Microsoft Word and Lion

Although Office 2008 reportedly works as long as you are buying Office buy Office 2011 for full compatibility.

I would wait because you cannot afford to buy Office 2008. By the time Lion has been updated a couple of more times Office 2008 may stop working, and MS isn't updating it.

In the meanwhile make do with the freeware suites: Neo Office, Open Office, or Libre Office. All three are functionally similar to Office 2007 for Windows.

Download a trial version.

2008 didn't run on Lion after upgrading from Snow Leopard. I understand that there are work-arounds, BUT '08 was much slower than '11 because it was PowerPC where '11 is Intel.

There are other compatibility issues with '08. Problem running Win version .docx files. '11 has no problem there.

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Hope that helped.

The problem with Office 2008 is not that it is a PowerPC app, but rather the "installer" is a PowerPC app. Meaning, if you had Office 2008 installed in Snow Leopard and upgraded to Lion, it would still work. However, if you had installed Lion and then tried to install Office 2008, you would not be able to install it.

For the original poster, if they did not have Office 2008 installed prior to upgrading to Lion, they should not purchase it now.

There has been some chatter that Microsoft updated the installer at some point in Office 2008's life to a universal binary... but I haven't seen this confirmed anywhere and there wouldn't be any way of knowing which version you might be getting if they had.

JoeyR wrote:

The problem with Office 2008 is not that it is a PowerPC app, but rather the "installer" is a PowerPC app. Meaning, if you had Office 2008 installed in Snow Leopard and upgraded to Lion, it would still work.

Didn't for us on 4 machines.

There has been some chatter that Microsoft updated the installer at some point in Office 2008's life to a universal binary... but I haven't seen this confirmed anywhere and there wouldn't be any way of knowing which version you might be getting if they had.

It's kind of difficult to find the truth in this. When Office 2008 first came out, Macworld and Mac|Life magazine both reported that the installer app on the DVD was PPC. Many other online reviews reported the same thing.

I bought my copy of Office 2008 after it had been out a while, and the installer works fine without Rosetta. It doesn't even appear to be an app, but rather a script package.

Both trials are probably downloadable.

I personally don't understand the endorsement of '08. It was okay at best. Whereas, '11 responds quickly like the performance we get on or PC machines. In fact, I'll go one farther and say that it performs so much better that for the first time we are mapping out a hardware migration to eliminate the Windows machines entirely, still a few things to work out, but I'd say we'll be PC free by spring.

Hmm, not sure what your post means, Chris. I was responding to the note (as I quoted) that the story is still going around that Office 2008 couldn't install in Lion because the installer is a PPC only app. I'm not endorsing buying it if a person doesn't have Office already. Why would you when Office 2011 is out, and has been for a while?

I dont know how would it adapt to your workflow (It might have all you need, or might have not) but ever thought of iWork? its just $20 per app on the Mac App Store... just throwing it out there.

Thanks Kurt, I might have lazily clicked on the first "Reply" above, but I meant it as a general continuation of the conversation.

Back on the topic, we have used both versions extensively and find more fault with '08 than '11. Someone might invest in an old clearance copy of '08 and that might offer up more negatives down the road about compatibility and the like.

The Mac MS-Office Team have said that the '11 release addressed many of the issues that '08 had and our experience seems to confirm those claims. If they hadn't said that we would not have bought any copies.

'08 had a compatibility issue with .docx due to a law suite MS lost a few years back, and we had poor experience opening and editing .docx files used with government agencies, nothing like that with '11 (so far).

We thought and still hope that the word-processing community migration will move in the direction of open-source. Nothing against MS Office, it is one of their biggest products, BUT government and schools spend way too much on that when there are high quality, lower cost, or free solutions available. I use OO, Pages, and MS-Office '11, in that order.

In conclusion, '08 has wasted a lot of my support time is all. I'll look at some of the other open-source products that Cappy suggested when I get the time.

'08 had a compatibility issue with .docx due to a law suite MS lost a few years back

I still haven't figured out why they lost that suit. A .docx file is just written in XML format, which is an open standard. Was this a case of MS once again trying to make an open format proprietary by changing the format against the licensing terms?

It's still in use of course in Office 2011, so I take it they corrected whatever they were doing with XML?

Kurt Lang wrote:

'08 had a compatibility issue with .docx due to a law suite MS lost a few years back

I still haven't figured out why they lost that suit. A .docx file is just written in XML format, which is an open standard. Was this a case of MS once again trying to make an open format proprietary by changing the format against the licensing terms?

It's still in use of course in Office 2011, so I take it they corrected whatever they were doing with XML?

In actual use, .docx is supported in '11. MS probably licensed the patent after the settlement, and maybe they patched '08, BUT I never auto-update anything from MS, so... I might have missed a step or two.

As far as why '08 lost the suit and the XML integration, MS fought to the point that the court in Texas ordered the stop of '08 sales. There was a period of several months before that product pull was deadlined, but MS didn't settle (probably because they thought they would win an appeal). Maybe the law suit didn't go beyond Texas.

Anyway, I think XML is indeed an open-standard, BUT its use inside a word processor may have been patented in the method of its implementation. I honestly didn't care enough to look into it. Others were using XML; i.e. iWorks, WordPerfect, OO (I think), so they must have licensed it or had implemented a method different or prior to the patent filing.

'11 seems to have solved all that and more. Very quick, etc.

JoeyR wrote:

The problem with Office 2008 is not that it is a PowerPC app, but rather the "installer" is a PowerPC app. Meaning, if you had Office 2008 installed in Snow Leopard and upgraded to Lion, it would still work. However, if you had installed Lion and then tried to install Office 2008, you would not be able to install it.

This isn't true. The installer for Office for Mac 2008 is not a "PPC app." It uses the standard OS X Installer application. I have a retail version of Office for Mac 2008 that I bought the week it was released and the installer is dated 1 December 2007. It installed perfectly in Lion. This hooey about the installer being PPC is simply a misunderstanding that was propagated.

However, to the OP I would suggest that if you must have Office for Mac then buy the 2011 version. Don't buy the discontinued version, it will cost you more money in the long run.

Michael,

I don't know about the installer, but we had '08 on 4 machines that we upgraded to Lion from Snow Leopard. Once the upgrade was complete, the '08 program icons had a whitish circle with a slash (think Ghost Busters) symbol over them. Not deterred there, I tried to launch a Word .doc that had opened before Lion. Nada!

Sure mileage may very with anything, but 4 machines? A 24" iMac, a 27" iMac, a MacBook Pro, and a MacBook Air restored from a Time-Machine backup. So, for my 2-cents, there will be no nod in the direction of '08. On the other hand, '11 is loved by all here, AND all we share documents with at PC centric places like government agencies and contractors.

Just sayin'.