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Office 2004 for Macintosh: A first look (Part I)

updated 12:20 pm EST, Tue January 13, 2004

Office 2004 for Macintosh


Microsoft last week debuted Office 2004 for Mac, the newest version of the productivity suite on the Mac platform. Designed for Mac users, with several Mac-only features, the new version of the suite is expected to ship in the "first half of this year" (i.e., June 2004) with dozens of new features, including a new "Project Center" in Entourage X to organize information, a new Notebook Layout view in Microsoft Word, a new Scrapbook, an Excel Page Layout view, and Compatibility Reports for helping determine document compatibility with Windows and Mac Office versions.

Microsoft's new Project Center resides within the Entourage X application. It offers a single way to view and organize e-mail messages, files, contacts, meetings and tasks related to a particular project. The new Project Center works by associating items with a project--rather than moving the files themselves--and allows users to easy add/remove file links to projects without moving the content itself.



Entourage X offers several different views for organizing and tracking information and allows information to be shared with other users. With a few clicks, users can specify which data (e.g., emails, files, and/or contacts) within the project can be shared. The easy-to-use service will utilize a central server such as AppleShare file server, HTTP DAV file server, or an iDisk to house a centrally located Entourage Database with the project's associated files; it will automatically sync changes to tasks, notes, and the calendar with all shared users and will allow users to "check in and out" documents, providing a warning if modified files would overwrite more recent versions on the server.





Project Center will feature a new project wizard, which will help users create new projects from existing documents, email messages, and contacts. Entourage X will use custom rules to automatically add new and related e-mail to the project as it arrives in a user’s inbox. Users can manually add files to the Project Center or can add items to the project's Entourage Watch folder. Watch folders provide a convenient drag & drop method for users to associated files with particular projects. Files, emails, tasks, and calendar events can be associated with multiple projects. In an effort to help users distinguish and visually organize files, colored dots can be found in every view to quickly identify a file's associated projects.




The Project Center Toolbox, available from any Office 2004 application, provides a quick overview of any project, offering a list of meetings, tasks, notes, associated files, and relevant mail. It also offers convenient archive functions to backup all or portions of a project's data. Microsoft also revealed a new three-column layout for email messages in Entourage. Unfortunately, Microsoft has yet to announce any enhancements to its junk mail handling.





Microsoft Office 2004 also includes a new Scrapbook feature that allows users to centrally store and track images, text snippets, Web content, URLs, and other information. The new Scrapbook allows users to drag & drop items, such as logos, commonly-used text, URLs, and so on directly to and from the Scrapbook; offers integration with Project Center as well; it offers a thumbnail preview of the document, and important document info such as date, size, and document creator. The Scrapbook also provides an option to enter keywords for each item, allowing users to easy search for and retrieve items based on keywords.


by MacNN Staff

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Comments

  1. MacNN.com Reader

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2001

    0

    MAPI still AWOL

    Geez, you'd think MS would listen to the millions of feedback on Exchange 5.5 server support with that bloody MAPI protocol.

    I've got tons of customers on OS X in corporate environments who use 5.5 and we can't use Entourage because they INSIST on using MAPI. Even though they have upgraded to Excange Server 2000 in some areas they turned off SMTP, IMAP and OWA. Go figure.

  1. MacNN.com Reader

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2001

    0

    I want speed!

    That's all I want. It is barely usable on an iBook 800. It is ok, but still stutters on my DP 867. I don't need any new features. I just want it to work faster and crash less. The office programs even after all the updates, still crash more than any other apps I have.

  1. MacNN.com Reader

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2001

    0

    What about PPT?

    Any news of PowerPoint 2004 features or improvements? PowerPoint v.X (and previous versions) had some difficulty staying synched when you added audio narration and then converted the whole thing to a QT movie. It would be great if that was dealt with.

  1. MacNN.com Reader

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2001

    0

    Support for iApps?

    I'm a bit concerned that there's no mention of interoperability with Apple's PIM functions. Or even Exchange for that matter.

  1. MacNN.com Reader

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2001

    0

    PowerPoint

    I, too, am anxious about PowerPoint updates. As it is now, mac:PowerPoint is four versions behind the Windows version. Com'on MBU, if you're gonna call yourselves Mac-advocates (at MacWorld keynote), then back it up and get with the program (no pun intended).

  1. MacNN.com Reader

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2001

    0

    MAPI or forget it

    hey MS, add MAPI and REAL EXCHANGE SERVER SUPPORT or forget about finding many people willing to update.

    i know you're not providing it on purpose to hurt Apple's Corporate sales, but enough is enough.

    no more Office $ for you.

  1. MacNN.com Reader

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2001

    0

    All I want is...

    A decent version of Appleworks or Aquified Open Office.

    I did NOT buy this powerbook in order to run MS s***!

  1. MacNN.com Reader

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2001

    0

    Nice

    The project center looks like it would be very useful. Also, regarding speed, one simple thing MS does with each new release is profile (find and remove bottlenecks) and recompile their apps. You can expect that the new version of Office will be a good bit faster.

  1. MacNN.com Reader

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2001

    0

    True SSL support finally?

    Has there been any comment made as to whether or not SSL will finally be supported using third-party certificates, not just server-signed certificates? Even for those wanting to use OWA for Exchange access, SSL can not be used with a major cert-authority's certificate at this point (e.g. Verisign) in the current Entourage.

  1. MacNN.com Reader

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2001

    0

    ggez

    "I did NOT buy this powerbook in order to run MS s***!"

    Well, stop whining then.

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