Review by D. Solberg

These comments focus primarily on Word and Excel, which are the applications I use. I have a 2.2 Ghz Core Duo 2 MacBook Pro with 4 gigs of RAM, so this is a very fast computer by most measures. Keep this in mind while reading my comments.

Pros:n1. The toolbars are better integrated into the workspace.n2. The graphics look a lot better.n3. File sizes are smaller in the new native format.

Problems:n1. Resizing a window is incredibly slow and takes 100% of the available computer power. It feels like you’re using a computer from years ago.nedit: much better now, but still slowernn2. The first launch of an office program after a restart takes a very, very long time - at least twice as long as a Office 2004 program.n* edit: improved by a noticeable amountnn3. You can’t edit equations from the Windows document format of Office 2007.nedit this is fixed.

4. Any equations you make in Microsoft Word print fuzzy unless you reopen each one prior to printing. For a long document, this process sometimes takes me about 10 minutes just to print a document I created years ago and resaved in the new format.n edit: this is fixednn5. Excel crashes about twice per day, even when working on new documents with just a few cells.nedit: this is fixednn6. Documents created in the new native format take much, much, much longer to open than the exact same documents in the old format.n edit: better, but still true.

7. Compared to Office 2008, Office 2004 is amazingly fast and is much more stable.n** edit: Office 2004 is still better, but not by muchnn8. The overall program is buggy. Things like adjusting or removing tabs don’t work correctly - generally, it only registers something after a long delay.n** edit: much improvednn9. Every document I create double-spaces between paragraphs. I can turn this feature off for a given document, but I can’t save a default. Every time I save the default document template, it ignores this setting for some reason.n**edit this is STILL not fixed, although you can change it if you follow a very complicated procedure.

In short, this is stunningly poor software, with a new challenging annoyance around every corner I’ve turned. I’m continually surprised by how unresponsive and slow the software is, and compatibility with older versions of Office is fairly bad. I would recommend staying with Office 2004 or buying it instead of Office 2008.

March 24, 2008: I deleted Office 2008 from my system and reinstalled Office 2004. I’m much happier, and things work again!nnMarch 31, 2009: I’m still not impressed with this software, but it’s now acceptable.