Word 2008: Looking forward?

[Michael Rowley]

KT:

This probably isn’t a bad place to ask about Mac Word 2004

But Word 2008 for the Mac will be out this year, possibly quite soon.

[DTP Guy]

You're right - Office 2008 for the Mac has gone to manufacturing and will be released at Macworld on Jan 15th.

[Michael Rowley]

Brian:

Office 2008 for the Mac has gone to manufacturing and will be released at Macworld on Jan 15

I didn't realize it would be so soon!

I have seen comments that the Mac version of Word 2007 will not have the 'ribbon' that's confusing and annoying PC users.

[dthomsen8]

Originally Posted by Michael Rowley

Brian:

I didn't realize it would be so soon!

I have seen comments that the Mac version of Word 2007 will not have the 'ribbon' that's confusing and annoying PC users.

I am staying with MS Word 2003 for Windows, and I suspect I am hardly the only one who sees no benefit to upgrading to the latest MS Office products at considerable expense. Big businesses are likely to be doing otherwise, though.

[Michael Rowley]

Dave:

I am staying with MS Word 2003 for Windows

Like many others, I imagine. There are considerable benefits though from adopting XML for documents, and they apply to Mac users too, so Word 2008 might well catch their interest. The MS Office 2008 site is very attractive for some tastes, and quite different from the Office 2007 site. Hmm . . .

[Steve Rindsberg]

With a converter pack (freely downloadable from MS) Office 2000-2003 can open and save documents in Office 2007 (ie, zipped XML) format ... needn't spend any money to get that capability.

And if you "upgrade" to Office 2008, you can kiss any existing Office automation solutions (macros, add-ins and the like) goodbye. No longer supported in 2008.

[DTP Guy]

That's true Steve, but Word on the Mac will be shipping with quite a few Automator actions. I have no idea what they are but it may be intriguing!

[DTP Guy]

Michael:
Is this the 'sneak peek' site you are talking about (http://www.macoffice2008.com) or some other?

[dthomsen8]

Originally Posted by Steve Rindsberg

With a converter pack (freely downloadable from MS) Office 2000-2003 can open and save documents in Office 2007 (ie, zipped XML) format ... needn't spend any money to get that capability. ...

Can I read Office 2007 Word documents in Word 2003? That would be my only concern, and of course anyone sending me a Word 2007 document could be asked to send me the Word 2003 format instead.

[Michael Rowley]

Steve:

And if you "upgrade" to Office 2008, you can kiss any existing Office automation solutions (macros, add-ins and the like) goodbye. No longer supported in 2008.

Is that so? Office 2007 still supports VBA macros; at least, Word 2007 does.