Editorial Review
A streamlined user interface, hundreds of new themes and templates, and better compatibility with your Windows-based colleagues--with Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, you'll simplify your work and achieve more with less effort.
| Five Great Reasons to Upgrade to Office 2008 for Mac: Universal applications: Office 2008 runs natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs. Easier interface: You'll quickly build professional, compatible and complex documents using the simplified user interface and new tools like Document Elements. With a visual gallery for selecting elements like cover pages, bibliographies, and citations, you're one-click from finished. Your Mac, more compatible: Office 2008 for Mac and the Windows-based 2007 Office System share the Open XML file formats, the Office Art graphics engine, and many other features that result in compatibility and file fidelity. You'll be confident when sharing ideas and documents with colleagues regardless of which platform they're on. Great documents: Professional design is within your power with hundreds of new customizable templates and suite-wide themes, SmartArt graphics, and the new Publishing Layout View in Word 2008. Your day, well managed: My Day keeps you connected to all of the day's action. Command your calendar, tackle your tasks, and simplify your day with this easy to use but powerful little tool. Which Version of Office 2008 is right for you? View this comparison chart. |
Simplify Your Work
Your presentation will make an impact. Your documents will be professional. Your analysis will be insightful. And Office 2008 will be there.
The latest version of the industry standard for productivity software on the Macintosh platform, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is more powerful and easier to use. Office 2008 combines Microsoft Word for Mac, Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac, Microsoft Excel for Mac, Microsoft Entourage for Mac, and Microsoft Messenger for Mac and lets you easily create high-impact documents and seamlessly share your ideas with others, whether they are on the Mac or Windows platform.
What's New in Office for Mac?
- Universal versions of the most popular productivity applications on the Macintosh platform (Universal applications run natively on Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs.)
- Microsoft Office for Mac natively supports the Open XML file formats for compatibility with Windows-based 2007 Microsoft Office products.
- A redesigned user interface and powerful new tools for simplifying work, creating great looking documents, and exchanging ideas and information with others.
Highlights of Office 2008 for Mac
- Office 2008 is a Universal Binary, was built by Mac users for Mac users, and includes many features which take advantage of underlying technologies of the Macintosh platform.
- Office 2008 uses Open XML file formats for compatibility with Windows-based 2007 Microsoft Office products. XML file formats help reduce the risk of lost information due to damaged or corrupted files and also result in smaller file sizes--up to 75 percent smaller than comparable binary documents. Office 2008 for Mac is backward-compatible with earlier file formats and users can continue to use the older .doc, .xls, and .ppt binary formats.
- Elements Gallery is the foundation of the new user interface, and gives easy access to the most commonly used tools and templates. With the new UI, you'll harness the capabilities of Office for Mac more easily than ever before.
- Office 2008 includes OfficeArt, the powerful graphics engine also used in the Windows-based Office 2007 products. You get great cross-platform file fidelity and easy access to stunning visual and graphic effects.
- Your words will make an impact with the modern styling of SmartArt graphics, which makes transforming text and bulleted lists into professional diagrams and graphics one-click easy.
- A new Themes capability simplifies the process of applying a consistent look and feel across documents. Easily apply a complete set of colors, fonts, and effects to your Office 2008 documents, and change them as easily as changing your mind.
- 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. (Available in Office 2008 for Mac and Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition.)
 Entourage 2008, the hub of Office 2008, helps it to happen, one task at a time. |
 Enjoy powerful new tools, over 100 designer templates, rich themes, and an intuitive user interface in Word 2008. |
Entourage 2008
Your e-mails will spark ideas, you'll schedule meetings where creativity abounds. Entourage 2008, the hub of Office 2008, helps it to happen, one task at a time.
- My Day keeps you connected to the action. Schedules, tasks, and priorities in one easy, standalone interface. Time will have no choice but to be well-managed.
- Use color-coded categories, status indicators, and flexible To-Do list management humble even the most hectic schedules.
- Office 2008 for Mac and Office 2008 Special Media Edition enable users to access their Microsoft Exchange server accounts with Entourage.
- Improved Junk E-Mail filtering capabilities and phishing protection tools help shield your inbox from the scourge of junk. Your inbox will breathe a sigh of relief.
- Projects submit to your superior management skills when you unleash the power of Project Center, With project details like e-mail messages, documents, schedules, and contacts in one convenient place, Project Center helps keep your information--and your stress--under control.
Word 2008
Powerful new tools, over 100 designer templates, rich themes, and an intuitive user interface in Word 2008 will help you to make your ideas look as good as they are.
