Microsoft Office 10 Beta

[panthera]

Is out to download for free. Microsoft asks that you give them feedback, which seems fair to me.
Got mine this morning, I notice the ribbon has been considerably worked-over. Most of my objections to it are now gone.

Might be worth checking into if you need Office...

 

[autowasherfreak]

I'm going to try it. I really don't need it, I've been using Office 2003 ever since it came out.

 

[panthera]

Jim,

It's important when you install it to click on the option to make sure it doesn't uninstall your current version!
That is the number one problem so far - the option is not default and lots of folks were not too happy about losing their current office.
Click on customize and then select the option to keep your existing office, you also need to choose the topmost
"use everything on computer", cause, obviously, you don't have the silly DVD to pop in whenever you need it...

 

[danemodsandy]

OpenOffice:

For those who don't want to get involved with Microsoft, but who need an office suite, I heartily recommend OpenOffice, which is a free download. It is completely compatible with MS Office; I have had no difficulties whatever with getting or sending documents to MS Office users. My PowerPoint presentations imported perfectly, too. I became disenchanted with MS Office when they wanted me to buy the full version all over again when I upgraded to XP; they said too many versions had passed since my initial purchase. I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars to buy MS Office again, so I went with OpenOffice and have had absolutely no reason to regret it. It even handles that .docx format that drives older MS Office users nuts. OpenOffice is free for the downloading at the link below:

http://www.openoffice.org/

 

[gizmo]

another vote for Open Office.

 

[panthera]

I like OpenOffice too,

but working professionally with documents, I can not honestly say that Open Office is up to all the *.docx and, especially, *.ppt that I have to deal with.

Clients pay the bills, I meet their requirements, they don't meet mine.

Privately, I prefer Open Office. I recommend it to my students.

This is, however, for those of us who have to use Microsoft, a chance to get the newest version for free.

I find the ribbon much better organized in this version - not only was the learning curve for the orginal ribbon very very steep, but the organization was not aimed at anyone who used it professionally. Took me some time to get it set up the way I needed it.

The Beta10 is able to take over those settings, by the way - which is useful.

 

[jasonl]

Open Office

OO is great and has worked with all the .docs I've thrown at it. I haven't really tried the "Excel" or "Powerpoint" (or whatever it's called) but I'm sure it's fine. But I agree, in a business setting where being able to open an email from an important contact is a must, so MS Office all the way.

 

[jasonl]

Free is good

Gonna try to when I get the chance.

 

[danemodsandy]

OpenOffice Compatibility:

I can't speak to anyone else's experience, but in my job (magazine editor), I get documents, presentations and spreadsheets created in MS Office pretty often.

No problems whatever in OO, either sending or receiving.

 

[panthera]

I wish

I could say the same, Sandy. Get the weirdest PowerPoints with embedded pivot-tables and Excel worksheets with sql calls which are OK within Microsoft Office, but don't play well with MySql.

Fonts with hints that freak out because they weren't properly kerned (I don't know the English word for it) and macros which don't parse because VBA for Office 97 and earlier was not quite to the ISO standard...

You probably work with professionals who know what they're doing, I get the folks who need translation and layout services because they are clueless.

 

[lordkenmore]

I really hate MS Office. In part, I have never been wild about the software--"full featured" ends up being too slow, too complicated, and just a bit unreliable.

The other thing I hate--no, despise--is the way that Microsoft Monopoly has conspired to make Office a requirement. It's become the only valid office software. Anything else has to be "Office-like" to be considered valid. How I miss the days when I first started using computers, and there were choices. One actually could buy something that fit one's needs, rather than a program that sort of fits all, but doesn't really fit everyone well.

I've had problems with OpenOffice.org's support for MS Office formats. But, they've been relatively minor, and I can work around the problem. There have been times I've considered getting (shudder!) a copy of Office, just for easier/better support--but always avoid it, it in the end, because I figure by using Office, I just fuel the "Office is the only valid choice" problem. Then, again, I think my life might be easier if I did have it. For me, Word 98 is probably good enough. The ".doc" files are what I need the most support for. And with Word 98, I can irritate both Bill and Steve by running last decade's technology into the earth. How often can one irritate both Bill and Steve at once?

