Hello world - about Office Mac and Office 12 for PC

[Phillip M. Jones, CE.T.]

It been a while since I've posted. Have had other concerns lately.

I've read recently that Office PC (version 12) will be strictly XML as
far as document format.

What does this do to or for the Mac version. will a Mac Update be issued
that will write documents in XML format. OR are going to be orphaned
step-child for two or three years as usual?
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[Michel Bintener]

Have a look at this website, a Mac BU employee's blog:
<http://blogs.msdn.com/rick_schaut/default.aspx>. Scroll down until you see
an article called "Microsoft Office Open XML Formats". In it, Rick Schaut
says the following:

 

[Phillip M. Jones, CE.T.]

Have a look at this website, a Mac BU employee's blog:
<http://blogs.msdn.com/rick_schaut/default.aspx>. Scroll down until you see
an article called "Microsoft Office Open XML Formats". In it, Rick Schaut
says the following:

It does sound as though that Office12 (whatever its named) for Mac will
much later coming out than for the PC platform. Even though It does seem
to say that converter will be shipped to make Office2004 Talk PC Office 12.

--
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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"!

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<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>

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

It does sound as though that Office12 (whatever its named) for Mac will
much later coming out than for the PC platform. Even though It does seem
to say that converter will be shipped to make Office2004 Talk PC Office 12.

That's always the case. It's the only way they can make the Mac version
compatible with the most recent Windows version. They have to wait for the
Windows version features to be locked down. Generally the Mac version name
is one year later than the Windows name (97/98, 2000/2001, 2002 XP/X,
2003/2004) with one odd-man-out there. It's not always a full 12 months
between, but this time, given MacIntel issues and file formats on top of
everything else, I'd expect it to be longer than usual, if anything. That's
just a total guess - I have no inside information.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi Phillip:

Welcome back!

"Strictly XML" is not correct. The new Office 12 "native file format" will
be compressed XML. It will continue to read and write the binary .doc
format as well.

So you get a new format by default, but can continue to use the old format
if you want to.

However, I would advise people not to use the .doc format if they can avoid
it: the XML format will have a huge number of advantages, most particularly,
it should be free of the document corruption problems that have occurred
with the binary format.

We do not know what this means for Mac Office. The new version of Mac
Office will certainly read and write the new XML format, that much we do
know. And there will be a converter available for earlier versions of OS X
Office (i.e. The converter will run in OS X but not in previous versions of
Mac OS). If it's like the one they made when they last switched formats, it
will mean the older versions can read but not write the new format.

I'm with Paul on the timing of the next release. Microsoft's stated policy
is to bring the PC and Mac releases of Office closer together, but I
seriously do not see them achieving that this time, they have three times as
much work to do

I suggest that Win Office 12 will run late: they have a very small team (by
Win Office standards...) making a very large change. And I suspect the Mac
team will need 12 months after that just to catch up.

There's my guess: same as Paul's, but my level of knowledge is also the same
as Paul's: we just don't know.

Cheers

It been a while since I've posted. Have had other concerns lately.

I've read recently that Office PC (version 12) will be strictly XML as
far as document format.

What does this do to or for the Mac version. will a Mac Update be issued
that will write documents in XML format. OR are going to be orphaned
step-child for two or three years as usual?

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 4 1209 1410