Whether real or imagined, to a Macintosh user, using Microsoft Word (or any Microsoft product), is not generally a pleasant experience. Features do not appear to be optimally grouped; placed images are converted from their native formats; color management is non-existent; some people curse incessant application crashes. People, not just on the Mac platform, proclaim liberation when able to supplant Microsoft Office products with alternatives such as the free open source suite of applications within OpenOffice.
With CrossOver Mac from Codeweavers, I run one necessary Windows application without the burden of installing a virtual Windows operating system. Office 97 was my conduit for reading customer supplied files in order to build posters and other printed materials.
A New Word for Windows
All was bliss until the release of Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows. The new Word XML default file format in Word 2007 divides the file into document parts. To change something in the file, simply find the corresponding document part, such as the header, and edit it without accidentally modifying any of the other XML-based document parts. The new file format is also much smaller than the binary file format. Microsoft XML takes advantage of ZIP technology.
To deal with an influx of .docx and .xlsx files, I first turned to OpenOffice as a solution. Some of the anomalies encountered include rearranged floating text boxes, image color shifts and font substitution. Customers can resave Word 2007 documents in the .doc format. However, the vague alert that some formatting may be lost frightens most people. So I had to request submission of a secondary PDF file for comparison.
Mac-Friendly Word
Microsoft developed a controversial new version of Word for the Mac to support its Word XML format. One complaint is that it no longer supports custom VisualBasic scripts. Others express concern because rather than porting the same code over from Windows, Office 2008 was optimized for native Mac OS software technologies. (Sounds great to me!)
Stomping and kicking, with a desire to keep Microsoft to a minimum, I purchased a multi-user license of Microsoft Office 2008. My prior version from 1997 predated User Switching with Mac OS X. Frustrating as it was, I became accustomed to quitting all Office products before switching users to read a document. Office 2008 is multi-user aware so that it can be launched within each user account on the same computer. Of course a multi-user license enables the same ease of use on several networked computers.
With its semi-transparent splash screen, icons and reflective timesaving formatting buttons, the Office 2008 interface is clean and modern (as much as Microsoft products can be). Within application preferences, I immediately switched the default file saving format to "Word 97-2004 (.doc)." This way the documents I create are more universally compatible while I still have the ability to open and edit newer .docx files.
Beyond the simple office letter, to me Microsoft Office has and always will be just a conduit for shuttling data to more robust page layout applications. As such, I am not qualified to offer an exhaustive professional review of Office 2008. Yet, I feel compelled to say that the necessary upgrade was seamless. This is one Microsoft product I actually look forward to using on my Mac.
Update Jan 03, 2010: For the most part Microsoft Office 2008 has been satisfactory. An incompatibility was observed when opening a Word 2007 for Windows document containing scientific equations. As depicted in the above screenshot, the actual equation was replaced with placeholders.
