What in Office 2004 is worth the upgrade price from Office v.X?

[D Denholm]

Don't get me wrong... I like my Office v.X and I certainly appreciate
the fact that MS has the MacBU and is supporting MS Office products on
OS X.

BUT, I have read the list of new features for Office 2004 and I don't
see anything compelling... The sort of thing that might have
attracted my interest would be VBA compatibility with the WindowsXP
versions of the Office suite... And the same sort of XML support as is
offered on the XP side. But my understanding is that neither is part
of the upgrade.

I presume a bunch of folks out there *are* upgrading... What are the
features you think justify the upgrade cost?

--Doug

 

[Charles Fletcher]

What are the features you think justify the upgrade cost?

I preordered Office 2004, and have now been using it since late last week.

I have been using Office regularly for several years now, and am impressed
by the changes. My work keeps me home full-time telecommuting. I work with a
group of people distributed all over the United States and Europe. Together
we prepare reports about the healthcare industry for a financial advisor
based in San Francisco.

To do this work, most of the time we work in teams, using copies of the same
Excel workbooks, then integrating them together and tallying the results.
Then one of us writes a report, which then gets passed around the
organization for rewrites. Finally the text is placed in Adobe InDesign and
the finished product is published as a pdf.

What improvements in Office 2004 impress me? First off, the Project Center.
I have already incorporated this tool into my work and immediately began
reaping the benefits, not only in being able to easily spot incoming
project-related mail, but also having a very usable control center for my
projects.

I have not yet used the change tracking improvements. However, I am looking
forward to seeing how they work. Change tracking is a regular part of my
work, and I like the idea of the balloon option for displaying them.

The Toolbox has also been a big boon. A lot of my tasks involve cutting and
pasting groups of clips from one file to another. I already used the Office
Clipboard quite a lot. The improvements in the Scrapbook have been welcome.
Also the context-sensitive button that pops up to allow the user to select
the paste format is very useful. I've used it several times in just the past
few days.

The dictionary, also integrated into the Toolbox is much improved and the
now integrated thesaurus, with its new listing of the meanings of various
synonyms is great.

The improvements to the AppleScript functionality are also very nice. I use
Office in concert with FileMaker Pro 7, and have programmed scripts that
automatically create e-mails and events. The improved scripting allows me to
better control the way these scripts do their jobs.

Finally, I appreciate the fact that Office programs do their jobs a little
more quickly and effectively than before by virtue of some work behind the
scenes.

Believe me, I would love to obtain all these improvements without the cost.
But I understand that it costs money for vendors to develop and support
their products. So on that basis, it was worth the expense to purchase the
upgrade.

It is a very nice product. It's a pleasure to use, and I look forward to
starting it up each morning.

Charlie Fletcher
Senior Reporter, Healthcare
Off the Record Research LLC
http://offtherecordresearch.com

 

[Tim Murray]

I presume a bunch of folks out there *are* upgrading... What are the

features you think justify the upgrade cost?

I was not thrilled. Most of the new features I don't need (yet), and I was
looking more on the side of improving on old annoyances. I had mentioned some
of these in a post "Shortcomings of Macintosh Office 2004" posted 13 April.

IN WORD ============================

You still can't delete Heading N styles.

When you do a Insert > Picture > From File, you get that usual dialog to
locate your file. Problem is that in a multicolumn view, you can't change
column widths. You can widen the entire dialog ... merely giving you a number
of useless blank columns on the right.

An Insert > Picture > From file always selects Save With Document. I'd prefer
it to remember the previous choice, or provide a preference.

The Insert > Picture > From File dialog box doesn't conform to the keyboard
usage standards (tab, space, etc.).

Word still places that death grip on linked files. For example, say you
import a graphic into a doc and then open the graphic in a graphics program.
If you try to save the graphic you can't because it's locked by Word ... even
if you close the document. You must exit Word.

[HAVE NOT REVERIFIED THIS ONE IN 2004:] Word's issues with screwing up
graphics it relinks is still there.

Doing a Font Substitution still doesn't always "take". In other words, if you
replace A with B, when you come back to the dialog, A is still there.

IN POWERPOINT ======================

Doing a Replace Font still doesn't always "take". In other words, if you
replace A with B, when you come back to the dialog, A is still there.

[NEW ONE]: I think it's rather slow.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

You still can't delete Heading N styles.

Not sure why you singled out Heading styles. I doubt you'll ever be able
to delete any of the 161 default styles. You don't have to use them, of
course.

Just out of curiousity, why would you want to delete the Heading N
styles? Why not just not use them?

When you do a Insert > Picture > From File, you get that usual dialog to
locate your file. Problem is that in a multicolumn view, you can't change
column widths. You can widen the entire dialog ... merely giving you a number
of useless blank columns on the right.

Yeah, this is a pain in Apple's iTunes, Adobe's Acrobat and GoLive, and
Mozilla's Firefox too. Let MS know (Help/Feedback).

An Insert > Picture > From file always selects Save With Document. I'd prefer
it to remember the previous choice, or provide a preference.

I'd agree, though since I'm always sending docs to others, it doesn't
bother me a bit.

The Insert > Picture > From File dialog box doesn't conform to the keyboard
usage standards (tab, space, etc.).

Tab cycles through the controls in the dialog, for me. Space opens
dropdowns. What do you expect to happen?

Word still places that death grip on linked files. For example, say you
import a graphic into a doc and then open the graphic in a graphics program.
If you try to save the graphic you can't because it's locked by Word ... even
if you close the document. You must exit Word.

I can't reproduce that using Word04 and GraphicConverter. I insert a
linked picture in a Word doc, then open the graphic in GraphicConverter,
make a few changes, then save it. Closing and opening the document shows
the modified picture, without having to exit Word.

