Missing Features in Excel 2008!?

[Bob Greenblatt]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the reply, I have been onto Microsoft Technical Support for both of
these issues and they have confirmed that both are 'missing' from the Mac
Excel 2008.

However, I WANT this to be wrong, can you tell me where in the Toolbar I can
align labels etc. and also how you can reference a cell for a chart title, as
I cannot find these anywhere in Excel 2008 for the Mac.

Thanks again for the response,

Annoyed and then some...

With one or more labels selected (in a chart or other objects on the sheet)
in the Drawing toolbar, under the format object icon there is a choice for
various alignments.

You can add a chart title from the Chart options section of the formatting
palette. Then with the title selected, in the formula bar, enter an equal
sign and then click on the cell containing the chart title. Changing the
contents of this cell, will of course change the chart title whenever the
chart is recalculated.

If this is not what you want. Please try to explain you requests in more
detail.

 

[Pat McMillan]

Bob's right about the ability to use a cell reference as a chart title. That
functionality still exists in Excel 2008.

"Annoyed and then some" is right that the ability to automatically align
data labels on charts is missing in 2008. We are actually aware of that
omission and are hoping to bring it back in a future update.

Thanks,

Pat

 

[Annoyed and then some]

Hello Pat & Bob,

Thanks for the replies, much appreciated.

I have no managed to get chart titles to reference, though it's behaviour is odd and intermittent, sometimes it's happy to reference a cell, other time it won't. Most odd.

As for data labels, I have tried highlighting these,Bob, and using the drawing tool options but they are all greyed out. Pat has confirmed that you can no longer automatically align data labels on graphs. (I'm talking the data labels, not the axis or title labels).

Bob, if you have got this to work, I'd love to see it?

Thanks,

Annoyed and then some...

 

[RaCalc]

I would like to put my two cents in about Missing Features in Excel 2008. I am really disappointed there is no longer a "print preview" and "page break" view. I used those features extensively. What is the benefit of this new version? It just made my job more difficult.

 

[Homer]

I couldn't agree more - I'm almost to the point of asking for my money back (likelyhood of that happening?) I have reported all missing features etc. via the software to Microsoft but I doubt anything will happen.

Don't even get me started on the Macro issues....

I guess Mac's own iWorks can't be that far behind this version of Office????

Annoyed and then some...

 

[roblake]

Homer asked "I couldn't agree more - I'm almost to the point of asking for my money back (likelyhood of that happening?) "

The likelihood is certain, in my experience. When it was clear that Excel 2008 was feature-crippled, I followed Microsoft's instructions on their Web site, filled out the form there, sent it in with the receipt, and got a relatively prompt-for-the-industry refund check.

 

[Annoyed and then some]

Hi Roblake,

I'm based in the UK, I'd love to know where on Microsofts website I can go about getting a refund, can you advise?

Thanks,

Annoyed and then some

Homer asked "I couldn't agree more - I'm almost to the point of asking
for my money back (likelyhood of that happening?) "





The likelihood is certain, in my experience. When it was clear that Excel
2008 was feature-crippled, I followed Microsoft's instructions on their
Web site, filled out the form there, sent it in with the receipt, and
got a relatively prompt-for-the-industry refund check.

 

[Anna Barnes]

Me too !!! Was there an apple update that intefered with this version of excel. Its most annoying. I can't add titles or legends or anything. Not to mention that whenever I try to source data or copy a graph into word it crashes !

thanks
Anna

I was running Excel 2008 on Macbook Pro with Leopard 10.5.1. When I tried
to add Y error bars on my column chart, I found that there is no way to
customize the error bars. The "custom" feature in Excel 2004 (Mac) and
2007 (PC) is somehow missing in Office 2008.





Any suggestion?

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Me too !!! Was there an apple update that intefered with this version of
excel. Its most annoying. I can't add titles or legends or anything. Not to
mention that whenever I try to source data or copy a graph into word it
crashes !

thanks
Anna

I was running Excel 2008 on Macbook Pro with Leopard 10.5.1. When I
tried
to add Y error bars on my column chart, I found that there is no way to
customize the error bars. The "custom" feature in Excel 2004 (Mac) and
2007 (PC) is somehow missing in Office 2008.





Any suggestion?

I don't know about the WORD crash, but the 12.1.1 update fixed a lot of
chart issues. With the chart selected have you looked in the formatting
palette? Go to the chart formatting section and you'll find what you thought
was missing.

 

[Tracy]

Outstanding - just what I needed. THANKS!

It's very easy to create a chart with two vertical axes - and it looks
cool. Just make a chart with two or more series of data. The select the
series (one by the time), double click to format it and choose "Axis".
There you can select to use the primary (lefthandside) or secondary (righthandside)
axis for that particular series. The second axis then appears of course
automatically and can be formatted as appropriate.





Hope that helps...





And hopefully anybody here to help me assigning data as labels for the
horizontal axis!

 

[Guest]

I cannot believe that Excel 2008 no longer supports VB macros. Like them
or not they were essential to automating serious spreadsheets. I and I
suspect many other serious users will never upgrade until support for
VB macros is reinstated. Do you really expect me to rewrite all my spreadsheets
using Apple's scripting??

