Productivity: Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac – Outlook and Excel Review

posted on Feb 10 in Reviews by Macness Reviews
Excel, Microsoft Office, Outlook, Productivity

To start off our series of reviews on the theme Productivity, here’s the very first article written by Toh Wei Zheng.

Wei Zheng finally got a Macbook Pro in his own hands two years ago. Prior to that, he was drooling over Macs since time immemorial. <3 his Mac but the occassional Win7 craving remains.

Office 2011: A functional productivity suite – but it could be better still?

By TOH WEI ZHENG

Bowing to the Mac’s rising dominance, Microsoft has finally given its latest iteration of Office for Mac with nearly the same attention as its Windows sibling. Crucially, many features that Windows users have long taken for granted are finally extended to Macs. That said, compared with the latest Windows version (2010), Office 2011 still pales by comparison.

Several design improvements are apparent upon using the new Office suite on the first time. The Ribbon tab, which neatly integrates all the numerous taskbars for different functions, has belatedly arrived after making its debut on Windows nearly 4 years ago. Not only does the Ribbon tab conserve precious window real estate, it also accommodates large icons for easy viewing.

Much has also been done to emulate (read: imitate) the look and feel of its major competitor, Apple’s very own iWork. For instance, Powerpoint 2011 now offers more stylish effects to spice up presentations, as well as a much improved slideshow presenter, matching up to the legendary Keynote by a few notches closer. All these create a more user-friendly experienced for the Mac user who is long accustomed to sleek interfaces.

Tired of rebooting to antiquated, buggy Windows XP just to complete your CAT assignments? Fret no more! With Excel 2011, you can now perform advanced spreadsheet programming with the comfort of Mac OS X as macro support has returned to the fore. Removed in the previous version for Mac due to processing issues, Visual Basic   has been reinstated for the Intel-only suite by popular demand. Certainly, this has improved interoperability of Office documents across platforms as one can run macros without issues on either Windows or Mac OS X.

However, beware when writing code, as the Visual Basic editor for the Mac feels unwieldy compared to the Windows edition. This will pose some inconvenience if multiple macros are required within one workbook, as navigation between the different console windows can prove rather tricky. Furthermore, some other advanced features such as automatic data fetching may not function properly in the Mac, as your reviewer experienced.

Macro support is now back for Excel 2011. Also note the Ribbon tab on the interface

Outlook for Mac is making its debut in this edition, promising to provide much more compatibility with Exchange servers than the unloved Entourage client. Indeed, setting up email is now a breeze and VPN is no longer required to search in the address book. The interface is more sophisticated and, while retaining a distinctly Mac feel, bears a strong resemblance with its Windows counterpart. The Conversations view is another welcome addition, making it much easier to track email trails that SMU students are so fond of.

Yet, despite these substantial changes, Outlook for Mac remains a pared-down version, with numerous useful features on Windows nowhere to be found. One still can’t archive automatically or recover deleted items through the Mac.

In conclusion, Office 2011 provides many improvements over the previous version and should be considered by anyone who wishes to improve productivity within the Mac. A pity that many useful functions were omitted.

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