[HAVE NOT REVERIFIED THIS ONE IN 2004:] Word's issues with screwing up
graphics it relinks is still there.

Can't tell whether or not this still applies, since you don't say what
"issues" you're talking about

Doing a Font Substitution still doesn't always "take". In other words, if you
replace A with B, when you come back to the dialog, A is still there.

Which dialog are you talking about? Font substitution has worked
flawlessly for me in Word04 for months. Do you have specific examples?

 

[Barry Wainwright]

When you do a Insert > Picture > From File, you get that usual dialog to
locate your file. Problem is that in a multicolumn view, you can't change
column widths. You can widen the entire dialog ... merely giving you a number
of useless blank columns on the right.

So, switch to list view - and back again, when you need to. It's only a
click of an icon in the file navigation window.

 

[Dayo Mitchell]

Side note: I've just figured out what has been confusing me ever since your
first post way back when--it's the disjunction between the subject line and
the complaints you have. If Office 2004 *had* fixed the first five
annoyances you mention, that still wouldn't make it worth a $200 upgrade...

DM

I presume a bunch of folks out there *are* upgrading... What are the
features you think justify the upgrade cost?

I was not thrilled. Most of the new features I don't need (yet), and I was
looking more on the side of improving on old annoyances. I had mentioned some
of these in a post "Shortcomings of Macintosh Office 2004" posted 13 April.

IN WORD ============================

You still can't delete Heading N styles.

When you do a Insert > Picture > From File, you get that usual dialog to
locate your file. Problem is that in a multicolumn view, you can't change
column widths. You can widen the entire dialog ... merely giving you a number
of useless blank columns on the right.

An Insert > Picture > From file always selects Save With Document. I'd prefer
it to remember the previous choice, or provide a preference.

The Insert > Picture > From File dialog box doesn't conform to the keyboard
usage standards (tab, space, etc.).

Word still places that death grip on linked files. For example, say you
import a graphic into a doc and then open the graphic in a graphics program.
If you try to save the graphic you can't because it's locked by Word ... even
if you close the document. You must exit Word.

[HAVE NOT REVERIFIED THIS ONE IN 2004:] Word's issues with screwing up
graphics it relinks is still there.

Doing a Font Substitution still doesn't always "take". In other words, if you
replace A with B, when you come back to the dialog, A is still there.

IN POWERPOINT ======================

Doing a Replace Font still doesn't always "take". In other words, if you
replace A with B, when you come back to the dialog, A is still there.

[NEW ONE]: I think it's rather slow.

 

[Jammer Six]

€ Just out of curiousity, why would you want to delete the Heading N
€ styles? Why not just not use them?

Because then you have to hunt for the style you *do* want to use in the
pile of styles that you don't want to use, and will never want to use.

This problem isn't unique to heading styles, it applies to all the
styles that I've used in Word.

A long list of default styles is only a good thing if two things are
both true: that I will someday want to use them, and if they never get
in my way until that day comes.

If you can't remove them, and set the list up the way you want it,
they're in the way.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

A long list of default styles is only a good thing if two things are
both true: that I will someday want to use them, and if they never get
in my way until that day comes.

I'd agree if a long list of styles was what was presented, but it's not
in XL04.

In the Format/Style... dialog set the List dropdown to "Styles in use"
to show only styles actually used in the current document. You can do
this in v.X, too.

In the Formatting palette's Style pane, only Headings 1-3 and Normal are
listed unless you use others. Not a long list at all.

Personally, I prefer even more efficiency. For every template I design,
I both assign keyboard shortcuts to styles and build my own style bar
with just the styles I want for that particular template. Takes a couple
of minutes to set up for a new template, but then I don't have to look
through any list at all. Ever.

 

[Tim Murray]

Side note: I've just figured out what has been confusing me ever since your
first post way back when--it's the disjunction between the subject line and
the complaints you have. If Office 2004 *had* fixed the first five
annoyances you mention, that still wouldn't make it worth a $200 upgrade...

I tend to upgrade just for the heck of it. I'm not rich or anything, but I
have the money, and I'm one of those "early adopters". That means my "worth"
is far less meaningful than most others would use. No, wait, there is one
key element I needed big-time: long file names. So yes, for me, it was worth
it, if only for that.

 

[Tim Murray]

Not sure why you singled out Heading styles. I doubt you'll ever be able
to delete any of the 161 default styles. You don't have to use them, of
course.

Just out of curiousity, why would you want to delete the Heading N
styles? Why not just not use them?

You can delete most of them, actually. I just like to keep my style list to
what I use.

Tab cycles through the controls in the dialog, for me. Space opens
dropdowns. What do you expect to happen?

For example, Tab to the Link check box and press Space, which should
select/deselect the box. On my machine, the Space bar is ignored.

I can't reproduce that using Word04 and GraphicConverter. I insert a
linked picture in a Word doc, then open the graphic in GraphicConverter,
make a few changes, then save it. Closing and opening the document shows
the modified picture, without having to exit Word.

Doesn't work for me with Illustrator. It will open, but I can't save. I get
an error something like 'another processes is using the file'.

[HAVE NOT REVERIFIED THIS ONE IN 2004:] Word's issues with screwing up
graphics it relinks is still there.

Can't tell whether or not this still applies, since you don't say what
"issues" you're talking about

It has a tendency to resize graphics. Windows does it too.

Which dialog are you talking about? Font substitution has worked
flawlessly for me in Word04 for months. Do you have specific examples?

I'm talking about the Preferences > Compatability > Font Substitution. It
happens most often with a font like Times New Roman. And it tends to fail in
Windows, too.

 

[Jammer Six]

€ In the Format/Style... dialog set the List dropdown to "Styles in use"
€ to show only styles actually used in the current document. You can do
€ this in v.X, too.

Thank you!