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Why Microsoft Office Mac 2004 Scares Me

by - Episode 21 - July 9th, 2004

Let me begin by saying I really like Microsoft Word v.X. It has the features I need, it works the way it's supposed to work, and it's been almost perfectly reliable for the past couple of years. I've said it many times and I'll probably say it many more: Word v.X may be the best word processor I have ever used, and Microsoft's Mac Business Unit builds damn fine software when you consider that the father of Windows signs their paychecks.

Office v.X may be out of production but it is still the gold standard to me. It took an update or two from Microsoft, but for the past year or two Word and the other Office v.X apps have worked like a champ for me and rarely caused me grief.

I wish I could say the same for the new release, Office Mac 2004, but I am afraid I can't. After using it (mostly Word, with a little Excel and Entourage thrown in for variety) for a month and it looks like it was released before its time.

I find myself using Office Mac 2004 less and less, and only when working on unimportant projects. And that's being charitable -- I am sorely tempted to delete the whole Office 2004 suite until an update arrives, at which time I'll gladly give it another shot and see if they got it right yet. But the bottom line for me is that when there's money on the line, I can't trust the new versions.

What, exactly, is wrong with Office Mac 2004? I don't know that it's any single issue. It's more that I feel it was rushed out before it was finished with more than a few rough edges, which doesn't inspire much confidence.

Among my specific complaints are issues that include Excel freezing when I try to save a very simple spreadsheet created with an older version of Excel.

Here's how it goes: First I choose Save As…


(Click the thumbnail for a full-size image)

Then the beachball of death appears...

The dastardly beachball remains on my screen until either:

1. I force Excel to quit...

or…

2. Excel forces itself to quit...

At least it's polite about it and apologizes for the inconvenience, but still, incidents like this don't inspire confidence. I mean, this spreadsheet is tiny with only a few dozen cells and a couple of very simple macros. I am afraid to even try saving some of my bigger and more complicated sheets with Excel Mac 2004.

Word Mac 2004 doesn't seem to have a freezing-crashing gremlin like the one I discovered in Excel but it has several maddening traits. For example, what's wrong with this picture:Insert RantandRaveFig2101.tiff


(Click the thumbnail for a full-size image)

If you haven't figured it out yet, it's that the document's title bar is underneath the menu bar, making it impossible to move the document window. I could understand (but probably not excuse) this behavior if the document had been created on another Mac with a larger monitor, or on a PC. But this document was created with Word Mac 2004, which ought to be able to remember window positions of documents it creates. I mean, the previous version has never done this to me…

While this one is easily remedied by choosing Zoom from the Windows menu, once again, this type of behavior doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

Here's another one that I find annoying: Word 2004 has a new toolbar called the Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker:

That's all well and good, and I guess it's useful, but it seems there is no way you can banish it permanently. I've tried it all: Clicking its red gumdrop; using the View-->Toolbars menu item; unchecking it in the Customize Toolbars and Menus dialog box; and moving it to the nether regions of my second monitor. No matter what I do, it comes back like a bad penny every time I launch Word Mac 2004.

It would be less irritating if it didn't also move my document down on screen by about 1/2 inch, but it does that every time as well.


(Click the thumbnail for a full-size image)

In all fairness, most of my complaints aren't data-destroyers or hard-crashers, but taken as a whole they have shaken my faith in Office Mac 2004 to the point where I have gone back to Word v.X for most of my work.

I am waiting with baited breath for that update, which I expect soon. I'll be happy to give Office Mac 2004 another chance then, but until that time I'll be using Office v.X, a suite of excellent programs that still works flawlessly.

…and that's all he wrote.

Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus has been a Macintosh user for a long, long time and has written 49 computer books including Mac OS X Tiger For Dummies and GarageBand for Dummies. He also offers expert technical help and training to Mac users, in real time and at reasonable prices, via telephone, e-mail, and/or unique Internet-enabled remote control software. For more information on Bob and his services, visit www.boblevitus.com.

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Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
View Name:Guest
Subject: Use Appleworks instead BOB!
View Name:Guest
Subject: Adobe Acrobat PDFMaker
View Name:Guest
Subject: document's title bar is underneath the menu bar
Close Name:iGrouch Posts: 659 Joined: 18 Oct 2001
Subject: Lost window title bar

Hey Bob. I actually experienced that same behaviour with Word v.X : title bar stuck under the tool bars. This anoyed me until I noticed Word windows appearing correctly in another user account on the same machine. I never got around to customizing settings in my Word preferences, so I grabed a copy of the preference file from the other users account. Can't remember which one it was; Office seems to have all sorts of preferences and other such files, in all sorts of places, coming out it's ears. Whichever one it was it cured the disappearing title bar act. Looks like some sort of skew-iff preference file thing.

