Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Student and Teacher [OLD VERSION] Reviews

• A Must Upgrade

  
  By A29S45AB2TWGL9 on 2004-05-24
  Don't get me wrong, I enjoy bashing Microsoft with the best of them, and I think most "upgrades" from Redmond are a waste of money at this point, but Office 2004 for the Mac is not one of those cases.

  It is simply a must have upgrade.

  What I love about the new upgrade:

  1. Long file names
  2. Better change/edit management
  3. Lots of new features in PowerPoint (although Keynote still looks better displayed)
  4. Much cleaner interface

  I'll give credit where credit is due. This is a fantastic update, one I am glad I paid for.

  Only one beef, to be balanced, is MS should work on speeding up the apps in the .1 release.
  
  

• I am impressed.

  
  By A2SXYU98ULSFL8 on 2004-07-19
  I am surprised to find myself impressed with a Microsoft product. I vowed I never would be, but I have to admit that the Macintosh Business Unit of Microsoft has truly released a must have product. I bought the upgrade as soon as it came out and so far it has only crashed once (while doing an import into Excel). If you have Office v.X then I doubt it's really worth an upgrade. Unless you see one of the new features as a must have v.X will work well for quite a while. However, if you use another product I must impress upon you how wonderful this suite actually is. The new project center in Entourage is very handy if you have problems with keeping files together and the new notebook view in Word is especially useful if you often take notes in meetings. Presenter Tool's in PowerPoint is also a great feature. Messenger is useless, but you already have iChat so you don't even have to bother with it. I have found that all of the applications feel more "Mac-like" with a more appealing interface. While a completely Apple built suite would win me over, I doubt I would be satisfied with any other companies product. If you are in a business or academic environment, then this product is a must have. So, while I think that all of the rest of Microsoft's products put together are worth about $5, this is simply a must-have product unless you already have v.X.
  
  

• It Has Helped with My Transition to the world of Macs.....

  
  By A6AJDTD0WJKZZ on 2004-08-13
  I recently threw out my virus-infected PC and bought an Apple Powerbook. I was concerned that the switch would limit what I can and cannot do with my computer, but Microsoft Office for Mac has made the transition much easier, as I have been a Microsoft Office user for years. The Mac version runs much smoother than the Windows version, (as does the entire computer.) No problems with lock-ups, no lost data, and the Mac version seems much easier to use than my Windows version. Very straightforward, yet powerful enough for a full range of use, from simple to very complex.
  So, for anyone out there thinking of making the switch from PC to Mac, do yourself a favor: get Microsoft Office for the Mac.
  
  

• Wait for a Patch!

  
  By on 2004-05-14
  This is barely passable as BETA software considering the number of issues/bugs etc. I've encountered in only a few days of use. But first, the good:

  Excellent e-mail view in Entourage
  Superb PowerPoint presenter tools for multiple display capable PB's etc.
  Compatibility report is great for ensuring ease of sharing files
  Easy import of Apple Mail messages/settings/rules etc.
  Excel Print layout view is a good addition (about time!)

  The BAD:

  Entourage crashes on both my installed Macs when trying to change fonts in an HTML e-mail or Signature
  Entourage sync Conduit for Palm devices crashes Hotsync Manager. Will not sync.
  Must manually approve both image & attachment download for all Messages.
  Excel required Re-install after trying to open Entourage Excel attachment.
  Entourage drops IMAP password CONSTANTLY: have to re-enter with every sent mail.
  No improvements to Exchange support.
  No Upgrade install option, creates new Office folder in Apps (may cause some problems)

  and on and on...

  There are some strong improvements, but it doesn't look like this software was bug-tested at all. I highly recommend waiting for a patch before making the purchase.
  
  

• excellent update!

