Submit Hint Search The Forums LinksStatsPollsHeadlinesRSS
14,000 hints and counting!


Click here to return to the 'A list of known issues with Microsoft Office 2008' hint
The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
A list of known issues with Microsoft Office 2008
Authored by: dzurn on Jan 25, '08 08:02:59AM

As reported on since last year, the biggest problem (and 100% deal-breaker for us) is the lack of *any* VBA support for Excel in Mac Office 2008.

So there will never be any cross-platform scripting solution: Macs would have to use AppleScript/Automator, while Windows users can still use VBA. Try to share your AppleScripted spreadsheets with PC users? Nope. Use the VBA spreadsheets on your Mac? Nope. Only alternative is develop *TWO* entirely different scripting solutions.

Any of your company's critical spreadsheets that use VBA? Sorry, Mac users, no way to use them (except running Parallels/WinXP/Office2007 on Windows).

This alone pretty much renders Mac Office 2008 as *NSFW* (Not Safe For Productive Work).

Why can't MS instead use something like JavaScript? It works great for InDesign and Acrobat, and Adobe even includes *three* scripting options: AppleScript, JavaScript, and Visual Basic. Cross-platform scripting CAN be made to work, if you want to.

OpenOffice/NeoOffice is promising VBA support soon, amazing how they can offer it but MS can't, with all their professional MacBU developers.

[sarcasm]
But you do get nice Gallery eye-candy, so Mac Office 2008 is not a total loss!
[/sarcasm]

---
Madness takes its toll.
Please have exact change.



[ Reply to This | # ]
VBA
Authored by: Kerberos on Jan 25, '08 11:01:30AM

Issues with Microsoft Office, whatever version, is the norm. But the loss of VBA support makes Office 2008 unusable for me and no doubt many others in the Mac-based publishing industry whose productivity relies on myriad macros to prep manuscripts, edit them, and code them for typesetting.



[ Reply to This | # ]
A list of known issues with Microsoft Office 2008
Authored by: macnixer on Jan 26, '08 09:11:01AM

Why bother so much about x-plat scripting. Frankly I see no good reason to use Excel anymore. I prefer NeoOffice and the "Spreadsheet" is cool, has options for NeoOffice Basic (compatible with Microsaft Office), Python and JavaScript (compatible with OpenOffice). the only difference with Office and Neo is Entourage. I prefer Mail (I know it has shortcomings, I like to read and write mail, with good spotlight searches and Mail.app is perfect for it). iCal does my job for calendars and Addressbook is perfect for all my needs to keep my phone numbers synced with my Moto Rizr, and all everything related to contacts.

Frankly if I were to spend about $300 (either up or down), I would give it to the NeoOffice folks and you bet they could use the money to produce better software and make it available free to all. Wot say you all?



[ Reply to This | # ]