Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition

List Price: $499.95 Discount Price: $195.00

Features:

• Streamlined user interface runs natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs
• Open XML file formats, the Office Art graphics engine, and other features that result in compatibility and file fidelity
• Drag-and-drop digital asset management, batch conversion and tagging, and built-in archiving and backup capabilities help you manage over 100,000 files and hundreds of format types across multiple storage devices
• Automator Actions for Workflows in Microsoft Office enables you to automate Office 2008 with more than 70 pre-defined actions built to simplify your work and extend your productivity
• Includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Entourage, Microsoft Server Exchange Support, Automator Actions for Workflows in Microsoft Office

Customer Reviews:

Buyer beware [Posted on 2008-01-23]
I bought Office 2008 home and student edition. It was SO weak (read my review) that I reinstalled Office 2004. After being told the Office 2008 "special media edition" would handle all my problems, I forked over substantially more money.

The first application I turned on was Entourage. Since 2004 Entourage has been the only email program that doesn't support hyperlinks. You were forced to import external scripts or cut and paste from a word processing program. Well, Entourage 2008 STILL doesn't have a hyperlink function. It is soooo 90's (plus very unprofessional) to have to include an entire URL into you email document. It is a slap in the face to call this an upgrade. Also a slap in the wallet.

Strong Upgrade!!! [Posted on 2008-02-02]
Office 2008 Special Media is a strong upgrade. The new interface is extremely user friendly and logical. It looks very similiar to the 2007 version on the PC side. I cross platforms with my company everyday and it is seamless to work with PC files. The media package is a great addition that is more than worth the small price difference above the standard edition. Buy this with confidence and ENJOY the much needed update from Office 2004. I use a MacBook Pro, 2.4ghz, 2GB Ram.

Stay-Away-From-ware [Posted on 2008-03-06]
Buggy.
Slow.

I would write more, but there are so many severe problems, like disappearing text, out of memory/disk space errors, crashes, that its not even debatable. Office 2008 is Stay-Away-From-ware.

Update: MS has released an update for Office 2008. Does not help beachballs and general suckiness.

Any other Mac options for generating a Table of Authorities?

Interesting update to Office 2004 [Posted on 2008-03-19]
I hope this review serves to clarify some of the complaints that people have posted regarding Office 2008.

Preface:
After being disappointed with Leopard 10.5 -which I also reviewed- I kept using Tiger. When finally 10.5.2 arrived I began using it. It fixes many Leopard bugs. According to some websites, at least 130 bugs have been fixed. This is important since many problems with third party software may be related to other software or to the operating system. For example, Apple is aware of problems with its Sync services and Core Image. Also, some bugs have existed for many years and have not been fixed, such as a potential bug when moving data to an external device.
Keeping these issues in mind I did a completely clean install of Leopard 10.5.2 in a brand new hard drive.
I installed Office 2008 as well as the available upgrade to 12.0.1.

First Impressions:
Some useful features have been added, such as Elements Gallery, which may be a time saver for many people. Some features have been removed, such as VBA, and this may be a deal-breaker for many people.
I'm keeping Office 2004 in a separate partition in order to use previous versions of Word and Excel.
At the same time, I can still use the new versions when I don't need the VBA features.
Lack of VBA support was announced well over a year ago, so this came as no surprise.

Starting up:
Each program took approximately 10 seconds to launch. Office seems to have a peculiar way of handling fonts, though, and launch times can be greatly effected. After installing another program that installed more fonts, and installing Extensis Fusion to manage my fonts, launch times for Office programs was approximately 150 (one hundred and fifty) seconds, instead of the original 10 (ten) seconds.
Now it takes about a minute to launch these programs. In all fairness, the slow down is partly caused by third party software.

Overall (and very brief) impressions:
PowerPoint works with presentations that used to crash my 2004 version. The 2004 version was practically unusable for me. This was a welcome upgrade.

Excel works fine and the Elements Gallery is a good addition. It lost VBA support and the Abalysys Toolpack. I kept the 2004 version as well.

Word seems to be a solid upgrade. Some third party templates do not work with 2008, so I kept Word 2004.

Entourage works very well. I had to re-select the folders that I had set up for my rules, and re-apply categories to my folders. Syncing with Address Book always adds many duplicate contacts. Fortunately there are scripts to deal with this inconvenience. Hyperlinks still require a workaround, as mentioned by another reviewer. I would not rate Office with 1-star solely based on that issue.

Expression Media used to be called iView MediaPro, iView Multimedia, and iView many years ago. It used to be a $25 shareware program when I first used it. Eventually it became quite expensive so I never upgraded until I received this version. So far I'm happy with it. It has worked fine for cataloging thousands of fonts and pictures, and I'm entitled to a free upgrade when version 2 comes out.

Price:
There are free Office alternatives, as well as iWork. I( still prefer Microsoft Office for the most part. The only exception may be Keynote 4.
Microsoft offered a substantial discount under the names of The Technology Guarantee Program and the Super Suite Deal. Additionally, for one day they offered a $[...] rebate. So users could get the Mac Special Media Edition for approximately $[...]-$[...] with these offers.
Had it not been for the offer, I would have stayed with Office 2004. I've used Office 2008 for a few days, every day, and so far have encountered no problems.

Overall I'm satisfied with the upgrade. Support has been great, both by Microsoft and the MVP people. Search their forums and you'll find a lot of useful advise.

Last resort. No real advantage over Office 2004. [Posted on 2008-04-17]
As the title says, this product offers very little advantage over Office 2004. I got the upgrade deal after buying the Student Edition of 2004.

My rationale was that it only cost $7 for shipping, and I could connect to the Exchange server at work. Well... get this. I can't make a *direct* connection to the Exchange server. It's connecting over webmail. It's taking FOREVER to sync, and it makes my Macbook sound like a jet engine.

It's just not worth it. Word and Excel aren't different enough to justify the price of upgrading. Besides... iWork gets the job done better, anyways.

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