Category Archives: Office:Mac 2011

Office:Mac 2011, Outlook, Q&A

Q&A: Can I sync my Outlook:Mac calendar with Sync Services?

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Chris asked:

Does Outlook 2011 support calendar sync to sync services like Entourage did?

You’re correct: Entourage supported contacts and calendar sync via OS X Sync Services.  Some heavy-duty users experienced recurring issues with self-duplicating items, which made for a pretty painful experience.

To avoid these issues, we rebuilt our Sync Services support from the ground up for Outlook.  We set a very high quality bar, with the goal of avoiding those issues that our Entourage users faced.  For our initial v14.0.0 release, we got there with contacts.  But we didn’t get there with calendar.  Close, but no cigar.  Close wasn’t good enough, so we held off.  We wanted Outlook to be the most awesome Outlook ever.  We decided that we’d rather not support it on the initial release rather than have a version that didn’t meet our standards.

We will add calendar sync in a future update.  I don’t have a date to share yet for that.  The team is working hard on it, and I’ll post when it’s ready.

Exchange, Office:Mac 2011, Outlook

Macworld’s review of Outlook:Mac 2011

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On Friday, Macworld published John Welch‘s review of Outlook:Mac 2011.  It’s a big review, but then there’s quite a lot to say about an all-new application, and John’s never been anything short of verbose anyway.  John’s a hard guy to please, so I feel like our four mice in his review would’ve been at least 4.5 mice in anyone else’s review!  His final advice is that “[i]f you need an Exchange client on the Mac, Outlook 2011 is the king … or just want something more than Mail, iCal, and Address Book give you, Outlook is a no-brainer”

Since it’s such a big review, there’s discussion of some of the subtle work that we’ve done to improve your experience when you’re using Outlook.  For example, he noticed one of my favourite features in the calendar.  If you select a specific category in the list on the left side, the events that are in the other categories fade out a little bit.  It’s subtle, but it’s a great visual indicator to help you focus on the category that you’ve selected.

John also talks about our Ribbon.  Here’s part of what he has to say:

The Ribbon is a bit of a controversy. It’s a user interface element in all of the Office programs that sits at the top of the document window and provides quick access to the most commonly used tools. At first, because of my experience with Entourage, I hated it. I like to have a minimal UI. After using it for a while, I’ve changed my opinion. The Ribbon is a bit garish, but it does keep the options I use frequently right where I need them. It doesn’t get in the way and it takes up a minimal amount of space.

If I had any complaints about the review, I have to admit that I find it perplexing that Outlook’s use of Exchange Web Services (and thus the requirement that it requires Exchange 2007 or later) gets three separate lines in the “cons” section at the top of the review.

Office:Mac 2011, Q&A, Word

Q&A: Will the math add-in for Word 2010 come to Word:Mac 2011?

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Joe asked:

Are there plans to bring the Math Add-in for Word/Onenote 2010 to Word 2011?

I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to, so I’ll try to cover all of the bases here.

If you’re referring to the Equation Editor in Word 2010, then yes: Word:Mac 2011 allows you to both edit equations created in Word 2010 for Windows, and you can create new equations in Word 2011 too.  Here’s what the Equation Tools tab in the Word:Mac Ribbon looks like (click on it for a full-size version):

Equation Tools
Equation Tools Ribbon in Word:Mac 2011

The Word 2011 help has lots of information about using equations, including plenty of details of how to create equations that will be able to be opened by older versions of Word.

Now, if you’re not talking about our built-in equation editor, then I think that you might be talking about the third-party MathType plug-in from Design Science.  I don’t know what their plans are.  I have my hands full in keeping up with what my team is up to, let alone other software vendors!

Office:Mac 2011

screenshots of Office:Mac 2011

I noticed that ZDnet has posted a bunch of screenshots of Office:Mac 2011, as well as a review.  Their conclusion?

Does Office 2011 for Mac offer enough to make it worth the upgrade from earlier versions? Absolutely. With all the new features that will save you time from quick image edits within the suite to easy sharing of your work, and much more, Office 2011 is a huge improvement over Office 2008.

I don’t have enough space in this hotel room to turn cartwheels, so I’ll have to make do with simply grinning from ear to ear. 😀

Excel, Office:Mac 2011, Q&A

Q&A: Does Excel:Mac 2011 still have the Calculator?

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Chris asked:

Did they take the GUI formula builder called “Calculator” out of Excel? It was in Excel 98, X, 2004, 2008 and I don’t see it in 2011? In 2008 you would go to “customize toolbars & menus” click on the commands tab and then drag the calculator to your toolbar or menu of choice. The description Excel gave it was “Helps you create basic arithmetic calculations in Excel by offering a layout that is based on a ‘real’ hand-held calculator.”

I wasn’t sure of the history of that calculator, so I asked my colleague Schwieb.  I got lucky: as it turns out, he’s the guy who wrote it originally.  Schwieb said it was added to Excel:Mac in 2001 with the intent of gradually introducing people to formulas.

Now, ten years later, things have changed.  For basic calculator functions, there’s the OS X built-in calculator.  In Excel 2011, there is instead the Formula Builder (which you can see by going to the Formulas tab in Excel and then selecting the Formula Builder icon).  The Formula Builder is much more powerful than the old calculator, and is a great way to learn more about all of the formulas that are in Excel.  I’m pretty good in Excel, but I have to admit that I use the Formula Builder when I can’t recall a formula’s name or its arguments.

The Excel 2011 help has a lot of great information about formulas.  Play around with the Formula Builder and see how it can help you learn more about how to use formulas, too!

Exchange, Office:Mac 2011, Outlook, Q&A

Q&A: does Outlook:Mac support server-side rules?

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Steve asks:

Can Outlook 2011 manage server side rules on an Exchange server?

We didn’t get that into the initial release.  We’re well aware that it’s something our users would like, so hopefully I’ll be able to share more news about it in the future.

In the interim, Mac users who are in an Exchange 2010 environment are able to create and edit server-side rules via Outlook Web Access (OWA).  OWA 2010 has full support for Safari and Firefox.  This is how I manage my extensive set of server-side rules today.

MacBU, Office:Mac 2011, Outlook

PC Magazine reviews Office:Mac 2011

As I’m sure you can imagine, my team here in MacBU has been following the early reviews of Office:Mac 2011 quite closely.  Whenever a new one gets posted, there’s a flurry of mail, not to mention Facebook and Twitter posts.

So far, my favourite line is from the PC Magazine review.  Here’s the quote that totally makes my day:

I like Apple Mail, iCal, and the OS X Address Book, but Outlook is more powerful and flexible than those three separate apps, and it’s one of the most powerful and best-designed apps ever written for OS X.

Having worked so hard on the user experience for Outlook, seeing someone call it “one of the most … best-designed apps ever written for OS X” has me turning cartwheels in the halls.

More reviews are forthcoming.  Mossberg hasn’t weighed in yet, and the full Macworld review hasn’t arrived either.  My fingers (and toes!) are crossed that they’re as positive as the ones I’ve seen so far.