- When you turn blah into brilliant, Publishing Layout View will elevate the way you think about Word 2008. This new specialized and customizable workspace lets users create incredibly rich documents such as newletters, flyers and brochures without a degree in design.
- Great looking document construction won't require a hard hat. New Templates, Themes, and Document Elements like cover pages and bibliographies make creating professional-looking output a snap.
- Your words will make an impact with the modern styling of SmartArt, which makes transforming text into high-quality graphics and diagrams as easy as one click.
- Dynamic Guides will help you keep all of your words and graphics in line and on point.
- Mass mailings will have a personal touch and Word 2008 Mail Merge Manager will guide you step by easy step.
 Inspire your audience's imagination with compelling visuals and engaging layout in PowerPoint 2008. |
 Analyze, share, and manage your data, and easily create persuasive charts and thought-provoking graphs for powerful results with Excel 2008. |
PowerPoint 2008
Your presentation is a story. PowerPoint 2008 will illustrate it. Inspire your audience's imagination with compelling visuals and engaging layout.
- Great ideas will get their graphic due with SmartArt graphics in PowerPoint 2008. Start with a blank slide or a bulleted list, and, with a click of a button, you'll have a stunning chart, table, map, or diagram.
- Designer Themes help you give your presentation a creative look, simply and quickly.
- The new Object Palette allows quick access to all your shapes, art, symbols, and pictures--including iPhoto files--in one easy-to-access space.
- Dynamic Guides will help you place and resize your graphic element to create professional-looking presentations in a snap.
- You'll lay out custom designs to showcase your unique content with custom layout capabilities in PowerPoint 2008.
- PowerPoint 2008 integration with Apple Remote Control lets you concentrate on your words, not your keyboard. Now control your presentation and engage your audience unleashed from the podium.
Excel 2008
It's a numbers game. With Excel 2008, analyze, share, and manage your data, and easily create persuasive charts and thought-provoking graphs for powerful results.
- Ledger Sheets in Excel 2008 make tracking finances, inventories, even invoices and portfolios easy with preformulated spreadsheets and automatic calculations.
- Charting improvements artfully convey the message your data is telling. You'll see your numbers in a whole new way.
- The new prebuilt functions tackle the most common tasks and make creating error-free complex conditional formulas easier.
- Quick access to formulas makes functions more functional with Formula Builder in Excel 2008.
- Your data will know virtually no limits. Excel 2008 now supports over 16,000 columns and over 1 million rows.
- Whether you're an Excel expert or a complete novice, Excel 2008 Formula AutoComplete simplifies your calculations by providing a dynamic pop-up menu so you can select and complete your formula.
Messenger for Mac
Convenience is the name of the game for Mac users who want to communicate instantly with family, friends and colleagues from one convenient place. Messenger for Mac is now a Universal application, and gives you more ways to share what's on your mind or on your plate.
Use Messenger for Mac to instantly check the status of project team members, streamline workflow by sending documents directly from Word, or offer questions or comments on document changes instantly.
- Yahoo! Interoperability will allow personal users to connect and message with Yahoo! Messenger for Mac users.
- Your intentions will never again be in doubt when you create your own custom emoticons in Messenger for Mac.
- Spelling Checker is now included in Messenger for Mac.
- Let the world know your tastes when you display your iTunes selection with the new "What I'm listening to now" feature.
Cached date: AWS Called=true
Customer Reviews
MicroSoft Office 2008 for the Mac 
2008-05-29
Since the files produced are xml, they are not compatible with previous version. One has to set the default files to the last version of Office so that others can open your files.
There are still a few bugs--can't open attachments. Must save first and then open from the application.
2008 Office has lots of great features, but I am not sure it's worth it because of the incompatibility with previous versions.
just not worth it 
2008-04-21
I got the upgrade for Microsoft Office Mac 2008. Wow... I have never seen such an awful application in my life. It take over 20 minutes for the application to open on my Mac. I say, run!! Run in the other direction. This product is just simply awful and a total waste of money and time. My production has suffered a great deal since it's purchase.
No Analysis Toolpack! 
2008-04-15
I am a Mac tech. I read all the info about the release of Office 2008. I knew that VBA was gone (requiring an entire rewrite for some programs we had developed.)
But I was shocked, once I installed it, to find that the Analysis Toolpack, which I relied on constantly for statistical analysis, was also gone. I had seen absolutely nothing presaging this.
Bad move. Bad, bad move.
