office2011reviews
Latest
Outlook 2011 review: Beyond Entourage, not quite Outlook for Windows
TUAW dives into Microsoft Office 2011 with reviews of the apps that make up the suite. The legend lives on, in somewhat different form. The last time there was a version of Outlook for the Mac, it was Outlook 2001, it ran on Mac OS 9, and it only spoke MAPI (the legacy Exchange mail protocol). It lived alongside Office 2001, which already included Entourage for POP mail and contact/calendar management, so the writing was on the wall. Once Mac OS X came along, Microsoft settled on Entourage as the new Mac personal information management app, and Outlook was long thought to be dead on the platform -- until now. Is it a worthwhile part of the 2011 package, or does Apple's Exchange 2007 support in Snow Leopard's built-in apps match up well? Let's discuss. First things first: Outlook 2011 is not actually Outlook as you know, "love," and use it on various flavors of Windows. It is essentially an upgraded and revamped version of Entourage 2008, but it's polished up with some changes that will make some workflows smoother. I have been using it as my primary email client at my day job, and so far it hasn't had the random fits Entourage was known for. Another thing to note is the difference in editions -- if you buy the Home & Student Edition of Office 2011, you won't even get Outlook. You have to buy Home & Business or the Enterprise corporate edition of Office to get Outlook at all, so if your focus is a shiny new email client, it will cost you (or your employer). Click "Read More" to see the new features in this resurrected app for the Macintosh. %Gallery-107477%
Word 2011 brings ribbons, clouds, and full-screen mode
TUAW dives into Microsoft Office 2011 with reviews of the apps that make up the suite. First up: the pans and praises of Word 2011. It's been a stalwart on the Mac platform since before we said things like "the Mac platform." Turning 25 this year, Microsoft Word is the anchor app for the Office 2011 suite and the one most home, student and many business users will spend the most time in. There's no upgrade pricing for the suite, and the licensing is now locked to an individual machine -- so is it worth it to the average Word user to make the leap? Let's discuss. "Holy toolbars, Batman!" was the first thing I said after launching Word 2011 for the first time. This is the fabled "ribbon" that Microsoft added to the Windows version of Office. I'm told that I'll get used to it. Some even claim to like it after a while. I'm not sure how long that is supposed to take, but it's apparently more than a few days. %Gallery-106848% These are the facts: the ribbon does show a number of different functions, including just about everything a normal person would want to do. Although it is crowded with a bunch of icons (including six different icons that prominently display the letter "A" in one close cluster), the options and settings you might want are all "right there" and easy to discover. Microsoft did a great job making it so that it dynamically resizes as you resize the window. If I made my window the full width of my 24" iMac, the toolbar expanded, reflowed, and the Styles section expanded. If I shrunk it down, it reflowed again; it did this all very naturally while showing a lot of attention to detail. Don't like the ribbon? You can change it, collapse it, tell it not to open automatically with new documents, or disable it entirely. Those settings are easy to find, too, as there's a shortcut to the Preferences window right from the ribbon itself. That's an important point: these are separate preferences. If you are familiar enough with the Mac to go into the regular Word menu to open the preferences, you'll find the Ribbon preferences right there. If you aren't, there's a gear icon on the ribbon itself that will offer to open it for you. Rather than divide up the preferences into two different places, there are two different ways to get to the same place. It's a slight (but important) difference.
