Why doesn't Office 2008 support Services

[mtennes]

Apparently Office 2008 applications, while being advertised as more Mac like, do not support the Services that the operating system (10.5.2 for me) makes available for every application. This is a huge disappointment. Apple's Stickies supports this! Why can't a $300+ application support it?

Beware when calling Microsoft Technical Support, I called on this issue several time and got a different answer each time. The worst being that I had to reinstall my operating system and Office 2008.

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

No one here knows why, though it's nice of you to warn others.

To make sure that MS hears your voice and counts your vote, you need to
either:

Use Help | Send Feedback in the appropriate Office app.
or
Visit the suggestions website:
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/suggestions.mspx

It would likely have more weight if you gave a few examples of what you
would do with services and how not having them hurts you.

 

[Michel Bintener]

To be fair, Entourage *does* support Services. This comes as a surprise to
many users because they don't actually try using them in Entourage, having
noticed that they do not work in Word, PowerPoint or Excel. My guess is that
this is because Entourage's code is much younger than any of the other
apps'; in addition, Entourage is a Mac-only program, while the other three
all have their Win Office counterparts.

Apparently Office 2008 applications, while being advertised as more Mac like,
do not support the Services that the operating system (10.5.2 for me) makes
available for every application. This is a huge disappointment. Apple's
Stickies supports this! Why can't a $300+ application support it?

Beware when calling Microsoft Technical Support, I called on this issue
several time and got a different answer each time. The worst being that I had
to reinstall my operating system and Office 2008.

--
Michel Bintener
Microsoft MVP
Office:mac (Entourage & Word)

*** Please always reply to the newsgroup. ***

 

[CyberTaz]

I can't tell you "why" but I can tell you that MS is not the only developer
that doesn't. You would expect Apple software to do so since it's Apple's
OS But you aren't the only one to raise the question.

If it's important to you, use the Help> Send Feedback option in any Office
app & let MS know why you believe it would be beneficial. The matter is
already on their radar, but the more comments it gets the more likely it is
to be addressed in a future update or release.

 

[Michael_Tennes]

It would likely have more weight if you gave a few examples of what you
would do with services and how not having them hurts you.




My greatest need is working in conjunction with Mac Online Bible (www.macolb.com). It publishes (or provides) a Service named "Copy Bible Versus" which in other applications allow you to specify Book, Chapter, Verse, and Translation and then instantly insert that passage of the bible at the cursors insertion point with rich text formatting.

Since the ability to do this is so essential and Abode InDesign CS3 supports this feature I have been shying away from using Word and can't recommend it to my colleges who need that same level of functionality.

I can't believe supporting this service would be that difficult.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Michael -

Daiya meant include "a few examples" in your message to MS via the link she
gave you... Although interesting, they do no good here

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