS will put Print Preview back in the next upgrade of Office 2008
for Mac, otherwise I will return mine to my vender and go back Office 2004 for
Mac and be on the lookout for appropriate substitutes in the marketplace.

Mr. Greenblatt, can you comment on any of this or on whether some of these
deletions might be addressed in the next upgrade.

Thanks,

Thomas

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Phillip Jones]

Well if you set something then have to go to preview, then quit preview
go back and set something else or adjust again, then go to print
preview and look again. Because what you see on the screen doesn't
necessarily print like you see it on the screen to get it exactly right.
some times can take 20 minutes.

But I opened a document just now and didn't even see where to adjust
margins or columns. although I now I use to have that ability. may it
was dumbed down from 2001 or even Excel5.

Hmm... I use the XL04 feature often, and I find nowhere the ability to
"adjust...font sizes and other formatting."

Perhaps you were thinking of Word, instead?

In XL04's Print Preview mode, you can adjust margins and column widths
(and the latter has always been a bit flaky), but that's it.

You *can* of course, change font sizes and other formatting in Print
Layout view in either XL04 or XL08. You can also set column widths and
margins in that view.

But if it takes 20 extra minutes to set those column widths and margins,
I suspect you're not working very efficiently.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Phillip -

As you, yourself, suggested I believe you're confusing Print Preview in
Excel with capabilities of Print Preview in Word. Word's Print Preview
defaults to a Magnifier behavior but there is a button to turn the Magnifier
mode Off so you can edit the document. Word 2008 still works the same way.

Also, Page Layout View in Excel permits the adjustment of your margins by
using the Ruler just like you can in a Word document window.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Never mind, at some point in word and excel you could grab vertical and
horizontal lines and dynamically resize a document. as well as change
Fonts size of the entire document. maybe it was in 2001 or even in
word6/Excel5. I can't find it may be it was some customizing I had done
at one point. I don't see it now. My apologies. So the way I see it
setup now its not much different than going to print menu and call up
Preview application. its still a few more steps.

Hi Thomas -

It's certainly understandable that some might not be happy with the change,
but there isn't much we in the newsgroup can do about it - we're users of
the product just like you, not MS employees if you want to register your
dissatisfaction where it will count, use Help> Send Feedback form Excel's
menu & fully support your preference.

When you do, though, it would be best if you have your facts straight
Print Preview has never supported *any* formatting changes to the sheets for
the very reasons Bob G. expressed - Print Preview is generated by the
printer driver & the OS and was simply hosted by the program. To that end,
Apple's OS X guidelines have been moving toward channeling developers toward
the Preview application interface provided by the OS.

What you are recalling is Page Break Preview - a totally separate & distinct
view which allowed formatting changes plus other sheet editing & page break
adjustment but didn't allow margin changes or other Setup options without
launching the Page Setup dialog.

Page Break Preview was replaced in 2008 by Page Layout View, which is more
or less a hybrid of the two but doesn't provide all the functionality of
either. Margins can be adjusted via the Ruler and all editing is enabled,
you just can't move the page breaks. [Quite frankly, that "feature" has
caused more grief & aggravation for most people due to its tendency to
impose unwanted scaling as well as induce other anomalies.] Additionally
Page Layout View allows direct access to Headers & Footers as well as other
Page Setup options (through the Formatting Palette) without having to launch
the Page Setup dialog.

It is unequivocally *different* than what we're used to, but many who have
chosen to work with it find that it's more versatile, more convenient and
overall an improvement over the old UI.

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

Dear Mr. Bob Greenblatt and Mr. Phillip Jones,

I did not mean to make the print preview function in Excel 2004 for Mac seem
simplistic. I did say you could "make corrections" and "generally
troubleshoot" a workbook as a way of avoiding detailing the many things that
could be tweaked from the Print Preview menu in the old version. But you are
right, Mr. Jones, there is almost no formatting issue that you could not
address in Print Preview 2004. And so it became an extremely valuable
timesaver (and paper saver). As Mr. Jones suggested, now you have to go
through many, many more steps to achieve the same result.

