Why do some continue using Microsoft Office on Mac?

[macduke]

My work pays for it and I need it for Outlook and for opening certain files. But genuinely I like using Excel. I use it on my Mac and iPad to track my cashflow and expenses and budget accordingly to optimize accomplishing my goals such as paying of my house, retiring early, and paying for half of our kid's college. Just never got the hang of using Numbers. Seemed to watered down.

 

[monokakata]

thanks for sharing.

1-Can you extract text from pdf or alter it? I am little surprised you say they send back and forth in PDF since in my mind PDF means 1 uneditable copy. I know there are PDF editing tools but those kind of like trick it or something.

2-Another thing that surprises me is that PDF was supposed to be a standard format, now I hear there are different variations and flavours and not all PDFs are compatible. I recently learned about PDF/a

Another poster responded usefully.

When I talked about PDFs going back and forth, I meant that once the editing phase is complete and there's a final Word document that the designer imports into InDesign, the interchange between the designer(s), the editor(s) and the author is typically via PDF. This is because when you get to that stage, how the book looks on the page is very important. So -- speaking for myself (my publisher publishes more poetry than prose) I'll start setting the book and along the way I'll export PDFs from InDesign and send them to the author with questions like "what do you think about moving the last stanza on p. xx to the next page?" or "let's talk about indenting....." For issues like this, the author doesn't need to mark anything up because they are easily handled by a change log or via email. Once I've got a book in Indesign, I never return it to Word, ever -- because there's no point. I did have a book once where the editor and author wanted major changes -- basically a rewrite -- and sure, in that case I flushed what I had and started over with a new Word doc.

As for flavours, an ordinary user will not know the difference between a particular PDF spec and an ordinary PDF put out by almost any program. The printer will.

Finally, I might not have made it clear about the early stages. When a writer submits something to a publisher (looking for acceptance) a PDF is as welcome as a Word doc, in some cases more so. That submission is going to be passed around at the publisher's office as people take a look and decide whether to accept it. They won't be editing, and it's very unlikely that they'll want to embed comments in the submission. Too early for that. Once they accept something, well, time for Word.

 

[it wasnt me]

I use SoftMaker Office because WordPerfect Office doesn't work on macOS at the moment ;-)

Numbers and Pages are not good applications. Many functions are missing, especially in Numbers (the last time I tried it, I couldn't even insert placeholder columns a few pixels wide because Numbers wanted to impose a minimum width! LibreOffice, on the other hand, is a typical Linux application: slow, ill-conceived, unstable and ugly. No thanks.

Microsoft Office wasn't bad at all. Then came Office 2007 with its hideous ribbon bars, and I've been happy to stop using it ever since.

 

[bzgnyc2]

I use SoftMaker Office because WordPerfect Office doesn't work on macOS at the moment ;-)

Numbers and Pages are not good applications. Many functions are missing, especially in Numbers (the last time I tried it, I couldn't even insert placeholder columns a few pixels wide because Numbers wanted to impose a minimum width! LibreOffice, on the other hand, is a typical Linux application: slow, ill-conceived, unstable and ugly. No thanks.

Microsoft Office wasn't bad at all. Then came Office 2007 with its hideous ribbon bars, and I've been happy to stop using it ever since.

Didn't and still don't love the ribbon but did like that Excel 2007+ handled more than 64K rows of data. Not well but at least not a hard no. I also prefer Office 2007 for Mac's UI over the same for Windows (which all recent versions of Office for Mac capitulated to)...

I also miss WordPerfect and especially Reveal Codes whenever I am working on documents with complex formatting. Not that I loved Reveal Codes but all word processors have codes underneath and would prefer they just show them to me rather than make me flail about trying to figure out what hidden junk is mucking up the works (Word's Reveal Formatting not even close).

Anyway thanks for sharing pointer to SoftMaker. Looks interesting and like that they support Linux as well as Mac and Windows. I am looking for that in all future software to avoid further OS/platform lock-in.

 

[it wasnt me]

Anyway thanks for sharing pointer to SoftMaker. Looks interesting and like that they support Linux as well as Mac and Windows.

Also, no mandatory subscription and superb support for Microsoft formats.

 

[monokakata]

I also miss WordPerfect and especially Reveal Codes whenever I am working on documents with complex formatting. Not that I loved Reveal Codes but all word processors have codes underneath and would prefer they just show them to me rather than make me flail about trying to figure out what hidden junk is mucking up the works (Word's Reveal Formatting not even close).

That I couldn't see codes embedded in Word used to make me crazy, but then I discovered a Preferences setting that shows them. It's under View. There's a heading "Show Non-Printing Characters," and you can select "All."

It's made my life easier.

Also I too hate the Ribbon, so I turn it off and make my own header with just the tools I want.

 

[it wasnt me]

There's a heading "Show Non-Printing Characters," and you can select "All."

That’s a very different thing than Reveal Codes, sadly.

 

[monokakata]

That’s a very different thing than Reveal Codes, sadly.

Remind me about Reveal Codes. I used to love Word Perfect and was sad when I had to switch to Word.

I have to admit I don't remember the kinds of codes that would be revealed.

 

[it wasnt me]

I have to admit I don't remember the kinds of codes that would be revealed.

https://www.wordperfect.com/static/wpo/product_content/wordperfect/2021/wordperfect-reveal-codes-list.pdf

 

[SnowCrocodile]

Word Perfect, lol… we’re talking past century here, ladies and gentlemen… when you had to kill your breakfast before cooking it…

 

[it wasnt me]

WordPerfect is still being updated. Waiting for Corel to port it to macOS. They already did it with DRAW!