  
  By A36I5QI57MCF93 on 2004-10-17
  I had initially ordered Office 2004 primarily for my sister's iBook G4. The Office 2004 Student / Teacher edition includes 3 licenses --a pleasant surprise indeed! As a graduate student myself, I was able to install one license on my Dual G5. So far, in my usage, Office X 2004 brings more refinement to all four programs (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Entourage). I especially like the fact that Office now tracks your recently used documents, making it even easier to locate and work with your documents. Initially, Office X 2004 seemed to be a bit more sluggish than its predecessor, however the recent Service Pack update seemed to restore the speed I had grown accustomed to from the previous release. I'm more of a casual Office user -- I use Word to write papers, Excel to keep track of various accounts, and Entourage for a secondary email client. In short, if you are a casual user of Office, and have a previous version, I wouldn't recommend getting the update. However, if you are in the academic arena and don't already own Office for OS X (especially if you're making the move over from a PC to Mac), I'd recommend the Student / Teacher version of Office 2004 X wholeheartedly.
  
  
• My Mac didn't use to crash
  By A3E4KN9Z5UI9N5 on 2004-11-08
  I moved to Mac after more than a decade of PC use because I was sick of getting "application not responding" messages. In 9 months of owning my iBook, I think I had one message of this sort, that is until I installed Office for Mac. Welcome back to Microsoft!
  
  Don't get me wrong, the applications are well designed and presently there is no other office suite that can compete. They look great and aside from a few weird functionality issues I have been happy with Office. But just like Windows, these programs crash all the time. At least once a week Word or Entourage will simply freeze. At lot of times this happens when I am cutting and pasting between the two.
  
  Anyway, be forewarned, if you are a Mac zealot, you might enjoy Office but be prepared to be even madder at Microsoft.
  
  
• Office X ran faster and had fewer bugs!
  By A21B6H1PGZDGA9 on 2004-11-16
  I bought Office 2004 for the Mac as an upgrade to Office X, even though I was not really having any problems with the older version. Office 2004 has been nothing but problems. Excel and Word crash more frequently. There are random but frequent hard drive accesses for no apparent reason. There are problems with removing password protection of Excel files. Worst of all are the font-related bugs in Word that are even worse in Excel. Excel 2004 screws up the letter spacing of fonts as well as line spacing for wrapped text. Everything is bigger by 10-30%. This doesn't seem to be a problem at first, especially if you are only entering single words or short strings into individual cells. However, I have dozens of forms that were laid out in Excel X that include wrapped text in merged cells. If I open these documents in Excel 2004, the font spacing is all screwed up, requiring complete readjustment of each form. Even worse, Excel 2004 is not WYSIWYG. The screen layout isn't the same as what gets printed. I find this wholly unacceptable for a major business suite, especially when it worked OK in the previous version. Don't be fooled by Microsoft's promise of bug fixes in their recently released Service Pack 1 for Office 2004. They may have fixed a few bugs but not the major ones I have issues with. Check out the comments by users at Macintouch.com, under Office 2004. As for me, I intend to uninstall Office 2004 if possible and reinstall Office X.
  
  
• Problems with Endnote 7
  By A8G2V4ACYMDDC on 2004-05-17
  I just brought this along with Endnote 7 for MAC which works fine with Office X. Endnote 7 does not work with Word 2004mac however so I now need to buy Office X and try and return 2004. I have talked to Endnote and they can't seem to solve the issue so it won't be resolved until Endnote 8 comes out (whenever that is). I have to write alot of scientific papers so need my endnote library. This is a warning to any students/professors/scientists. Do not buy this...stick with the old office X.
  
  
• WHY I HATE MICROSOFT (part 1 of a gazillion)
  By A19JTR1KSY83BB on 2005-09-30
  First, if you are a professor or a student, you can probably buy this through your university bookstore or on-campus computer store for 60 dollars. I'm at UCBerkeley and that's what it costs here.
  
