Office for Mac 2011

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Macworld » Software
Feb 11, 2010 8:15 pm89 Comments + 71
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Microsoft announces Office for Mac 2011
Key improvements: compatibility, collaboration, and user interface.
by Dan Miller, Macworld.com

Microsoft provided the most extensive look yet into the next version of the Mac version of its popular Office suite on Thursday at Macworld 2010. The new product, Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, will arrive in time for the 2010 holiday season.

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Office 2011: Should you upgrade?Microsoft Word for Mac 2011Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011 Microsoft's Office Web Apps: So far, pretty so-soMicrosoft PowerPoint for Mac 2011Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011Macworld spoke with several representatives of the company’s Mac Business Unit, who told us the company is focusing on three things with this new release: better compatibility across platforms, improved collaboration tools, and a more refined user interface. Also, as Microsoft announced last August, the suite will include Outlook for Mac, which replaces Entourage as Office’s e-mail client. And, in keeping with Microsoft’s 2008 promise, the new version of Office will offer renewed support for Visual Basic, which was dropped in the 2008 version of the productivity suite.

Compatibility, collaboration
To the Mac Business Unit, compatibility means more than making sure that documents, spreadsheets, and presentations created on one platform open and render correctly on the other. Noting that roughly three quarters of their Mac users use Windows at least occasionally, Microsoft’s Mac team says it's also working to make the new Office for the Mac more functionally compatible with the Windows edition.

“Nowadays, compatibility means more than just file formats,” Microsoft’s Kurt Schmucker told Macworld. “It’s also workflow, collaboration, and user interface.”

To that end, the new version of Office will incorporate document-collaboration features that take advantage of Microsoft's online storage features. With Office for Mac 2011, Mac users will be able to share files and collaborate on documents with other Mac and Windows users via Microsoft's SharePoint, SkyDrive, and Office Web Apps.

Those online tools will allow users to collaborate on documents with other Windows and Mac Office users in real time, much as you can in Google Docs now. You could, for example, create a document in Word on your laptop, save it to SkyDrive, then share it with others. A pop-up in Word will show you who’s working on the document; click on that list, and you’ll be able to send them a message (as long as everyone is using Outlook or Microsoft’s Messenger IM application). The paragraphs your collaborators are working on will be locked out until they’re done. You’ll also be able to edit those same documents from any computer, using Office’s Web apps. Mac users will have the same experience in the their versions of Safari and Firefox as Windows users get with their browsers, Schmucker said.



In this preview image from Word 2011, you can see the new Ribbon, a paragraph being edited by another user, and a list of all users editing the document.
Lessons learned
Microsoft also says it’s learned from user feedback about Office 2008 and has tweaked the user interface accordingly in Office 2011.

Most notably, there’s a new Ribbon at the top of each document window. (If you want a preview, check out Office for Windows; the ribbon is already in there, although the Microsoft Mac team members we spoke to said they had learned a lot from the criticism the Ribbon took when launched on Windows.) The Mac version of the Ribbon doesn’t replace any menu bars, but it does replace Office 2008’s controversial Elements Gallery, which took some fire from Mac users for its size and inflexibility. This new Ribbon is designed to give users quick access to each program's most commonly used tools. Unlike the Elements Gallery, the ribbon is customizable and, if you want more screen space, completely collapsible.

The new suite will also feel more Mac-like than Office 2008. For example, the Ribbon is built entirely using Apple’s Cocoa development framework, and takes takes advantage of Apple’s Core Animation system. (As a result, Ribbon tabs will slide smoothly when you rearrange them.) If you click on some Ribbon tools, they will expand smoothly into popovers that don’t obscure the document you’re working on. We even spied a non-modal search box on the right side of the toolbar, right where you’d expect it to be, allowing you to quickly search through documents without having your content blocked by a floating box.



A closer look at the new Ribbon in Office for Mac 2011.
Summarizing the interface changes, Microsoft's Han-Yi Shaw likened Office 2008 to a teenager—“a little quirky”—but said the new edition is Office matured. “This is the version that everyone wanted,” he said.

Shaw added that the Mac team at Microsoft worked hard to adopt Apple technologies while also making sure their product was recognizably Microsoft Office. “We’re at a cross-section of Mac and PC, and because we’re die-hard Mac users, we look at the [Office] technology and try to translate it,” he said. “Following the Apple design philosophy really takes you in the right direction.”

Outlook and Visual Basic
The other big news in Office 2011 is the demise of Entourage and the return of Outlook.

The new Outlook will support PST imports (allowing you to move an Outlook installation, including all your old e-mails, from a Windows PC to a Mac). It will also support Microsoft’s Information Rights Management (IRM), which allows senders to specify what recipients can do with messages (print, forward, and so on). Previously-Windows only, IRM is required in some corporate settings. IRM support in Office 2011 is aimed at Mac users in cross-platform environments, Schmucker said: “It’s been a blocker for some companies because the Mac support was not there.”

And Microsoft has re-engineered the Outlook message database system to be a series of small files, so it’s more easily backed up with Time Machine and searched in Spotlight. “Outlook’s new database is more reliable, faster, and fully supports Time Machine and Spotlight,” Schmucker said.