Funnily enough there was a version of Apple Works 6 that did not like me making large ,bold text in some of the cells in spreadsheets. AW would keep quiting. The next update of AW solved the problem.

View Name:Guest
Subject: Same Problems with Word v.X
View Name:Guest
Subject: Best Mac Word Processor
View Name:Guest
Subject: word up
Close Name:Intruder -   TMO Mac Specialist Posts: 2836 Joined: 07 Jul 2004
Subject: actually kinda like v.2004

I've actually found v.2004 to be a bit more stable than v.X, especially in the printing arena.

As an example, I have a company-provided word document form that is protected. If I try to print it in v.X, the top and bottom are cut off of the form when it is protected. Unprotect the form and printing is fine. v.2004 does not do this. Minor, but really annoying. I also like the scrapbook feature built in. Comes in very handy.

Just my $.02.

View Name:Guest
Subject: PDF Toolbar
Close Name:coaten Posts: 2944 Joined: 10 Oct 2001
Subject:

Agreed. I tried replicating Bob's issues and couldn't see the problems.

Bob, perhaps there's something else at play?

One issue I did find, however, was that sending a Word Notebok file as an email attaches the audio file as well. Hmmm, 3.5Mb for a one-page doc? Don't think so, and there seems to be no preference setting for not sending the audio attachment. Back to cut and paste.

Rushed out? An element of truth in that but I'm not too sure any apps these days are sent to market when they're ready. It seems to me that developers are happier to get the box on the shelf to generate revenue and see which of the squeakiest wheels should get the oil first.

Sad to say, but that seems par for the course, regardless of the publisher.

View Name:Guest
Subject: ?
View Name:Guest
Subject: Word X has its share
View Name:Guest
Subject: settings
View Name:Guest
Subject: Acrobat toolbar also plagues Word vX
View Name:Guest
Subject: Remove the files from the:
Close Name:Doctor Mac -   TMO Staff Posts: 25 Joined: 26 Sep 2003
Subject: Thanks to all

Thanks to all for your input and particularly how to get rid of that annoying PDF toolbar, which I'll do as soon as I post this note.

As for the way to make preferences stick (Guest), the solution is usually to save the changes to the Normal template. But it doesn't work for the title bar under the menu bar issue, which only happens after a document has been named and saved.

Also, for what it's worth, I HAVE to use Word. No other program handles revisions well and it is the format every book and magazine publisher I work with requires. Don't get me wrong... I like Word and I'm not afraid to say so. But with all the strange stuff that happened with Word & Excel, I just can't trust Office 2004 as much as v.X. Yet.

I hope they come out with a killer update soon so I can use Word 04 without worrying about it so much. Until then, Word v.X is working just fine.
_________________
Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus
Author/Trainer/Consultant/Mac Geek

View Name:Guest
Subject: Other repeatable bugs
View Name:Guest
Subject: Use LaTeX via TeXShop instead Bob
View Name:Guest
Subject: I have all these problems with v.X!
View Name:Guest
Subject: Why Office 2004 Scares Me
View Name:Guest
Subject: v '04 just too damn slow
View Name:Guest
Subject: Persistent PDF toolbar not just in Office 2004
View Name:Guest
Subject: Read how to get rid of Acrobat PDF crap
Close Name:Doctor Mac -   TMO Staff Posts: 25 Joined: 26 Sep 2003
Subject: And yes, "baited" should have been "bated&quo

N/T

View Name:Guest
Subject: Work better for me than v.X ever did
View Name:Guest
Subject: Baited breath????
View Name:Guest
Subject: Yes and why is it so sloow.
View Name:Guest
Subject: Re: Use Appleworks, BOB
View Name:Guest
Subject: 2004 is slower than v.X
View Name:Guest
Subject: Still using 10.1?
View Name:Guest
Subject: Faster in one way, and a gripe
View Name:Guest
Subject:
View Name:Guest
Subject: paste drawing from powerpoint to word
View Name:Guest
Subject: Removing PDF maker
Close Name:SNaP! Posts: 1 Joined: 14 Oct 2004
Subject: Removing PDF Maker

Removing the PDF maker extensions works until you relaunch Acrobat 6.0 Pro, which then re instals the extensions in the Startup folder.

View Name:Guest
Subject: Adobe PDF and Suicide Rates
View Name:Guest
Subject: Toolbars cover window
View Name:Guest
Subject: Banish PDFMaker forever
View Name:Guest
Subject: Banish PDF Maker toolbar
View Name:Guest
Subject: Easily banish PDF toolbar from MS Word, Excel, Power Point
View Name:Guest
Subject: PDF TOOLBAR
View Name:Guest
Subject: PDFMaker toolbar
View Name:Guest
Subject: Thank you!
View Name:Guest
Subject: PDFMaker toolbar
View Name:Guest
Subject: "open" window drops below bottom of screen