  Second, once you've installed it, don't even bother registering it because it is not necessary in order to receive the upgrades. It took me 4 days dealing with some of the most catatonic "Customer Service" people in the history of the concept before I learned this fact (I didn't feel like joining "Passport Network" just to register my software.) You'd probably fare better with a geeky 12 year old little brother and the undernet, if you know what I mean.
  
  The programs themselves work well, (at least [Word]) AFTER you turn off all the "AutoCorrect" crap. Still, annoying are the little visual flourishes that pop up anytime you do something remotely different than what Microsoft thinks you should do. I don't need alot of "visual stimulation" when I write, so why does there need to be a little blue inchwormish thing creeping across the screen everytime I accidentally type "nad" instead of "and"? And I hate the little dime-sized square things that pop up everytime I paste something, etc. I understand that for Microsoft's main customer base -- people that work in gray cubicles, all the pretty colors might really make the day seem alittle less fascist, but when you are trying to write a dissertation, or a love letter, or your last will and testament, all the annoying pop-ups become intolerable. This is a Word program, NOT Super Mario Brothers after all! I constantly feel like I am having to "Slay" things to get them to disappear from the screen. And not in a good "Buffy" kind of way, either.
  
  At least they got rid of the annoying "Paperclip-shaped helper guy" that was always irritating and creepy like the "Hamburger Helper" hand.
  
  REALLY, the ONE STAR has mostly to do with the absolute lack of anything remotely resembling customer service. But hey, Bill Gates just got a raise! Ugh.
  
  
• Good, but not great.
  By A25D2NJXR1YLZK on 2004-05-16
  I got this a few days back and its a solid upgrade featurewise from office v.X. Powerpoint is still a Keynote knockoff (and not a good one) Word is the industry standard unfortunatly, but it gets the job done. I never use Entourage because mail is suporior for what it do, plus I will take the Apple alternative over any program. I don't so spreadsheets so I can't comment on that, and MSN messenger is very ugly and featureless compated to iChat AV. Word seems to be a bit slower and more unstable, so if your happy with v.X there is no need to upgrade. This truly is a microsoft product.
  
  
• Work around for EndNote incompatibility...
  By on 2004-05-20
  If you have the previous version of Word (from Office v.X), you can continue to use that version of Word to insert citations from EndNote, while using the rest of the new suite (including Word 2004) for everything else.
  It is possible to have Word v.X and Word 2004 installed at the same time. The only stipulation is that you can't have both versions launched & running at the same time.
  
  
• No choice
  By A27OZ1FRE7CJXV on 2005-01-16
  I bought this because Office is the industry standard and I am still a student, so I need the file sharing capability between PC and Mac. Anyway, Word in Mac is still not very stable, it crashes as frequently as the PC version. Transfering graphics (i.e. graphs/drawings) from Excel/Powerpoint to Word is very problematic. "Shading" and "patterns" do not transfer well at all.
  
  
• Great Product but...
  By A2573BWPH7TVE on 2006-01-29
  Microsoft makes the best office suite - period. However, I still do believe that the price is a bit of a rip-off. I have been using Open Office (Openoffice.org) which is developed by Sun Microsystems and is FREE. It is also compatible with MS Office - you can save the files in Word, PowerPoint etc. format. The more I use it, the more I wish I had it during my undergrad days. If money is not your concern - MS Office is definitely the best productivity suite out there. However, if you are a student and wish to make presentations or documents for school/university work I would definitely recommend Open Office as you simply cannot get anything better for free and it shall suit all your needs. I mean at the end of the day - you are graded on your work not how the slides come flying in. But Open has the flying slides too - though the MS ones still look cooler:) I particularly liked exporting Word Files to PDF format within Open Office. For the record I am not anti-Microsoft - they have some good products - I just wish they would make them more affordable. I hope this helps.
  
  
• Flawless installation, nice improvements, no problems
  By on 2004-05-15
  I don't have any of the problems noted by the other reviewer.

