Excel on a Mac?

[Smitty]

The hardest thing for me when on a MAC is the difference in keyboards and that single button mouse drives me nuts too.

NOTE: the poll's skewed as I hit the wrong button and posted before I realized it.

 

[starl]

smitty - pm me your vote. I may be able to fix things

how in the world can anyone survive with ONE button. That's just *wrong*

 

[Smitty]

No need for the PM, it's: "I don't prefer it to PC-Excel "

how in the world can anyone survive with ONE button. That's just *wrong*

Oddly enough, my co-worker with the MAC doesn't understand multiple button mice.

 

[NateO]

I performed an official recount.

If only I could do that with my Vikings...

 

[NateO]

*lol* Nate - your frustration reminds me of when I was typing on a french keyboard - all the keys are there, just not where I expect them. That is - the functionality you want is there.. just not where you expect it.

Now you're giving me nightmares, I spent a week in Paris with access to a box with a French keyboard, running Linux. I could barely check my web-based email, that's how brutal that was.

I had considered buying some kind of low-powered Mac to run Excel on it, but then MS dropped VBA.. tho, did I hear it will be back? Thing is - with the ability of Macs to run dual environments.. why don't people just by the PC version of Excel? Then they get all the options and pluses.. yes?

To be honest, I don't know much about that. I see where you're going with that, on the Intel Macs, but I don't know much about the implementation, at all.

And yes, it's my understanding that Office for the Mac in the next version, following 2008, will ship with VBA again. But don't sign me to that.

 

[Smitty]

And yes, it's my understanding that Office for the Mac in the next version, following 2008, will ship with VBA again. But don't sign me to that.

That's what I heard as well, but there was no clarification as to whether or not they'd be the same animal or still have their differences.

If only I could do that with my Vikings...

Or the Cowboys...

 

[starl]

eh - I get to do it again! well, if I find a pc to get online with .. and the time. Gonna be doing the tourist thing when not doing the family thing. But I might be able to borrow my aunt's or cousins system...

 

[arkusM]

I am a die-hard Mac user. If I could, I would never touch a PC again!! LOL. So I am biased…<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" /><o></o>
<o> </o>
That being said, I do have a hard time using Excel at home, because I am in a PC world at work, and this is where I have most of my need and use, in Excel. There are a few quirky things that are really Microsoft’s fault for making different between the program versions. <o></o>
Mostly what I find difficult is, at work, I have customized Excel’s menus and toolbars and shortcuts and macros to the point that I actually have a “hard” time on a short term basis not having them. But I have this problem on other windows boxes as well.<o></o>
<o> </o>
The only other program that I have extensively used on both Win and Mac systems is Photoshop. It seems that Adobe did not intentionally make it difficult to switch between OSs. And they function for the most part similarly, aside from performance differences.<o></o>
<o> </o>
At home I have a Powerbook and Mac-Book Pro, and have not used a full sized Mac keyboard for a while. My Mac-Book has an “End” key, it has to be accessed with a secondary function key.<o></o>
<o></o>
The "right-click" can be achieved with a Ctrl-Click, which once you learn makes the one-button mouse a non-issue IMO.<o></o>
<o></o>
The function keys generally have a purpose in OSX. There is an option in the preference/setting that allow you to set the F-keys, system-wide or program(s) specific, to perform similar to expectations from windows users. <o></o>
<o> </o>
By default in OSX the f-keys are used for OSX specific functions for Expose’ and other generally useful things!! Like system volume control, screen brightness etc. (expose’ is one of the best features that I have every used in an OS, http://www.apple.com/sg/findouthow/mac/#tutorial=expose )<o></o>
But I agree with some of the comments above if they are left to the default it is annoying trying to use the F2 with an expectation and have it not do what you want/expect.<o></o>
<o> </o>
I have yet to try programming or running much Vb on my Mac because I have not had the need yet. But now I will email my project home and try just for the sake of trying.<o></o>
<o> </o>
<o> </o>
Overall I find using excel anyplace ,other than my desk at work, is like wearing someone else’s shoes, possiable but uncomfortable!!<o></o>

 

[Lewiy]

Interesting, these are the kind of thoughts I might have considering what I created on a PC. I didn't get that far with the Mac, I wasn't back to square one, but I couldn't even get past the interface.

Slightly off topic here, but I've had a similar "interface" experience trying to get used to Excel2007. Everything's in a different place and I've just figured out what the problem is. All the options are icons!! I can't just open a menu and look for what I need, I have to hover over all the icons that I think might be in the right section of the ribbon and see if they tell me what they do. I guess experience will aide this somewhat, but I only have it at home (work is thankfully still on 2003) so I don't actually use it that much.

I read somewhere that MS reckon that the 2007 suite is better laid out for inexperienced Office users, grouping things more sensibly, etc. Right, I thought, I need to learn me some Access, I've opened it before and played around but never done anything serious...and now this project's come up at work.....but I digress.

Anyway, I figured, why not try to learn at home in Access 2007, after all it's supposed to be easier for newbies..........wrong......I couldn't even open myself a blank database to start with....and forget the templates, how on earth do they work???? My "Access 97" tutorial book (which was the best I could find at the library) was obviously no use as it was now 10 years out of date. So I gave up and re-installed Access 2003.

In conclusion, I sympathise with the interface difficulties, it's like, you know everything's there, but you can't work out how to get to it!! And now I feel like I'm getting old because I'm blurting out phrases like, "Why can't they just leave it like it was" and "I remember when you could only get 16777216 cells on a spreadsheet"

 

[NateO]

I read somewhere that MS reckon that the 2007 suite is better laid out for inexperienced Office users, grouping things more sensibly, etc.

This is actually a long story, and a well-documented one, if curious, here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2008/03/12/the-story-of-the-ribbon.aspx

To summarize. It started with Word, Microsoft actually did a lot of testing of testing on this, like hand/eye coordination testing in the labs, etc... It worked extremely well for you average user on Word. Great.

They didn't want horribly inconsistent Office offerings, so if you ship Word with that thing, all of Office is getting it, and that makes sense. Except it just doesn't work as well, as is, for Excel and Access, per their users.

Most Word users really like it, as I understand it, it just didn't translate as well in the Excel and Access environments, as is. But it's also a work in progress, as you can imagine.

Me? I don't know if I like this thing or not. It sure is foreign, but I'll learn it with time. When I first started using Excel 2007, I actually thought 'Hmmm, I kind of like this thing'. Then I built a non-trivial Application in Excel 2007 and I thought 'Shoot me'. But, again, it's a matter of not knowing where the functionality lies, I'm back to 'this might be okay', in my mind.

I suspect if I had never used Excel before, I might actually like the Ribbon, it does expose a lot of functionality that in previous versions I went looking for/researching. It's not perfect, but I'm trying to be patient with it before I throw it under the bus.