Office 2000 and scream

[ColinC]

The pain and anguish of a shared steep learning curve dominates work at present.

My co-workers and I very recently were updated from Office 2003 to Office 2007 (we like to be at the cutting edge) and since then the room has been filled with "where is the ...?"; "how do I ...?"; "why did they ...?" "what happened to ...?"; "what the ...!?". All very frustrating for people that just want to get on with producing documents efficiently, and have no say in the tools used.

Anyway it makes using iWork all the more pleasurable when I come home!

[golfer]

I wish I was as excited about iWork as you Colin. I'm more than happy using Pages instead of Word but I just can't accept Numbers as a replacement for Excel.

[John Chidgey]

Office 2007 takes a while to get used to, given that the transition from Office 2000 to 2003 had similar menus and toolbars, however with 2007 Microsoft got the blender out and threw it all in. The final result though is larger icons and easier navigation - it's just a matter of getting used to it.

iWork is great - I really love Pages and especially Keynote (PowerPoint just doesn't come close). But I agree that Excel is still the king of Spreadsheet applications, with Open Offices' Calc doing a better job than Numbers does.

I also HATE the fact that there are no decent Project Management tools like MS Project for OSX. There are several, yes, but they are either way over-priced or too inflexible. The Mac is getting better for business with every passing year, but it still has a way to go to compete with the Microsoft Office juggernaut.

[ColinC]

Originally Posted by golfer

I wish I was as excited about iWork as you Colin. I'm more than happy using Pages instead of Word but I just can't accept Numbers as a replacement for Excel.

Mainly Pages that I use at home, and I agree with your Excel assessment.

[ColinC]

Originally Posted by John Chidgey

Office 2007 takes a while to get used to, given that the transition from Office 2000 to 2003 had similar menus and toolbars, however with 2007 Microsoft got the blender out and threw it all in. The final result though is larger icons and easier navigation - it's just a matter of getting used to it.
.

No doubt we will get used to it and the groans will fade away, but those larger washed-out icons really annoy, even on my new 24" screen! Do they contain incredible detail like the Apple icons? Apple gets into ultra-realism, MS it would seem reacts with bad naivism!

Afraid that I do judge a book by its cover, and thankfully so does Steve Jobs!

[John Chidgey]

Originally Posted by ColinC

No doubt we will get used to it and the groans will fade away, but those larger washed-out icons really annoy, even on my new 24" screen! Do they contain incredible detail like the Apple icons? ...

The answer is that some of them are larger and others are similar in size - they seem to want to make the more commonly used icons larger than the others - or at least that how it looks at first glance.

Honestly I use Office for Mac 2008 and Open Office for OSX rather than 2007 on Windows - unless I'm helping out other work colleagues which are less Office-literate than myself.