  - Changing the fonts in HTML message works fine.
  - Not opening pictures and attachments can be changed in preferences. However, for security reasons, opening pictures automatically will only work if sender is in address book.
  - I don't need to re-enter my password to send/check email. It must be a problem with the other user's keychain settings.
  - Creating a new folder instead of replacing the one from the previous version is probably the safest way to go so that you don't lose stuff if something goes wrong.
  
  

• Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac: Upgrade Memory first!
  By A24HDCNI3B5WCU on 2004-12-09
  only downside of the software is that it takes up a lot of memory and if running Powerpoint, it may close and autorecover. If you are using a Powerbook or iBook, I suggest upgrading your system's memory first. An additional 256mb or 512mb costs approximately $50 and $100 respectfully.
  
  
• must have upgrade
  By A31P9JQCYMZUKY on 2005-03-10
  First off, I would like to say that Microsoft did an outstanding job on Office for Mac, something that most people aren't used to hearing. There are so many improvements from previous versions, including faster speeds, smoother integration, and excellent compatibility with windows version 95 and up, just to name a few. Not to mention the beautiful design of the templates of all the included applications. Word, excel, powerpoint, and entourage look, feel, and perform like Apple's applications, which is a very good thing, with the added bonus of having the tools of microsoft office's programs.
  
  I use Office for Mac especially for research papers and homework. With the portability of my Apple iBook laptop, i can't help but do online research wirelessly for my essays. Then I just use Word to type out and organize them. THIS COULDN'T BE EASIER! Because our printer is hooked up to the main computer in my house (windows-based), I just simply e-mail my word-processed essays to the main computer (a pc) and voila! My essay is automatically converted as soon as I open the document, fully compatible! Then it's just as simple as printing it out and your done!
  
  Overall, I am so pleased with my purchase, I recommend this item to all of my friends and family and definetly recommend this to you. This is a must have upgrade for your Mac and it is worth every penny!
  
  
  
  
• Unstable
  By A2ZPE3MVUSG14F on 2005-11-02
  I'm an undergraduate engineering student, which means I spend a lot of time 1) doing homework and 2) using my computer. During the times that those two activities coincide, I'm often writing a report or working with an Excel sheet. Before I picked up this version of Office, I had been using Office 2003 for over a year. Office 2003 crashed--a lot. Almost every time I'd use Word or Excel a crash would occur. As a result, I began to hit command-s after about every 25 keystrokes--obsessive, you might say. When I came back to school for the 2005-2006 year and upgraded to Office 2004, I had hopes that because the software was newer, it would somehow be more robust. In my opinion, it's really not.
  
  Sure, the interface is a bit cleaner and updated, but even though I'm running the most current versions of this sofware, it still doesn't work very well--crashes occur all too often. It's not the power software I had hoped it would be.
  
  As I've told my friends many times, I maintain that Microsoft produces crap for the Mac OS. You can disagree when you like, but I'll be switching to OpenOffice 2.0 when an OS X version is released.
  
  If you can get this for "free" (i.e., it's covered by tuition or something), go for it. It *IS* better than Office 2003, but not by much.
  
  
• Basically a waste of money
  By on 2004-06-17
  I thought the previous version looks better and even works better. I noticed only very few minor changes that didn't make this one better for me. But may be it's just me...:)
  
  
• Can't live without this!
  By A1VLD5H49OVUSR on 2008-04-07
  After getting my new MAC laptop for student and Mac computer for office, found that I could not communicate with business world with attachments for e-mails as well as the fact that the Professors would only accept homework in a word format. So I went to PC magazine did investigations there for the Microsoft Office 2008 and found many big problems MAC users were having with 2008 version. Went to the great Apple Support Chats with users and found huge amount said they wish they would have stayed with their 2004 version because the computer with 2008 was constantly crashing and slowing down and nothing but problems. So I can say fabulous 2004 version, no problems, hasn't slowed down computer. And attachments with my e-mails are so easy. This product you can't live without if you are a student or business person.
  