Finally, power users will be glad to see the return of the Visual Basic macro language. Visual Basic was dropped from Office 2008 in part because it was too technically difficult to port it to the Mac’s then-new Intel CPUs. Microsoft says it began work on that port as far back as 2008—before the last Mac Office shipped. That work is now complete. And the Mac suite will be using the most up-to-date version of Visual Basic, so it’ll be much more compatible with Office for Windows than the Visual Basic in previous versions of Office for Mac.

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"Microsoft announces Office for Mac 2011" Comments
View entire thread »
By dreyfusThu Feb 11 08:31:20 PST 2010Reply to this commentAny news if they will sell the main programs separately again? Pages and Keynote have replaced Word and Powerpoint here (for good) and I am not at all interested in Entourage or Outlook. If I have to buy the entire mess, just to get Excel, I might continue working with OpenOffice/StarCalc instead.



Some of the changes are long overdue, too long for me, but at least they are on a better track now (especially fixing that damned Entourage database and bringing VBA back). I am still amazed how MS is the only company in the world that does not realize, that screens get wider, not taller, all the time. Just look at these screenshots... more than a third of the screen real estate is wasted and the document is almost gone. Hint: Put your friggin' ribbon to the side!
By sporksThu Feb 11 08:35:21 PST 2010Reply to this comment@#($*&@! Word 2011 is getting the POS ribbon too?!? Crap.



There goes the one big advantage Word has; customized toolbars putting desired commands one click away. Word 2007 users lost it, and MS, never one to admit stupid decisions has now decided to castrate Mac users with the same pair of rusty scissors. Joy.
By palaneThu Feb 11 08:35:57 PST 2010Reply to this commentThere's a bit of a cognitive dissonance. MS states that there needs to be a more consistent interface across platforms, but also states that the new version will feel more Mac-like. Unless that means that Win Office will be more Mac-like, I don't see how that can be accomplished.



That much having been said, I welcome the new version. I have been a largely satisfied Office user, but refused to pay for the downgrade that was the previous version. My position is similar to that of the Republicans on HCR, they should have scrapped it and started over.



BB
By soulatriumThu Feb 11 08:42:15 PST 2010Reply to this commentWow, they are putting the ribbon, which is probably the single most reviled feature of the Windows version of Office, in the Mac version? What an awful decision. I hope they are supporting Office 2008 for Mac for a long time, because I can't see myself using 2011.
By Ken_FranklinThu Feb 11 08:44:08 PST 2010Reply to this commentExcellent.



The absence of Visual Basic was a showstopper for me. I will be definitely purchasing 2011 unless early user feedback reports that it causes leprosy or radiation leaks.
By mayduppThu Feb 11 08:45:04 PST 2010Reply to this commentLook at all that empty blue space on the side of the document!



All current Mac's have wide screens. Why not have the palettes and control bars on the SIDE of the document, leaving more room to view the document vertically? When I try to do that with Word, all the break-away palettes have different widths and it is impossible to position them neatly on the side.
By spinoza2Thu Feb 11 08:45:45 PST 2010Reply to this commentYou get so used to Apple keeping very tight lips until a product is released, it comes across as bizarre for these other companies to announce the release of a product that 11 months away. And there's so much vaporware and long delays with software releases, that credibility is also brought into question when such announcements are made.



Because of this I ignore them most of the time now, and much prefer Apple's simple announcements of products being released--and made available--either that day or very soon therafter.
By flybynightThu Feb 11 08:46:15 PST 2010Reply to this commentYawn.
By alanskyThu Feb 11 08:46:46 PST 2010Reply to this commentMore crap from the King of Crap, Steve Balmer.
By deemeryThu Feb 11 08:48:42 PST 2010Reply to this commentMicrosoft needs to understand the cost-benefit concerns here. With NeoOffice and OpenOffice as well as iWork, capable of opening and manipulating MS Office documents, Microsoft needs to have a clear pitch for why someone should buy MS Office. VB compatibility is not sufficient for me to spend more than, for example, $50-$100. And the continuing gratuitous GUI changes bring with them a learning curve that has to be considered as part of the cost-benefit equation. I.e. do I want to learn Yet Another MS interface, or invest the same effort into gaining serious competence with NeoOffice/OpenOffice or iWork? Similarly, MS Exchange Server integration is not a compelling reason to buy a new version of MS Office (I'm quite happy on non-Exchange POP/IMAP and SMPT...)



If the primary selling point is consistency with the Microsoft Back Office (proprietary) suite, e.g. SharePoint, etc, this will have value in mid & large businesses that are invested in a Microsoft environment, but that's a limited market.
By warlock7Thu Feb 11 08:49:16 PST 2010Reply to this commentYAWN
By jamusThu Feb 11 08:52:28 PST 2010Reply to this commentGlad to see the new version announced, but the first question to pop into my mind was...

Will Silverlight be required? Or maybe not officially required, but you would be hamstrung if you did not install it?
By MaxerThu Feb 11 09:00:59 PST 2010Reply to this commentMicrosoft should Port Office (or at least PowerPoint) to the iPad. That is the real McCoy!
By CosmicThu Feb 11 09:02:00 PST 2010Reply to this comment
alansky said

More crap from the King of Crap, Steve Balmer.






Someone find the video of Ballmer saying the Mac version of Office is crippled on purpose so the Win version is better.
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