 

[SnowCrocodile]

WordPerfect is still being updated. Waiting for Corel to port it to macOS. They already did it with DRAW!

I know. But the chance of finding one running in an average workplace are about the same as winning a lottery.

 

[it wasnt me]

US law firms probably have it.

 

[bzgnyc2]

Word Perfect, lol… we’re talking past century here, ladies and gentlemen… when you had to kill your breakfast before cooking it…

yes but the freshness...

 

[bzgnyc2]

In case you were wondering:

Why Microsoft Excel won’t die

The business world’s favourite software program enters its 40th year

www.economist.com

[it is behind a paywall but supposedly you can access with a free registration]

Not that I support Excel for most analytics work...

 

[Arid]

US law firms probably have it.

We still have two dedicated machines loaded with WordStar and hard drives containing documents going back to the late 70’s

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

Remind me about Reveal Codes. I used to love Word Perfect and was sad when I had to switch to Word.

I have to admit I don't remember the kinds of codes that would be revealed.

I used to use Reveal Codes to find out what the computer had munged a particular character to. Often it would change a vowel to a formatting code, but with no ending code, so that one corrupted character could totally destroy a whole document.

 

[Wheel_D]

WordPerfect is still being updated. Waiting for Corel to port it to macOS. They already did it with DRAW!

No, it truly is not.

As I've mentioned previously, the final significant update to WordPerfect Office occurred in 2001, with the release of WordPerfect Office 10. Releases subsequent to 10 included the occasional token change, including "enhancements" to PDF compatibility and the ability to print a hard copy of a document's codes. (And, just to make us WordPerfect faithful feel extra-special, the company eventually threw in rudimentary multi-monitor support.) In recent years, there have been no functional changes at all. Zero. Indeed, last I saw, Alludo--formerly Corel--was barely bothering to release bugfixes for the latest "version."

Oh, sure, Alludo would be delighted to sell it to you. Why, for the bare pittance of $250--often much more--you too can pay for the privilege of getting a change in WordPerfect's version number! (Hey, Alludo has gotta fund that slick website somehow. . . .)

Finally, keep in mind that WordPerfect Office is 32-bit. Rumors have have swirling for some time that x86 chipmakers may be planning to drop 32-bit compatibility. If it happens, the zombie that is WordPerfect will surely be laid to rest.

 

[it wasnt me]

I understand that you don't like WordPerfect Office. That's fine, but I wonder which other office suite that gets a major overhaul every week you prefer?

 

[Wheel_D]

I understand that you don't like WordPerfect Office. That's fine, but I wonder which other office suite that gets a major overhaul every week you prefer?

Indeed? Actually, I've been using WordPerfect since the late 1980s, and I'm currently running WordPerfect Office X3 on my M1 MacBook via CrossOver. (Unfortunately, it's rather unstable.)

If there's anything I dislike, it's Corel/Alludo. It breaks my heart to see how they've neglected WordPerfect, once a genuinely great piece of software. I am equally frustrated with the way Corel/Alludo has abused the loyalty of WordPerfect's users. It seems quite the cynical ploy, and it's hard to think of another example of such an arrangement being tolerated.

I'm sorry you're frustrated @it wasnt me, but really, we're both frustrated, albeit in different ways.

 

[MacBH928]

Also, no mandatory subscription and superb support for Microsoft formats.

I immediately skipped it when I saw subscription, I only see one license for $120 which is fine but there seems no promise for any future updates at least for the next 3-5 years. For $49 a year you might as well get MS Office for $80 and get a the 1TB cloud storage. Heck for $100 they will give it to 6 family members with 6TB!

We still have two dedicated machines loaded with WordStar and hard drives containing documents going back to the late 70’s

Why?

Oh, sure, Alludo would be delighted to sell it to you. Why, for the bare pittance of $250--often much more--you too can pay for the privilege of getting a change in WordPerfect's version number! (Hey, Alludo has gotta fund that slick website somehow. . . .)

I always wondered about this archaic and obscure apps, why companies keep them updates and who is buying them for such high prices.

 

[it wasnt me]

I only see one license for $120 which is fine but there seems no promise for any future updates at least for the next 3-5 years.

Why do you NEED updates every year?

(For the non-subscription version, use "More purchase options" on the Order page.)

 

[IvyKing]

Arid said:


We still have two dedicated machines loaded with WordStar and hard drives containing documents going back to the late 70’s


Why?

Because legal documents need to be printed out EXACTLY the same way every time. Lawyers typically refer to line # of page# in their correspondence, and there would be hell to pay if the text in a newly printed document doesn't match the original. That's part of the reason why Word Perfect is still being widely used by law firms.

 

[DaveFromCampbelltown]

Because legal documents need to be printed out EXACTLY the same way every time. Lawyers typically refer to line # of page# in their correspondence, and there would be hell to pay if the text in a newly printed document doesn't match the original. That's part of the reason why Word Perfect is still being widely used by law firms.

I do remember seeing, when Word Perfect had only been used by lawyers for about 2 years, seeing advertisements for staff, requiring at least 5 years experience.

 

[MacBH928]

If this code reveal by WordPerfect is so amazing why don't other suites provide it?