01.12.2010

Office for Mac 2011 Review

Three years on from the last version of Office for Mac (2008), there are many welcome changes and improvements to usability and features. Microsoft have taken a real step towards a common experience for both Windows and Mac users.

New User Interface

The new ribbon layout is somewhere between Mac and Windows, surely designed to help switching or cross-platform users; features are grouped onto contextual tabs rather than being buried on pull-down menus as in the 2008 version.

Also new (and very similar to Pages) is a fullscreen mode, with two options; read or create/edit. When hidden, the formatting toolbar can be quickly be accessed by moving the cursor to the top of the screen.

Search

The search facility is now on the top toolbar, making it far more accessible, and there are navigation buttons to flips backwards and forwards through multiple results in one document.

Formatting

A new styles feature makes it easy to see the number of different styles being used in a document; one click brings up a colour-coded and numbered key, and once you select a style you can then toggle the display to highlight text that uses a different style.

Multimedia

Multimedia features on all utilities are much improved to the point where functionality is broadly in line with iWork, yet the user interface remains simple and usable. Word has a comprehensive set of templates with wide customisation options, and improved access to graphic editing tools.

Image editing tools are provided within Word, Powerpoint and Excel and these should remove the need to use additional software in most cases given that you can now perform tasks like removing the background, cropping to a shape, adding a frame choosing an aspect ratio, panning, zooming, adjusting colour tone and saturation and applying artistic filters. Reordering overlapping objects in layers is easier too.

Multiple Authors & Editors

Micrsoft's SkyDrive and SharePoint are now integrated, allowing users to lock part of a document, or see which parts are being worked on by others, and communication with a document's co-authors is possible via IM, voice or video. HOwever you must either have a Windows Live ID and SharePoint account (for the home/student edition) or Microsoft Communicator and Sharepoint Foundation for the business editions.

Automation

Havng been dropped from the 2008 version, VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) makes a welcome return. If you're unfamiliar with this feature it means that common tasks in Word, Powerpoint or Excel can be automated with macros. Each program supports full macro writing/editing functionality, and they can also be recorded in Word or Excel. If the facility is not involved enough for you then you'll be pleased to know that Mac-only automation software like Automator and Applescript is still supported.

Excel

Excel has a new workbook gallery with plenty of template options, and the pivot tables have been improved. Data can now be compared visually using the new 'sparklines' option; these charts fit right beside the data, in a single cell of the worksheet. There are further new options to associate data with graphics, with over 40 preset ways to format things like key points, percentages and averages, and increases/decreases as well as custom format creation. However, despite the additional features and flexibility there are still real differences between Excel and iWork's Numbers.

Powerpoint

PowerPoint has a large number of new transitions, effects and customisation tools, plus video integration. A new slide layout means presentations can be cycled through quickly, and the editing process has been streamlined. Presentations can now also be converted to web-friendly format, although video is lost and transitions are simplified.

Bye Bye Entourage, Hello Outlook

Entourage has been replaced by Outlook and, in a major improvement, each time an email is received the database file does not need to re-saved because each item is saved as a separate file. Entourage data import is fully supported, although there is no synchronisation with iCal.

In Closing

Office for Mac 2011 is more expensive than iWork, but it now does a lot more and is seriously worth a look in our view if you feel you need a bit more punch in your office suite. The only area where iWork still outshines it is media slideshow creation.

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