Improved user interface, but slower launching 
2008-04-05
The Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Upgrade provides an improved interface over earlier versions and compatibility with the new .docx file formats. The downside for me was that on my MacBook (1.83 Ghz, 2Gb, MacOS 10.5.2) it was significantly slower to launch that the earlier version (Office X). For example, starting Word 2008 took 32 seconds vs. 14 seconds for Word X. I found similar slowdowns for other Office 2008 components. I had anticipated that the universal binaries for Office 2008 would provide greatly improved performance on the new MacIntel systems over earlier versions of Office. It was quite a disappointment to see that things went the other way.
Great Free Upgrade - NOT. Thanks Microsoft 2008-04-01
I bought a beautiful new iMac for Christmas for the family (and me). It came with a coupon from Microsoft that permitted me to upgrade (for free) Office 2004 Student/Teacher Edition to Office 2008 Home and Student Edition when it became available in the Spring. I thought, "wow, those guys at Microsoft are pretty neat. What a nice gift and just in time for the holiday." I brought my shiny new iMac home, set it up, and it ran beautifully - of course. In short order, I had Entourage interacting with my Exchange server at work sending / retrieving email. What could be better, the kids had a place to do their homework and I did too.
I got my new version of Office 2008 Home and Student Edition today. I installed it. I started Entoruage, and guess what? It no longer supports Exchange servers. Like buying a new car and finding out that, although last years model had air conditioning, this years model does not - I was stunned. Could my new found appreciation for Microsoft be dashed so suddenly? You bet it could be - those Bas.....!
My only alternative, if I would like to send and receive email at home is to upgrade at considerable expense to the standard edition. So, if I want to retrieve my previous functionality, I get to pay ~$200.00 for an upgrade to Microsofts gracious "free upgrade offer." A truely brilliant peice of marketing.
My company (the one that I own) spends several $100,000.00 annually on Dell computers to be included with our products. Each Dell has a host of Microsoft software on it. I swear that I will do everything I can to have our design teams remove Microsoft's products from ours - sorry Dell. Microsoft is a decietful company and should pay the price for their "bend the customer over" mentality.
Good but still Microsoft product 2008-03-27
A streamlined user interface, hundreds of new themes and templates, and better compatibility with your Windows-based colleagues--with Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac, you'll simplify your work and achieve more with less effort.
| Five Great Reasons to Upgrade to Office 2008 for Mac: Universal applications: Office 2008 runs natively on both Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs. Easier interface: You'll quickly build professional, compatible and complex documents using the simplified user interface and new tools like Document Elements. With a visual gallery for selecting elements like cover pages, bibliographies, and citations, you're one-click from finished. Your Mac, more compatible: Office 2008 for Mac and the Windows-based 2007 Office System share the Open XML file formats, the Office Art graphics engine, and many other features that result in compatibility and file fidelity. You'll be confident when sharing ideas and documents with colleagues regardless of which platform they're on. Great documents: Professional design is within your power with hundreds of new customizable templates and suite-wide themes, SmartArt graphics, and the new Publishing Layout View in Word 2008. Your day, well managed: My Day keeps you connected to all of the day's action. Command your calendar, tackle your tasks, and simplify your day with this easy to use but powerful little tool. Which Version of Office 2008 is right for you? View this comparison chart. |
Simplify Your Work
Your presentation will make an impact. Your documents will be professional. Your analysis will be insightful. And Office 2008 will be there.
The latest version of the industry standard for productivity software on the Macintosh platform, Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac is more powerful and easier to use. Office 2008 combines Microsoft Word for Mac, Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac, Microsoft Excel for Mac, Microsoft Entourage for Mac, and Microsoft Messenger for Mac and lets you easily create high-impact documents and seamlessly share your ideas with others, whether they are on the Mac or Windows platform.
What's New in Office for Mac?
- Universal versions of the most popular productivity applications on the Macintosh platform (Universal applications run natively on Intel- and PowerPC-based Macs.)
- Microsoft Office for Mac natively supports the Open XML file formats for compatibility with Windows-based 2007 Microsoft Office products.
- A redesigned user interface and powerful new tools for simplifying work, creating great looking documents, and exchanging ideas and information with others.
Highlights of Office 2008 for Mac
- Office 2008 is a Universal Binary, was built by Mac users for Mac users, and includes many features which take advantage of underlying technologies of the Macintosh platform.
- Office 2008 uses Open XML file formats for compatibility with Windows-based 2007 Microsoft Office products. XML file formats help reduce the risk of lost information due to damaged or corrupted files and also result in smaller file sizes--up to 75 percent smaller than comparable binary documents. Office 2008 for Mac is backward-compatible with earlier file formats and users can continue to use the older .doc, .xls, and .ppt binary formats.