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I cannot believe that Excel 2008 no longer supports VB macros. Like them
or not they were essential to automating serious spreadsheets. I and I
suspect many other serious users will never upgrade until support for
VB macros is reinstated. Do you really expect me to rewrite all my
spreadsheets
using Apple's scripting??

No. The fact that Office was not going to support VBA was published LONG
before Office 2008 was released. It should not be surprise to you. If you do
not want to rewrite your macros the only alternative is to remain with
office 2004 and wait until the next version of Office is released. That
version WILL have VBA support.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I cannot believe that Excel 2008 no longer supports VB macros.

Hmmm... the fact that VBA would not be included in Office 2008 was
announced in, IIRC, August 2006, so I'm not sure why you wouldn't
believe it two years later...

Like them or not they were essential to automating serious
spreadsheets. I and I suspect many other serious users will
never upgrade until support for VB macros is reinstated.

Good call. That's what many of my clients are doing. Not a big deal for
them. YMMV.

And since the next version of Mac Office *will* include VBA, waiting may
be a viable path forward. Another alternative is to switch to Office
2007 on a virtual machine.

Do you really expect me to rewrite all my spreadsheets using
Apple's scripting??

Nobody here has any particular expectation of what you will or won't do.
We're (almost) all users (i.e., non-MS people). If you want to talk to
MS, use Help/Send Feedback

FWIW, I've converted a very few of my VBA macros to Applescripts to make
working with XL08 tolerable, and use XL04 for 90% of my work. But if you
have VBA macros that are even slightly sophisticated, it's (a) probably
not possible, and (b) probably not worth it.

 

[LarryB]

Just installed Office 2008 and came to use Excel. Can't find the following
that were in 2004, can any one help? 1. Print Preview command button 2.
Page break view 3. How to create a chart with two vertical axes





Also as an observation the Adobe Acrobat "create pdf" tool bar does not
do anything now. Have to use print and save as pdf. Time consuming!

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Just installed Office 2008 and came to use Excel. Can't find the
following
that were in 2004, can any one help? 1. Print Preview command button 2.
Page break view 3. How to create a chart with two vertical axes





Also as an observation the Adobe Acrobat "create pdf" tool bar does not
do anything now. Have to use print and save as pdf. Time consuming!

1. There is no print Preview in Excel 2008. Excel is using Apple's preferred
method of using the preview window in the print dialog. You can use page
layout view to see the page breaks.
2. Create the chart and then select the series. Go to Format series, select
axis and select plot on secondary axis.
3. Adobe acrobat toolbar has been no end of trouble in past versions. It
does not work because it requires VBA. Be glad it does not work it was
extremely buggy. Save to PDF from the print dialog is the best and preferred
way (even when the acrobat tool bar sort of worked.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Larry -

The Print Preview button is missing because Print Preview is gone ‹ as is
Page Break Preview.

They've been supplanted by Page Layout View & File> Print> Preview [using
the Preview app supplied in OS X].

I'm afraid I can't help on the Acrobat toolbar as I disabled that centuries
ago... Command+P to the PDF button is quick enough for me

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

 

[Stefann]

You say "For versions other than XL08." The question was specifically about version 2008. Again, why are there no Add-Ins like Analysis Toolpack and Solver?

What do I tell my statistics students who have purchased Excel 2008 for my class and now find that it is in fact a useless stripped-down version of Excel 2004 that lacks all the important Add-Ins?

 

[Stefann]

come on just give Mac users Data analysis, microsoft can do this, come on!

If you want to send a message to MS, use Help/Send Feedback...

None of your fellow users that post here can implement Data Analysis.

OTOH, users have (many times) posted alternatives to the wizards in the
ATP (all the *functions* are now part of XL itself).

The major downside to these alternatives is that you need to actually
know what you're doing with the statistical analysis, rather than just
following a cookbook.
[/QUOTE]

Well my statistics students do **not** yet "know what they are doing with statistical analysis" (that is why they are students) and would be lost without the "cookbook" help of the data analysis toolpak menus. I am now faced with a large number of students in my classes (they bring their own laptops to class) confronted with the fact that they have purchased a useless stripped-down version of Excel. They will now need to try to obtain refunds and **upgrade** to Excel 2004.

 

[Paul Salzman]

This is really a problem and inexcusable. What's the point of using Excel without this? Why take a step backwards?

I would like to put my two cents in about Missing Features in Excel 2008.
I am really disappointed there is no longer a "print preview" and "page
break" view. I used those features extensively. What is the benefit of
this new version? It just made my job more difficult.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

This is really a problem and inexcusable. What's the point of using Excel
without this? Why take a step backwards?

As someone who uses XL every day, and *never* used page break preview,
and doesn't mind using the system's print preview feature, I'd say the
point of using XL is "to do work".

For my needs, and for most of my clients, we're not affected by the
removals, which were almost certainly done as part of the effort to ship
Office 2008 sometime this decade.

However, your needs obviously are different, so make sure you tell *MS*
by using Help/Send Feedback. Make sure you give a justification - how
much your company would use it; whether you'd pay more for an upgrade if
those features were included again. That could help MacBU prioritize it
against other feature requests.