 

[lordkenmore]

For those looking for a Microsoft Alternative, but who find OpenOffice.org not right, may find SoftMaker Office a good choice. SoftMaker Office is available for several platforms. I've heard that the support for Office formats is better than OpenOffice.org. They have just released a free Beta for SoftMaker Office 2010, which has better support for Word 2007 "docx" files. I think I read that the 2008 pay version of SoftMaker will include a free upgrade to 2010.

http://www.softmaker.com/english/ofw10_en.htm

 

[lordkenmore]

Here's a Softmaker blog entry talking about Word 07 support. It includes a comparison with OpenOffice.org

http://softmaker.com/english/blog/?p=71

 

[lordkenmore]

It's also probably worth pointing out that this new MS Office won't be free forever. If it's like Windows 7, there will be some built in mechanism that will make sure it stops running after Office 2010 ships.

 

[jeffg]

That was my first question too.

Keven, are you sure this is full product with no expiration date?

The other problem is that one of my systems is still on Windows 2000, for reasons I won't go into. Will Office 10 run under that OS?

 

[jeffg]

I just found the answers to my questions.

This software expires on 10/31/10.

It requires XP SP3 or later.

 

[panthera]

Jeff,

I never claimed it was full.
It is "beta" and with Microsoft, that means something prior to "alpha" anywhere else.
Or earlier.

I've been an official beta-tester for Microsoft on a few occasions through the years, take part in their public beta offerings frequently.

I just thought it might be fun and interesting to participate in the final creation of a software programme which, ultimately, will be used by 50% of the market.

Whatever one may think of Microsoft, they really do pay attention to the feedback at this stage. I was one of several people who did not like the original Longhorn programme listing (be thankful you were spared it) and it was big, big, the very best thing internally at Microsoft. When the complaints from the beta testers hit a certain percent, they reworked it and we got the usable interface we know from Vista.

Now, both Apple and Microsoft make a lot of software available for free when it hits end of life. Back when ClarisWorks belonged to apple, they offered some outstanding versions for free - including, ultimately, ClarisWorks 5 which, at that time was rated by the journals which mean something as being a serious alternative to Office 97. You can download Windows 98SE for free from Microsoft (not sure why you would).

For those who really don't like the thought of buying or using Office 2007 or 2010, the 'viewer' versions for Word and PowerPoint and Excel worksheets as well as (limited) Access confections are all free, load fast and both portray on screen as well as print the file exactly as it would have been in the full programme.

I've edited 17 term-papers written in doc97 and docx format (told my students not to, but some don't listen, 0.5 off their note for that) in this beta as well as created a few PDF-As. Only larger project so far was a flat database which I set up in Excel. No crashes or missteps so far and the commercial add-ins I use for Office 2007 all work just fine.

It's a beta. But, gosh - for someone like me who enjoys playing with new things, learning new programs has to use Microsoft Office and really hated the 2007 version passionately, it's felt good. Sort of like when NT3.51 got the New Shell.

Probably the most useful thing will be the tie-in to cloud computing. Or, maybe, the light-version which will make it possible to take the document you are working on, put it on a thumb drive and open/edit in the Office 2010 app. you were using anywhere, regardless of whether they have the Suite installed or not.

I began using StarOffice back when they were in Starnberg, just down the road from me and I called company headquarters, a local call, when things didn't work right. Today, as OpenOffice, it is my favourite programme.

Softmaker has had their ups and downs (was primarily written by one person in the beginning!) but does a pretty decent job of incorporating filters which actually work with Microsoft's concept of adhering to "industry standards". They've yet to see an ISO-Anything which they didn't feel needed tweaking just a mite...

 

[lordkenmore]

Windows 98SE might be useful for some. My newest Windows installation is 98SE...which can run a few pesky pieces of software. Although, one would be well advised to never let it near the Internet. And one would also be well advised not to trust it too much. (Although, Windows ME was, from all accounts, worse for reliability.) I remember reading of one person back in the 98 era who was stuck dual booting NT4 and 98. He found 98 too unreliable, and unacceptable for business use. But he had to have available to support USB, and--if I recall right--allow him to watch DVDs when on the road.

Another program Microsoft had for free download (at least once) was Word 5-something for DOS. I had fun playing with that in DOSBox. Although, it does underscore one thing I say cynically. For features, while some people do need as much power as they can get, the features really needed by most people most of the time have been around for years. New versions don't do anything for these people except drain their bank account every few years.

Another program I've been impressed by the few times I've seen it/played with it is WordPerfect. They claim to have good file support for other programs...even MS formats that MS no longer supports. I don't, in general, like full-featured word processors, but WordPerfect has come closer to destroying that bias than anything else.