I would suggest, Mr. Greenblatt, that perhaps you never had occasion to use
the old Print Preview function. I am sure that if you were familiar with its
many capabilities you would not as quickly have decided it was removed
because
"printing is a function of the OS". To someone knowledgeable, that statement
is misleading at best and I am reasonably sure that you would not mislead
Mactopia users with forethought or foreknowledge.

The Print Preview function 2004 had less to do with printing and more to do
with the ability to quickly and efficiently correct any and all formatting
mistakes. Those mistakes, of course, become more visible in a print preview
mode and the ability to make those adjustments right from Print Preview
constituted a very valuable timesaver.

Quick and efficient functionality would certainly be at the top of most
programmers list of Important Things To Maintain When Upgrading Software, so
for Microsoft to glibly and rigidly proclaim that PRINTING IS A FUNCTION OF
THE OS AND ERGO... NO MORE PRINT PREVIEW is all very nice but does not
address
the reality which is that the removal of this particular function surely
qualifies as a Downgrade in a piece of software to which I thought I was
Upgrading.

I hope that MS will put Print Preview back in the next upgrade of Office
2008
for Mac, otherwise I will return mine to my vender and go back Office 2004
for
Mac and be on the lookout for appropriate substitutes in the marketplace.

Mr. Greenblatt, can you comment on any of this or on whether some of these
deletions might be addressed in the next upgrade.

Thanks,

Thomas

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Well, I'm not really going to get into this other than to say that I've been
using Excel for over 20 years, and yes, I have actually used print preview
once or twice before. Have you not yet discovered that you CAN adjust the
margins in page layout view?

 

[Phillip Jones]

yes but only by going to main menu Format Document.

there is no way to to drag Margins side to side dynamically as you use
to be able to do in Print Preview.

But the discussion is moot as I can't find that ability in 2004 or 2008,
I know it was in Excel 5 and possibly 2001. but its not there now.

so let's just move on. Even if it just shows a true representation of
what it looks like printed in nothing else. tweaking formating still
requires invoking Print Preview a secondary application. and in order to
see changes you make you have to close the file your seeing in Print
Preview then go back to Excel make changes and do it again.

If you use the same format over and over you could just create a blank
document and save as template. But I don't know anyone that does that,
No two Excel files I create look a like. Because they always serve
different purposes.

Years ago when I first started out as Treasurer of an association I
belonged to, I made my Treasurers report using Excel then I used a
pre-saved Blank document for each year. Then I switched to quicken. And
even when I retired as Treasurer last summer I still used an Excel file
for my budget, I would just reuse the old file, and insert new info. But
otherwise my excel documents are different in formatting from one to
another.

So what I use to be able to do is no longer there. Your right.

Well, I'm not really going to get into this other than to say that I've been
using Excel for over 20 years, and yes, I have actually used print preview
once or twice before. Have you not yet discovered that you CAN adjust the
margins in page layout view?

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET |LIFE MEMBER: VPEA ETA-I, NESDA, ISCET, Sterling
616 Liberty Street |Who's Who. PHONE:276-632-5045, FAX:276-632-0868
Martinsville Va 24112 |[email protected], ICQ11269732, AIM pjonescet
------------------------------------------------------------------------

If it's "fixed", don't "break it"!

mailto[email protected]

<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/90th_Birthday/index.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Fulcher/default.html>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Harris/default.htm>
<http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/Jones/default.htm>

<http://www.vpea.org>

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

yes but only by going to main menu Format Document.

there is no way to to drag Margins side to side dynamically as you use
to be able to do in Print Preview.

Of course there is. Just drag the margins n the ruler.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

yes but only by going to main menu Format Document.
No.

there is no way to to drag Margins side to side dynamically as you use
to be able to do in Print Preview.

Just drag the margins in the ruler! Works in XL04 or XL08 Page Layout
view.