- Elements Gallery is the foundation of the new user interface, and gives easy access to the most commonly used tools and templates. With the new UI, you'll harness the capabilities of Office for Mac more easily than ever before.
- Office 2008 includes OfficeArt, the powerful graphics engine also used in the Windows-based Office 2007 products. You get great cross-platform file fidelity and easy access to stunning visual and graphic effects.
- Your words will make an impact with the modern styling of SmartArt graphics, which makes transforming text and bulleted lists into professional diagrams and graphics one-click easy.
- A new Themes capability simplifies the process of applying a consistent look and feel across documents. Easily apply a complete set of colors, fonts, and effects to your Office 2008 documents, and change them as easily as changing your mind.
- 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. (Available in Office 2008 for Mac and Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition.)
| Entourage 2008, the hub of Office 2008, helps it to happen, one task at a time. |
| Enjoy powerful new tools, over 100 designer templates, rich themes, and an intuitive user interface in Word 2008. |
Entourage 2008
Your e-mails will spark ideas, you'll schedule meetings where creativity abounds. Entourage 2008, the hub of Office 2008, helps it to happen, one task at a time.
- My Day keeps you connected to the action. Schedules, tasks, and priorities in one easy, standalone interface. Time will have no choice but to be well-managed.
- Use color-coded categories, status indicators, and flexible To-Do list management humble even the most hectic schedules.
- Office 2008 for Mac and Office 2008 Special Media Edition enable users to access their Microsoft Exchange server accounts with Entourage.
- Improved Junk E-Mail filtering capabilities and phishing protection tools help shield your inbox from the scourge of junk. Your inbox will breathe a sigh of relief.
- Projects submit to your superior management skills when you unleash the power of Project Center, With project details like e-mail messages, documents, schedules, and contacts in one convenient place, Project Center helps keep your information--and your stress--under control.
Word 2008
Powerful new tools, over 100 designer templates, rich themes, and an intuitive user interface in Word 2008 will help you to make your ideas look as good as they are.
- When you turn blah into brilliant, Publishing Layout View will elevate the way you think about Word 2008. This new specialized and customizable workspace lets users create incredibly rich documents such as newletters, flyers and brochures without a degree in design.
- Great looking document construction won't require a hard hat. New Templates, Themes, and Document Elements like cover pages and bibliographies make creating professional-looking output a snap.
- Your words will make an impact with the modern styling of SmartArt, which makes transforming text into high-quality graphics and diagrams as easy as one click.
- Dynamic Guides will help you keep all of your words and graphics in line and on point.
- Mass mailings will have a personal touch and Word 2008 Mail Merge Manager will guide you step by easy step.
| Inspire your audience's imagination with compelling visuals and engaging layout in PowerPoint 2008. |
| Analyze, share, and manage your data, and easily create persuasive charts and thought-provoking graphs for powerful results with Excel 2008. |
PowerPoint 2008
Your presentation is a story. PowerPoint 2008 will illustrate it. Inspire your audience's imagination with compelling visuals and engaging layout.
- Great ideas will get their graphic due with SmartArt graphics in PowerPoint 2008. Start with a blank slide or a bulleted list, and, with a click of a button, you'll have a stunning chart, table, map, or diagram.
- Designer Themes help you give your presentation a creative look, simply and quickly.
- The new Object Palette allows quick access to all your shapes, art, symbols, and pictures--including iPhoto files--in one easy-to-access space.
- Dynamic Guides will help you place and resize your graphic element to create professional-looking presentations in a snap.
- You'll lay out custom designs to showcase your unique content with custom layout capabilities in PowerPoint 2008.
- PowerPoint 2008 integration with Apple Remote Control lets you concentrate on your words, not your keyboard. Now control your presentation and engage your audience unleashed from the podium.
Excel 2008
It's a numbers game. With Excel 2008, analyze, share, and manage your data, and easily create persuasive charts and thought-provoking graphs for powerful results.
- Ledger Sheets in Excel 2008 make tracking finances, inventories, even invoices and portfolios easy with preformulated spreadsheets and automatic calculations.
- Charting improvements artfully convey the message your data is telling. You'll see your numbers in a whole new way.
- The new prebuilt functions tackle the most common tasks and make creating error-free complex conditional formulas easier.
- Quick access to formulas makes functions more functional with Formula Builder in Excel 2008.
- Your data will know virtually no limits. Excel 2008 now supports over 16,000 columns and over 1 million rows.
- Whether you're an Excel expert or a complete novice, Excel 2008 Formula AutoComplete simplifies your calculations by providing a dynamic pop-up menu so you can select and complete your formula.
