Office 2013 for mac.

Interesting. I find it so odd that the Windows version of Outlook is supported as an iCloud client and the Mac version doesn’t work. Well I got it to work with Sync Mate but I don’t like this approach at all as it’s third party etc and you really have to fool with it to get it going. I was able to generate a lot of dups on first go as I didn’t have it configured right.

I’m not of Outlook any longer. In it’s day I liked it but that’s a long time ago. I much prefer, at least with the Mac, to use mail with Busycal or Fantastical as my calendar and Omnifocus as my task organizer.

For notes I used to use and would like to get back to it DEVONthink. But they’re being really slow getting a half decent IOS client out there. So I use Evernote and I like it. There’s plus’ to both.

So that’s what i do now. But a lot of shops that are PC based use Outlook and Exchange.I guess it’s alright for work environments it just doesn’t suit my style any longer.

I have to know at times how it works depending on what I’m doing. These are one of those times.

I use BusyCal, have done for a long time (with Mail for Exchange account until BC added support), I also use Evernote. I have Fantastical but tend not to use it.

I used to support a few Exchange Server shops, Outlook is ubiquitous, and MS's decision to support Dav services in Windows but not on a Mac is bizarre.

I'm thinking that they will support it in the next iteration as they are missing a huge market. The days of Microsoft is king of the hill are gone. Even they too, for all their money can get themselves in trouble. In fact, they seem awfully lost to me these days.

So I have Office 2011 installed on my mac for work with Outlook however I was wondering a good alternative for word and excel one note etc and outlook for my mac. I was waiting for Office 2013 but that isn't for a while. I appreciate your help.

Thanks in advance,

cole152 wrote:

So I have Office 2011 installed on my mac for work with Outlook however I was wondering a good alternative for word and excel one note etc and outlook for my mac. I was waiting for Office 2013 but that isn't for a while. I appreciate your help.

Thanks in advance,

Office 2013 is a Windows program, MS have not announced a new Mac version, or what it will be called yet.

Investigate LibreOffice (all MS Office program equivalents except OneNote and Outlook) The nearest equivalent to OneNote is Evernote and the nearest equivalent to Outlook is Soho Organizer.

Hi Cole152

Yes. I'm sync'g Outlook 2013 on Windows 8 with iCloud. I'm sync'g outlook or office 2011 using syncmate with iCloud. Everything is now in sync via icloud so all my Windows, Mac computers and my iPhone and iPad and the icloud.com - everything is in sync.

i prefer Outlook 2011 email over mail. However, I wanted my contacts and calendarsin sync. i have everything in sync using iCloud and tools to enable 2013 Windows Outlook and Mac Outlook 2011. If you need more info than this I'd be happy to provide it.

Hi Kerry,

I do yes. So how do I do this with my Mac itself. I am not running windows.

Thanks,

Hi Cole,

First I'll tell you what I think is a great alternative to Microsoft Office but it's a mixture approach but it's kind of the best of the best.

1. Apple's mail for mail and you might want to use Indev's and Dervish's add-ons to enhance mail productivity

2. Apple's iWork. It's excellent and is Office compatible with IOS versions (important),

3. Circus Ponies Notebook for Notetaking. A superb application that was developed when Steve Jobs was head of Next Step. This was ported to OSX. Take a look at this one as it's very powerful. There's an iPad version that sync's

4. Omnifocus for your tasks. in my view this is the best task manager on the market. The thing about this unfortuanately is that they haven't released OmniFocus v2 and that got delayed this summer as a result of IOS7. I can tell you, I like this one but OmniFocus 1 is tired now but does the job. Write @kcase Twitter and say you're keen on OmniFocus v2. He's guaranteed me that this will happen. i'm on the beta team.

5. Busycal for calendars. This is excellent.

So that would be an alternative Mac strategy.

Now if you still want to sync Outlook 2011 I can tell you how to do that but a lot of people have trouble doing this. i've got working beautifully.

You actually might actually want to do both and have them all sync'g together except that Omnifocus wouldn't be part of this parade as they use their own server Omnipresenece.

Let me know if you want to proceed with the Sync of Office 2011 for the mac. It is cool!

Kery

Thanks for all the options 🙂 I greatly appreciate it. I think I want to continue with the Sync for Office 2011

OK. To sync Outlook with icloud contacts, calendars and tasks you need the paid version of Sync mate. If you just want to sync Contacts and calendars I believe the free one will do. I have the paid one as I got it on sale at 9to5 software. First take a look at this and tell me if you want to pursue this. It works and it works well but I found I had to tinker to get it going and my first effort lead to a mistake where I cause dups of my records. I figured out what I did wrong, did it properly and now everything is in perfect sync. I don't sync tasks though as I use OmniFocus. However, I wouldn't want to sync tasks into Outlook.

If you decide this is the route you want to go then i'll explain how to do it. However, it's like mom's secret recipe. Microsoft wanted me to show them how I did this as they can't do it and I sort of showed them. Apple is very interested in how I sync iCloud with Windows 2013 outlook in Windows 8. That one is easier to describe but there's a trick to make it 100% stable. Otherwise, you end up with some records will commit and some won't.

So first look at Sync Mate. If you're prepared to go down that road then great. But it's a lot to describe this and this will have to be an iterative process. Once you get it going though it's just going and i never have to touch it. Further, it's never made a mistake in terms of sync. So it works well just not as real time as if Microsoft supported Cardav and Caldav.

Kerry

Kerry Dawson wrote:

So it works well just not as real time as if Microsoft supported Cardav and Caldav.

Kerry

Microsoft do support CalDav and CardDav, just not in Outlook 2011 for Mac. Outlook 2013 for Windows is already supported by iCloud, no 3rd party expenditure required.

For Outlook to work in the 2013 environment with iCloud you have to have Apple's version 3 tool for iCloud on Windows. However, there can still be a problem. There's a little trick I employed and i'm not sure if that's why I now have no problem and nor is Microsoft but they were pretty impressed with what I showed them.

Is this 'trick' a secret?

Could I email you directly?

Thanks

I don't know if what I did is the fix but it works 100% now and previously I could only get some records to commit and in other situations I would get a permissions error. Microsoft took control of my machine and couldn't get it to work and the fellow was going to take it on as a project to solve the problem. After researching it I felt the problem wasn't solvable and told him to not bother as he'd just be wasting his time. I did nothing quite so intentional but thought there might be another way of doing this and then loaded some software. I couldn't get it to work though even though everything indicated I could get it to work.

However, I decided to try the icloud 3 route one more time for some reason even though I had all the permission errors which couldn't be resolved. Suddenly they were all gone. It works now 100% of the time on identical calendars in icloud. In fact, I've got everything sync'g quite happily. I've decided to now load my Macbook Air and replicate this. If I can do it on the MacBook Air then somehow and I don't know why this little thing that was supposed to work in one I think must be the reason it works in the proper way with the icloud tool.

I'm not sure why you're interested though. You have no interest in Outlook and don't like it.