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Anything you do in Office 2004 can be organized and tracked.
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Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983
T e c h n o f i l e
New version of Microsoft Office is a knockout -- but it won't run on Windows
May 23, 2004
By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2004, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2004, The Post-Standard
The latest version of Microsoft Office, unveiled this week, reveals Microsoft's split personality.
The new software, called Office 2004, is the most powerful version of Office yet. It has an outstanding e-mail program, a flexible calendar, a state-of-the-art project manager and, as you might expect, three other mainstays of typical office activities -- an advanced word processor, Microsoft Word; an integrated presentation program, Microsoft PowerPoint; and the industry's top spreadsheet program, Microsoft Excel.
But it doesn't run on Windows. Microsoft's bread-and-butter customers, the world's 600 million Windows users, can't run it.
Why? Because Office 2004 is not a Windows program. It was designed exclusively for Apple's operating system, Macintosh OS X, by the Macintosh Business Unit at Microsoft. (The "X" is a Roman numeral, pronounced "ten.")
Even stranger, Windows users can't get the most sophisticated features of Office 2004 in their own version of Office for many months; Microsoft insiders said top officials at the company were surprised at how advanced the OS X version was when they saw it for the first time, but were told the Windows version couldn't be updated quickly enough to get the two versions matched this year.
Office 2004 is available at software stores and online retailers. The price varies according to store discounts and Microsoft's own education discount. It ranges from about $150 (for students, teachers and school administrators) to around $400 for the public. Microsoft's requirements for the education discount seem unusually liberal, so you might qualify even if you are no longer a student or teacher.
Just what is so special about Office 2004? Five features stand out.
Projects of all kinds can be automatically linked. This seems like magic. Anything you do in Office 2004 -- e-mailed items, Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint slide shows, Entourage notes and even external files -- can be organized and tracked. This works far better than the stuffy way the Windows version of Office tries to help keep track of things.
Note taking in Microsoft Word 2004 is outstanding. You can take indexed notes by speaking into a microphone, and even the standard notes you take are superbly handled and easily indexed.
Entourage combines what is now the best OS X e-mail client with an adaptable calendar and scheduler, and it automatically filters spam as well as Apple's OS X e-mail software does. Spam-filter updates are automatic and free, according to early reports. (My preview version didn't have the update function, but I was told it will be in the version you can buy.)
Microsoft Word 2004 is easily the best version of Word I have used on Windows or the Mac. It's fast and doesn't bog down when I load humongous documents, and it works perfectly with documents created in any Windows versions of Word. (And cross-platform compatibility worked without a problem in the other direction, too.) Spell checking (along with AutoCorrect and AutoText) and grammar checking work better in the Mac OS X version than in the Windows versions, too.
Microsoft Excel has a new page layout view in which you can edit a document while viewing it exactly the way it will print. Wide spreadsheets are a breeze to view, too, if you have one of the wide-screen iMacs. Compatibility was first rate, too. Excel documents I created in Windows opened perfectly on my Mac, and ones I created on the Mac opened flawlessly in Windows.
A sixth feature, not as obvious until after you have used Office 2004 a while, is the slick integration of every software component. Good software insinuates itself into your life, helping you do your tasks at every step. But great software does it with finesse.
On the strength of Microsoft Word 2004 alone, Office 2004 might be considered a must-have program. But with the new project management features, the improved Excel and Office 2004's excellent e-mail capabilities, the new version of Office is clearly at the top of my list of important OS X software.
And you get a bonus for free. Your Windows-using friends will find excuses to drop over to visit once they've seen what's missing in their own version of Office.
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