  
• Microsoft is really getting bad...
  By A1HO8EADDJ9Z15 on 2005-01-27
  First let me tell you right now that I am and have been for several years a beta tester for Microsoft, MSN, ETC.
  The beta of Office 2004 was BETTER than this piece of crappola.
  Stay away from MS products. The program has what look to be great features, but let me assure you that is crashes, is slow, is full of bugs, and I HATE IT.
  
  Did I make myself clear enought?
  
  
• Can Be Slow to Respond
  By A3HBY2YN08FXZV on 2005-02-21
  I am using a new G4 Powerbook, 1.33 GHz clock, 256 MB RAM, and with no simultaneous applications running except for Office 2004 I experience the following:
  
  Word 2004 Mac (version 11.1) is sometimes very slow to perform certain functions: opening documents (even small and new documents can take 5 to 8 seconds); deleting by hitting the Delete key (2 -3 seconds to respond); pasting text into a document (2 -3 seconds to respond); and clicking on toolbar menu items (click on the toolbar icon then wait five or six seconds before the pull down menu appears - this only seems to happen the first time after working in the document for a while, clicking on a second menu icon will cause the menu to appear instantly as it should).
  
  Also, and perhaps related, scrolling down the page in Word 2004 by rolling the mouse scroll wheel for what would be a more than 9 or 12 line scroll down command seems to cause this weird wave to roll down the page. It is disorienting because you momentarily lose sight of the page and where you were. Could this be related to the slowness of Word 2004 (or the G4) and an inability to refresh the display quickly. Word 98 Mac did not do this, nor do documents pasted into Apple's TextEdit running on the same machine. All other apps run quickly on the G4.
  
  Other problems include the occasional crash of Word (and loss of all of the document you entered since the last save) for example when selecting Tools > Spelling and Grammar.
  
  Also, it takes too many steps to get to set margins for a document in Word 2004: File > Page Setup > pull down the Settings menu to choose Microsoft Word > click on Margins button. Word 98 was easier with fewer steps.
  
  Other than the above the Office 2004 suite has served me well these past few months. There are many improvements in the Charting functions in Excel 2004.
  
  
• Microsoft Office for Mac
  By A2W78AN0KWXHM7 on 2006-07-21
  Works great. Microsoft Office files in Word, PowerPoint and Excel are fully compatible with Windows version. I highly recommend it.
  
  
• If you have to use MS, this is the way to go...
  By ANUN04V96PP50 on 2005-09-12
  If you must rely on Microsoft, use it on a Mac. I don't get crashes, I don 't get an hourglass, I don't hear any disks spinning non stop inside my rig. I'm a life long PC guy but I've recently started using Mac and it's pretty sweet. Word is set up better in the Mac version than PC.
  
  
• How can I respond?
  By A22ZQOGY7X3W74 on 2005-09-23
  Why send me this? The product has not been received! The software was to be shipped to my son at the University of New Orleans. Despite my requests, no one would redirect to our home address.
  
  Given the state of the New Orleans, surely you realize that we have not had the opportunity to review this product.
  
  
  If I ever get this software, for which I have already been charged, I will never do business with Amazon again. Period.
  
  
• Now syncs with iCal and Address Book (and iPod)
  By A3OIH91FXT8AQ9 on 2006-07-18
  This would be a five-star review but it's not universal binary yet.
  Otherwise a great improvement over Office X. And the latest update allows real-time sync-ing with iCal and Address Book. That means that, since you can have Office 2004 on up to three of your Macs, you can use iSync to keep not only Entourage calendars and contacts but iCal and Address Book synced on all your Macs (and iPod too.)
  The Notebook note taking format is great for outlining as well as note taking.
  Entourage 2004 has an improved spam filter, much improved over Entourage X, which was so weak I switched to Apple Mail. Now I'm back with Entourage.
  Word offers a preview pane much like the one in Apple Pages.
  Word also offers a print preview for all pages in the Print dialog.
  I don't use Excel much except for course grade sheets but it is now easier to control the print layout.
  Even though I don't use all the features, I very much appreciate the new ones.
  And the price for the Student-Teacher edition makes it a real value.
  
