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kimcheeboi65

macrumors member
Original poster
May 8, 2006
54
0
I have a macbook and I was thinking of purchasing the microsoft office 2004 for mac. I heard that it works on intel-based macs, but not universal binary. I heard that term a lot with all programs like photoshop, etc. But I'm still not sure what it means. can someone clarify what "universal binary" means?
 
The fact that Microsoft Office is not an UB, just means that it does not run natively on Intel processor based Macs. So it must run through Rosetta, which is an app that runs in the background and translates a PowerPC coded app to an Intel one. So you can still run non UB apps on a MacBook, it just won't run as fast as if it was a native one. :)
 
So will there be any new developments to Office for Mac, because the kind of documatns that i have to create usually contain lots of images, and I'm not so keen on the idea of Rosetta...

Maybe Mac will get a port of Office 2007....

Cheers
 
Microsoft said they aren't going to patch Micrsoft or whatever.

They said the next version will be, but they aren't planning on it with the 2004 one.

Office runs great on Intel anyway, it's only a word processing thing, and uhm.............................................................................................that keynote-like thing.
 
markkk! said:
Microsoft said they aren't going to patch Micrsoft or whatever.

They said the next version will be, but they aren't planning on it with the 2004 one.

Office runs great on Intel anyway, it's only a word processing thing, and uhm.............................................................................................that keynote-like thing.
What world are you from if you don't know at least about Microsoft PowerPoint?

Office runs fine via Rosetta once it's cached into the RAM. PowerPC applications need lots of RAM though. Go with at least 1 GB.
 
You could always give Pages a try too. It's the word-a-like program bundled in Apple's iWork package. It's actually very easy to tweak a few things and make it resemble Word, which isn't that bad of a program. (Though iWork is significantly cheaper.)
 
There's maybe a two second difference between the office applications on my intel macbook (1.25gb of ram) and my pc. I highly doubt it's worth waiting out for.
if in doubt still, just download the trial.
 
Slower than molasses

I have a stock macbook 1.83. I had an iBook, but it was warped and by the time I got my refund it had been discontinued. Let me just clear this once and for all by saying that if you only have the 512mb stock RAM in your macbook then office 2004 will drive you absolutely insane. If it were any slower it would be going backwords. What an absolue lie for the Mactopia site to say that it 'works great' or whatever. It basically turns a decent computer into an old 386 pc. You shouldn't need 1gb of RAM to use a frigging word processor or email client. Argghh! It seems like everyone who buys these things has already upgraded the ram to 2gb, but some of us (like me) don't have £200 to spare when we have just shelled out £750 on a new laptop!!:mad:
 
You don't have to spend that much for Ram. Just buy after market ram from newegg.com or other online retailer. I got 2 gb for $150.

drewfasa said:
I have a stock macbook 1.83. I had an iBook, but it was warped and by the time I got my refund it had been discontinued. Let me just clear this once and for all by saying that if you only have the 512mb stock RAM in your macbook then office 2004 will drive you absolutely insane. If it were any slower it would be going backwords. What an absolue lie for the Mactopia site to say that it 'works great' or whatever. It basically turns a decent computer into an old 386 pc. You shouldn't need 1gb of RAM to use a frigging word processor or email client. Argghh! It seems like everyone who buys these things has already upgraded the ram to 2gb, but some of us (like me) don't have £200 to spare when we have just shelled out £750 on a new laptop!!:mad:
 
By the way, isn't that like free in british pounds. :)

craigatkinson said:
You don't have to spend that much for Ram. Just buy after market ram from newegg.com or other online retailer. I got 2 gb for $150.
 
Mac Rules said:
So will there be any new developments to Office for Mac, because the kind of documatns that i have to create usually contain lots of images, and I'm not so keen on the idea of Rosetta...

If you make documents with lots of images then you probably should be using Pages
 
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