Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition
Saturday, March 7th, 2009Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition
For media-savvy Mac users and professionals working with libraries of images, video, music, and digital assets, the reinvented Office 2008 for Mac experience with Expression Media achieve simple life digital asset management.
User Ratings and Reviews
2 Stars Disappointing
I have been an avid Mac user since 1987, and for many years I took great pride in the fact that I had NOTHING by Microsoft on my computer. That had to change when I started getting a lot of business email attachments in Word and couldn’t open many of them. I had Office 2004 for Mac on my computers and decided to upgrade when this 2008 suite became available. I was also very interested in Media Expression since I have more than 3000 photos in my iPhoto, and it is becoming increasingly more difficult to find specific photos in a hurry. I also have a huge sheet music library as well as thousand of recordings and several hundred books and would like to update my cataloging system. I don’t do spreadsheets or presentations and am happy with Mac Mail, so I really don’t have much interest in the other components of Office.
Word is an excellent word processing program with lots of handy features, but it is VERY slow to load on both my iMac (just upgraded to 768 MB of RAM) and my MacBook (1GB of RAM), which is much newer. Once Word opens, it really slows down the systems on both computers. Pages from iWork 2008 has most of the same features, loads faster, and I find it much easier to use. For quick and/or informal word processing documents, I find myself going back to the trustworthy bare bones Appleworks 6. So, after playing with Word on both computers many times, I am not sold on it as an improvement to anything I already have - except for opening and editing Word documents that come to me via email.
I spent a couple of hours this morning viewing tutorials and experimenting with Expression Media, but I couldn’t get it to work. I tried importing photos from iPhoto, and my screen showed that the import was happening (while making a thumping noise for each new photo it supposedly imported), but then I couldn’t find the upload anywhere. I did a thorough search of my computer, but I couldn’t find the upload. I decided to try it again by dragging and dropping folders as the tutorial suggested, and nothing would stick. So, even with the tutorials, I don’t find this program at all intuitive. It looks like a useful program, but I can’t make heads or tails of it at this point. I’ll fool with it some more, and if I figure out how to use it, I’ll edit my review. I’m very disappointed that I can’t easily organize my files to make individual assets easier to find, but will keep trying. Or maybe I’ll just stick with iPhoto and organize that a little better.
5 Stars Comprehensive Software
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition
This is far superior to the Mac iWork suite. MS Office is much more comprehensive in functionality and ease of use. Still Office 2008 has a number of differences from the older versions and take a little adjustment to get used to.
3 Stars Not as easy as 2004.
Notable faults I’ve noticed:
-Layout settings are not as defined as 2004.
-Numbering function for thesis papers does not work properly.
-Searching takes long when you are editing templates.
-When editing, all text boxes are selected instead of the one you are trying to fix.
-Trying to change your type size or font is not as clear cut as the previous format palate.
-Layout features are not easy to manage as the older version for creating a book layout.
Pluses over previous version:
-A lot more word art, text shadowing options, and selections in coloring backgrounds.
- Even though every element has its own text box, this version tries to emulate a true page layout program.
- More features and options are available
You will need a lot of time to become accustom to using the new menu layout and options Microsoft has added to this new office product.
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3 Stars The Expected Microsoft Mediocrity
Microsoft Office is essentially impervious to reviews. It’s market share, an unfortunate consequence of monopolistic sales techniques and mediocre software design and development, means that a huge number of people have to use it in order to maintain clear, consistent, successful and relevant communication and collaboration with friends, peers, colleagues and the public at large. So, many of you have it or will have it, no matter its quality.
And what is that quality? Mediocre, as usual, and a step back in a vital way from Office for Mac 2004. That step back has been described by myriad others, so I’ll simply put it that removing support for macros is a decision that has no basis in the desire to produce a good, useful product. Perhaps it improved margins?
I’ll also add the caveat that I will not touch on Power Point - it’s existence is antithetical to what I consider is good and effective communication and thought and so I do not use it for anything other than viewing presentations that I simply cannot ignore. That being said, to the suite of programs itself:
Word is perhaps the most used in the suite, and certainly the most used word processing application. Yes, it does the job effectively and even powerfully, it is feature heavy - you can write a shopping list or an indexed and footnoted tome with it. You can do the same with Nisus writer as well, for cheaper, and with a faster launch time, more responsive typing and less intrusive spelling and grammar correcting, themselves so trapped in rigid and archaic ideas of ‘proper’ writing as to be nothing but an incredible annoyance. But, it’s Word, so what are you going to do? The default save format of .docx is another irritation, but Microsoft’s philosophy is all about making a task take five steps when it should take two.
Excel does not support old Macros, but does support Apple script. Terrible idea - but it is a spreadsheet program, and effectively does spreadsheet things. Installation of the full set of functions is again a hassle, require the initial loooooonnnnnngggggg installation, then an add-in finding procedure.