  
• office
  By ACJEW33B2IY28 on 2006-07-20
  great product - easy to install - easy to use on my Apple - I love it. Thanks
  
  
• Much better than the Microsoft Version but...
  By A2P81V2DN40B3G on 2006-11-09
  The good:
  Even though the programs are Office for Mac, I like them much more in the Mac version that on a PC. In Word and Excel, all of the formatting functions for the document are easily available in the formatting palette. No more scouring around the different menu options and toolbars (but you still can if you want - they're all there) to try to remember where you can set the Normal template for the document, or reset the numbering for bullet points. Everything is easy to access in one place.
  PowerPoint has many more built in slide templates which are much nicer than the ones in the PC version, something which will be much appreciated by people who do a lot of presentations.
  Entourage - the equivalent of Outlook, appears to be much richer in content and functionality than its PC counterpart.
  The fact that it's a cheaper Student/ Teacher edition has no effect on the depth of the programs: for the most part everything is very simple and more user friendly than the PC versions. I feel like this suite was designed with productivity in mind: the minor changes in the way the programs are presented really do wonders for easier and better quality work.
  
  The bad:
  At times Excel seems to run a bit slower than the PC version. Also, there are compatibility issues with images which show up on a Mac, but can't be read by a PC. However, the problem may have more to do with the fact that some setting prompting the programs to save the images in TIFF format hasn't been de-activated.
  
  
• MS OFFICE FOR MAC
  By A2G2MXCAMDE1VZ on 2006-11-13
  The programs (Word, Excel, Entourage) take a bit to get used to...mainly because of the layout. If you are a "new" Mac user like I was coming from a Windows based platform....everything takes time to get used to. All of the shortcuts that are on the Windows version of Office are the same on the Mac version. Moreover, once you get used to using it....you'll notice it's laid out so nicely. Graphics are nice and most importantly the projects you create are compatible w/ other Office (Windows) programs.
  So glad to see that MS took the time to create a "suite" of programs that are compatible for Macs.
  
  
  
• Better than Windows Word
  By A2HHC3E6JQWOR6 on 2005-08-03
  Now I don't usually say this, but Microsoft did a great job. Able to work seamlessly with Office for Windows, Office 2004 for Macintosh is even better than it's Windows equivilent. I've never been a fan of Appleworks, and honestly, it's not as good as Office, the standard for word processing.
  
  The problem with Office (and with many Microsoft applications) is that it is such a huge peice of software, most, if not all, users don't use it to it's full extent. There are many capabilities and tricks that we just aren't aware of. Enter Apple and the beautiful simplicity and strength of OS X. Office becomes simpler, more user friendly, and extremely reliable. I don't think that it would be too bold to say that this is the best word processing avialable.
  
  This is a must have for students, educators, any one who is in need of word processing for a Mac. If you really need to be convinced, download the free 30-day trial from Mactopia, Microsoft's all Mac website. Use the following address:
  
  http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.aspx?pid=office2004td
  
  You won't be disappointed.
  
  
• Beats the PC Office Suite
  By A20S4G1EXF2OM7 on 2005-09-16
  I am/have been a long time PC user and used Microsoft PC based applications extensively with variable results. Having recently dipped my toe into the Mac world I needed to obtain the MS Office application for Word, Excel and Powerpoint applications that I could shuttle back and forth to work where we are mired in PC's. I was really surprised at the commonality of the MS Office applications bewteen the two operating systems and the seamless interoperability of the files. The stability of the applications on the Mac platform is excellent and have yet (knock on wood) to have one of the applications crash or hang. Overall I would highly recommend the Mac MS Office application due to it's interoperabilty, fast learning curve and unparalleled stability.
  
  

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