MS Office 2004 VERDICT?

[Guest]

Hi folks,

I'm reinstalling OS X Panther on a new HD to use as my boot drive. I am
considering upgrading Office to 2004 from X, but I have a few questions:
1. How buggy is this version and should I wait till the first update/bug
fix?
2. Does the Pro version include the new Virtual PC 7? Or give a free upgrade
to that when it comes out?

I am currently having a serious problem with Word X and I've tried deleting
my normal template with no success.

Here are the symptoms, which I hope would be cured by 2004, but if others
are still having this delay I don't want to pay good money to have the same
problems:

Word will Crash on open sometimes, usually if I have Extensis Suitcase
turned off, which means that some fonts Word needs aren't available I'm
guessing, BUT with Suitcase X11 turned on, Word spins and spins and takes
about 5 minutes for a document window to allow me to input text.

Entourage is basically great as long as I do not use Mail Views [ then
applescripts screw up badly] and it often crashes when I drag mail from my
inbox to an IMAP box.

Thanks
Jeff

 

[Beth Rosengard]

Hi Jeff,

You'll get a more thorough response here if you post a separate message for
each problem (with an appropriate title) instead of lumping them together.
I can't answer your questions about 2004 because I'm still in 2001 myself;
but I do have a suggestion about your crashing problem.

It sounds like you have duplicate or corrupt fonts. Go through the
procedures at the following URL to fix this problem:
<http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313535>

As for your Entourage issue, I suggest you post to the Entourage newsgroup
(microsoft.public.mac.office.entourage).

In general, it sounds to me like your issues have nothing to do with your
version of Office. They should be fixable in Office X.

--
Beth Rosengard
Mac MVP

Mac Word FAQ: <http://word.mvps.org/MacWordNew/index.htm>
Entourage Help Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org>

 

[tuqqer]

Hi Jeff,

Instead of answering the specific questions, I'll just offer this as
my experience so far: Word 2004 is slower than Word X. Even on "the
world's fastest computer" G5 2Ghz with 3 gigs of RAM. Like 15 seconds
spinning balls upon opening a document. Like pauses each time you
backward delete, or create a new bullet list. Just many short pauses
here and there.

While speed is not everyone's main criteria, it is mine. If an upgrade
slows a program down, it makes it hard for me to see all the other
advantages.

Is it worth the upgrade from X? Not by a long shot, in my opinion. I
will keep it installed, simply because I paid for it, and I do like
Entourage's new improvements.

 

[Guest]

Hi Jeff,

Instead of answering the specific questions, I'll just offer this as
my experience so far: Word 2004 is slower than Word X. Even on "the
world's fastest computer" G5 2Ghz with 3 gigs of RAM. Like 15 seconds
spinning balls upon opening a document. Like pauses each time you
backward delete, or create a new bullet list. Just many short pauses
here and there.

Thanks. I'll wait till the updates fix this problem . I did find that some
startup file pdfMaker.dot was killing my program. Why don't you see if you
have that one in
Applications/MSOffice/Startup folder and remove it and then see if your
speed improves...
Jeff

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

2. Does the Pro version include the new Virtual PC 7? Or give a free upgrade
to that when it comes out?

Not in 2004 yet, re your main point, but I believe that if you buy Pro now,
they just don't send it to you until VPC is ready to go with it. I think
there are people out there who have been waiting for their free upgrade
since 2004 first came out, at least no one has reported differently. (For
all we know, Pro and the first update will come out together)

So while you put off making your decision until Pro is ready, you can
entertain yourself by browsing the five Mac.office newsgroups and seeing
what people think of 2004. Depending on what functions you need and use, it
may or may not be worth your money. I just noticed a good pro/con post on
the entourage group under subject "Re: Successes with Entourage 2004 with
older G4's". You could use Google groups to search on terms that are key to
the way you use Office to see if there are reported problems.

But note that Beth is right--never assume that installing a new version will
fix crashing problems, unless there is a KB article out there promising it,
and you know exactly what is causing your problem. There is a free test
drive, however, from mactopia.com, so you can try before you buy. Adding a
second version of Office to your currently unstable situation, however,
might not be a good idea.

On the speed issue by the way, the thread on this ng, subject "Word 2004
painfully slow on G5" has three people reporting slowness and three people
saying they find it fast. Nobody who claimed slowness (including tuqqer)
has reported back that they tried the suggested fixes without seeing a
change, so who knows?

DM

 

[Guest]

On 8/16/04 6:00 PM, in article
BD46A6A9.3AE83%[email protected], "Dayo Mitchell"

Thanks dayo

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I'll wait till the updates fix this problem .

Note that there's no guarantee that updates will fix tuqqer's problem.
I'm on a 1.3GHz G4 PB, and I don't see anything like what he/she does.
I've never had a file take 15 seconds to open (even multi-megabyte files
with tons of graphics and tables), or seen a delay on a backward delete.
I'm not saying that tuqqer's problems aren't real, just that *my*
experience is different, so they may not be entirely attributable to
Word.

For me there are a few functions that are slower in Word 2004. For
example, scrolling is one, but that's related to the new display engine
that Word 2004 has in order to handle Unicode. While updates *may* make
that faster, it's probably never going to be as fast as Word v.X on the
same machine. But neither will Word v.X display Unicode.

OTOH, for most of my purposes, Word 2004 is as fast or faster than Word
v.X.

While there are legitimate reasons for waiting to upgrade, giving up
Project Center, Unicode, long file names, notebook view, thumbnails on
the navigation pane (which eliminate long scrolls for me), scrapbook and
reference tools, and a greatly improved Formatting Palette (not to
mention the vast improvement to Entourage and the incremental
improvements in XL) to wait for a phantom update doesn't make much sense
to me...

I'd recommend downloading Test Drive to see what you experience before
deciding...

 

[Guest]

While there are legitimate reasons for waiting to upgrade, giving up
Project Center, Unicode, long file names, notebook view, thumbnails on
the navigation pane (which eliminate long scrolls for me), scrapbook and
reference tools, and a greatly improved Formatting Palette (not to
mention the vast improvement to Entourage and the incremental
improvements in XL) to wait for a phantom update doesn't make much sense
to me...

I'd recommend downloading Test Drive to see what you

Thanks for your input.
Jeff