Entourage is the bright spot, a program Windows users should envy. If you only need an email application, it’s overkill, but it is an excellent project organizer and can bring together people and information of all kinds under one folder, heading, schedule, etc. Almost worth the price of the suite itself, and a success perhaps because it is a Mac application from the beginning, not an adaptation of a bad product that, once launched, could not be reworked.
The Expression Media browser is a bust. The task it performs, once seen, is underwhelming, and the implementation and user set-up is buggy. You’ll need more than once pass for it to actually build a media library, for example.
So, what’s it worth? If you need it, it doesn’t really matter how good or bad it is, it’s the cost of doing business. The current price of around $159 is relatively fair. Entourage is a good product, Excel is necessary if you’re working in business at all. Apple’s own iWork is much cheaper, and it’s spreadsheet program is as good for the home user. Other Word processing applications like Nisus and Pages are superior to Word, I feel, but if document compatibility has to be flawless for you, than you’ll need Office, no matter what. Business practices, not quality, have led us to this unfortunate state.
4 Stars MS Office 4 stars, Expressions 3 stars
I don’t want to waste readers’ time by talking about the core MS Office programs. You either know you want them or you don’t. I use Excel and it’s fine, although not user friendly in my opinion. Word is fine, but a bit bloated and I usually just need TextEdit for most of my needs. Still, I’ll give Office 4 stars.
The standout application in this package is Expressions Media, a media organizing tool that Microsoft actually didn’t develop itself and bought from another company. I give it 3 stars.
Pros
Organizes all media
Powerful import function
More powerful than Adobe Bridge
Cons
Expressions 1.0 came with Office and upgrading to current 2.0 was NOT intuitive
Just not as elegant or easy to use as Adobe Bridge, Lightroom or Apple Aperture
Most positives not relevant for users who are just starting, have one source of images, etc.
There are several programs for this type with Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture probably being the biggest players. Adobe Bridge, which comes with Adobe Elements and the full Photoshop program, is also a minor competitor,
What separates Expressions from the other programs is that it catalogs and organizes all forms of media, not just photos. I’m not aware of any program, certainly not by a major software company, that has this broad a focus. The majority of my files are photos so I’m going to focus on just that. Also, I have never used Adobe Lightroom so I can’t do a comparison other than price and basic functions.
I have photos from multiple sources scattered all over my hard drive. This includes shots from half a dozen or more digital cameras, scans from 35mm negs and slides, and some downloads. I have Photoshop Elements 6.0 which is great at tweaking these shots. The included Bridge program that comes with it, however, is severely lacking. This is where I found Expressions kicked in as a powerful option. The import function was encompassing and surprisingly fast. It was able to pull thousands and thousands photos from all over the hard drive in just a minute or so. Bridge simply couldn’t do this. Aperture took at least a half hour to do the total import.
Expressions is not an image editing program. Neither is Adobe Bridge. Aperture and Lightroom do have editing capabilities. So once you have organized your shots you have to interact with a program that does edit. This was easier than expected. Click on “Action” on the top menu bar, scroll down to “Open with . . .” and click on the appropriate program. It’s not as integrated or elegant as Adobe Bridge, for obvious reasons, but it’s functional and only adds a second or two to your process. Unexpectedly, this step in Aperture requires a little bit more work as you have to go into the preferences to set up your editing program so that it’s available in the pull down edit menu.
My first complaint about Expressions was that MS included version 1.0. I received this software in late 2008 and Expressions 2.0 was released in early 2008 so Microsoft had plenty of time to, at minimum, include upgrade instructions. There were none with my software. I didn’t even know that 2.0 had been released until I went online and did some research. I had to read another user’s review to find out what process to use to get the latest edition. This is just outrageous and why I generally dislike MS.
My second complaint is just the general interface. I have Aperture and there’s no way I would switch to Expressions. Aperture imports all your folders whereas Expressions just imports the media which means you have to organize everything. This could be a long process if you have a lot of photos. Aperture also displays quality thumbnail images at the bottom of the screen for the folder you’re working in with a single enlarged image above. Maybe Expressions allows for this, but I couldn’t make it work that way. I only saw two options: Single image or all thumbnails. The Aperture approach is definitely the better way.
The biggest question facing buyers is whether they need or want this program at all or if they should just by MS Office without this extra program.
Those who probably or definitely won’t need:
Owners of Lightroom or Aperture
Users who don’t take that many photos
Users who have only once source of photos and thus already have a tightly integrated system between Photoshop/Elements and Bridge.
Those who might want to give this program a look:
Users with photos from multiple sources
Users who need to organize multiple types of media
Users who already own a version of Photoshop and need to upgrade Office
Users who need MS Office and are on a tight budget and can’t afford Aperture or Lightroom.
I really can’t recommend Expressions as someone with thousands and thousands of images. Aperture and Lightroom are simply better programs. But if the money is tight and you must have MS Office this might be an acceptable option since the entire suite is about the same price of either Aperture or Lightroom.