Messenger for Mac
Convenience is the name of the game for Mac users who want to communicate instantly with family, friends and colleagues from one convenient place. Messenger for Mac is now a Universal application, and gives you more ways to share what's on your mind or on your plate.
Use Messenger for Mac to instantly check the status of project team members, streamline workflow by sending documents directly from Word, or offer questions or comments on document changes instantly.
- Yahoo! Interoperability will allow personal users to connect and message with Yahoo! Messenger for Mac users.
- Your intentions will never again be in doubt when you create your own custom emoticons in Messenger for Mac.
- Spelling Checker is now included in Messenger for Mac.
- Let the world know your tastes when you display your iTunes selection with the new "What I'm listening to now" feature.
No Issues 2008-03-26
The upgrade went without a glitch. Word, Excel and Powerpoint work as expected and give me good interoperability with my colleagues running Windows. I use Mac Mail exclusively, so I have not tried Entourage at all. But other people who have seem pretty happy.
not ready for prime time 2008-03-24
Never in my experience with mainstream software has it been my displeasure to deal with software this buggy. Powerpoint cannot work with many fonts reliably other than the ones it comes with. Word cannot print documents with pictures in it with any regularity. And excel was losing data ... my people would work on a document, save it, open it later, and the data entered was no longer there. This software was not ready for release. And the features added hardly account for the price. Plus, one last little, FU to everyone involved, it saves file types that require people to upgrade to their software (or you can download utilities that allow you to change docx to doc). I recommend anyone considering the Mac MS Office 2008 upgrade to wait, and then wait some more. We bought itm installed it and have now downgraded back to 2004. Sort of the same thing that happened with Windows Vista users. Caveat Emptor.
License allows an additional laptop install 2008-03-07
The Office 2008 Upgrade license allows installation on both a desktop system and a laptop. It also allows you to transfer the license to new systems, over time. Unlike the Windows version, there is no product activation requirement.
From the license:
* "You may install another copy on a portable device for use by the single primary user of the licensed device."
* "You may uninstall the software and install it on another device for your use ..."
OK, But Still Way Overpriced Compared to Alternatives 2008-02-29
Although Microsoft designed this for the Mac, it seems Microsoft can't quite make software for the Mac, "Mac Like". Microsoft just can't get it right , in my opinion. A few notes:
- It looks OK, if form is more important than function
- Still no database on the Mac (a la Access).
- Programs, like Word for example, load very slowly even for a 2008 3.2 Ghz Mac Pro w/ 6 GB of RAM
- Typically bloated with features which could account for the slow load time
- After all these years, you'd think Office should install and uninstall like a typical Mac program, but still requires it's own uninstall routine
- Strange mix of Inspectors and Menu items. For example, Word uses inspector panels like many Mac programs, but includes a Windows style detailed Menu bar at the top. It's as if they feared going with an "all Mac" approach. The result of this is that previous Windows uses will have a hard time finding some features and functions, the same may generally be true for previous Mac users, although to slightly less of a degree.
- Compatibility with Office 2007 seems OK, but if you share documents with prior versions (esp. Office 2003 & 2000 for some reason), you may find oddities appearing on their own, especially when using the Comment and Review functionality.
- I don't think it's as usable as something like iWork. iWork has less features and functions, but you only use about 10% of Office on average anyway. iWork is very focused on the key features you'll use in an Office suite and surly lacks some features of Office, but Office makes you feel like you've just had too much functionality dumped on you at once - and it's your responsibility to wade through it finding the features you need at ay given time (which can be extremely frustrating). It's feels like a half-baked attempt at the Mac interface conventions.
- I've used Office since the very early days (transitioned from MultiMate if you remember that one), and I have never been able to shake the "it's about to crash or lock-up one me" feeling that makes me save a document every 10 seconds. Stability is questionable, but so far it has seemed better than before.
- Still way over priced in IMHO. It makes iWork worth a close look and tough to beat.
In my opinion, if you already use Office for Mac, the upgrade isn't really necessary for early iMac, PowerBook and PowerMac owners, unless you really need compatibility with the newer file formats.
For MacIntel owners, you'll get a universal Binary program, which technically should speed things up a bit but so far I have failed to see it. I have the fastest desktop currently available and it's frustratingly slow to open by today's standards.
If you use about 10% of Word, as most of us do, Pages may be a better option for you and iWork's price is tough to beat. Word seems to average about 1 to 2% more CPU requirements when typing a plain blank document than Pages does so older systems could see better performance with iWork (although I did not test this fully).
Bottom Line: Office remains over-priced for a nominal feature-set and upgrade.
