toggle

AAPL Stock: 500.72 ( + 7.3 )

Images from MS Office 2008 for Mac

updated 04:00 pm EST, Thu January 11, 2007

MS Office 2008 for Mac


Screenshots have surfaced of Microsoft's recently-announced Mac Office 2008, which the company says is due to ship in the second half of 2007. The updated Office suite will run natively on Intel-based Macs as a Universal Binary and share a new graphics engine with Office for Windows, according to the company. Office Art 2.0 will enable users to add professionally designed graphics with one click, and the new release will feature a new user interface with an Elements Gallery that focuses on discoverability as it provides fast access to tools and Mac-specific features within applications. Mac Office 2008 will also include 'Document Parts,' a tool that comes as part of the Elements Gallery enabling users to simplify as well as automate some of the most common document tasks. Mac Office 2008 is to include various Mac-only features, such as a publishing layout view to support layout-rich documents like newsletters. A 'My Day' feature will enable users to track priorities while staying on top of daily activities, and the new Office revision utilizes Open XML formats approved by Ecma International as an international standard.











by MacNN Staff

print
email
(13)

TAGS :

 software, business software

Related Articles

Recent Articles

toggle

Comments

  1. scottrussell

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2001

    0
    01/11, 04:21pm | report spam | Reply |

    Yowza!

    I wasn't expecting such a huge change in the interface. It looks like it will take some getting used to, but may be fantastic. Microsoft may be trying to provide the same type of templated graphics-heavy productions made with Apple's Pages. Kudos.

  1. UberFu

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 2002

    0
    01/11, 04:28pm | report spam | Reply |

    whatever.....

    they made things more bubble like and keyed the look into their Vista stuff - again whatever

  1. Philip J. Fry

    Mac Enthusiast

    Joined: Jul 2005

    0
    01/11, 04:32pm | report spam | Reply |

    interesting

    I like it, but how will it look on a 13" screen? All that space for the toolbars and then you have the document.

  1. rexray

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2002

    0
    01/11, 04:32pm | report spam | Reply |

    Bad M$, BAD.

    They left out Visual Basic macros and with it goes any hope for continued enterprise cross-platform support. Yet another MS attempt to monopolize the Windows OS platform.

  1. Elektrix

    Dedicated MacNNer

    Joined: Sep 2001

    0
    01/11, 04:36pm | report spam | Reply |

    I think it should be fine

    I ran the Office 2007 beta (which uses the same kind of toolbars, etc.) on my 13.3" screen MacBook, and used it at full screen, and it looked just fine at that resolution. I think it should be similar on the Mac side (the only difference being that you have a normal menu bar at the very top of the screen on OS X.

  1. Chris Grande

    Senior User

    Joined: Mar 2002

    0
    01/11, 04:55pm | report spam | Reply |

    Entourage?

    But what does the new Entourage look like... that could use a UI make over....

  1. ebow

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 2001

    0
    01/11, 05:28pm | report spam | Reply |

    unfinished interface?

    Ye gads! I hope this is an intermediate, incomplete interface. It looks like they took a fairly standard toolbar, mashed it on top of a limited ribbon (as in the ribbon using in Office 2007 for Windows), and left the Formatting Palette on the side, getting the worst of all worlds. Actually I'm staying fairly open to the ribbon they're using in Office 2007--I've read a lot of postings by the usability team and actually used it for a few minutes to help my company evaluate whether a training video eases the transition (yes!). Pretty much everything gets rolled into the ribbon. With *this* interface, though, things are everywhere, covering far too much of the screen. So, I have no choice but to conclude (for my own sanity) that this is not the final interface.

  1. danviento

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Dec 2005

    0
    01/11, 05:30pm | report spam | Reply |

    interesting, but...

    I'm not one to give kool-aid opnions, but by the looks of it, i'll still like iWork and Mac OS versions of these apps more. I've used Appleworks and MS Suite side-by-side and now all versions of iWork. You can thank a multiple platform environment for that.

    Anyway, it seems like all MS has done, as many have said, is further aquafy the UI and added more templates they thought mifght be useful. If there's one thing I can thank the current version of iWork for is the ability to create your own templates. When you have a task you need the info in daily for new documents, Pages has been a godsend for making my customized layouts.

    Same goes for Keynote. I can save custom layouts, sizes, etc, and have original looking designs to presentaitons, not just another Powerpoint. This isn't to say that the MS versions don't have the capability, it just takes so much more time and effort to get results that are anywhere close.

    Now I only await a large-scale spreadsheet app. True, you can always add tables in Pages docs, but it takes much longer to set up and the key commands don't allow you to blow through information as quickly.

    Response?

  1. elroth

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2006

    0
    01/12, 12:37am | report spam | Reply |

    bad

    This looks horrible to me - not because of the design, but because of how annoying it would be to use. On a 20" iMac, I can just get a whole page on the screen (at a readable size). With this, there's no way. That will add so much scrolling up and down, etc.

    A big complaint is that the ribbon changes according to what action the user takes. That means you won't have the same tools available all the time. I just don't work that way - I customize the toolbars so almost all the tools I use are right there (two rolls of toolbars in Word, taking up 3/4 inch at the top. I turn off all the automatic functions (because most of the time they do something I don't want, and I have to undo it). I like to have control, and not type in "Jan/2007" in Excel and have it automatically change it to 01/07.

    It would be nice to have a Universal Office, but not this ridiculous interface.

  1. ebow

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 2001

    0
    01/12, 03:46pm | report spam | Reply |

    Photo sizes

    Why has MacNN put all the photos into iframes that are not large enough to show the image at 100%? At least in both Firefox and IE for Windows, scrolling or scaled-down viewing are required. (??)

    And to repeat my comment on the first story about Office 2008, I think the MacBU has missed the main point of the ribbon, "that it's the one and only place to look for functionality in the product" (http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/09/14/467126.aspx).

Show More Comments

Login Here

Not a member of the MacNN forums? Register now for free.

 
close
Photo
toggle

Network Headlines

toggle

Most Popular

10 Most Read

Recent Reviews

Logitech Cube

The world of mice could often be described charitably as stagnant: it's an endless sea of ergonomic shapes that assume you're sitting ...

NewerTech and Targus USB Hubs For Gifts

A useful holiday present to resolve an ongoing frustration is a multi-port hub. Whether as a stocking stuffer, Chanukah present, or an ...

X-Rite ColorMunki Photo

Color calibration is the art of tweaking your monitor so that the colors represented on screen better match real life and your printer ...

toggle

Most Commented

10 Most Discussed

 

Popular News