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Jewish World Review
January 25, 2008
/ 18 Shevat 5768
Excel, Powerpoint on Mac
By
Mark Kellner
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
The formal launch last week of Microsoft Corp.'s Office for Mac 2008
brought with it new versions of the Excel spreadsheet and the
PowerPoint presentation graphics program, the latter
immortalized by The New Yorker magazine some years back, when the
journal said 30 million PowerPoint presentations were given every day,
worldwide. I'm guessing the number may be slightly higher today.
As with Word 2008, reviewed here previously, Excel offers easy ways to
use formatting to help "tell your story," as Microsoft says, with
numbers. The program features a range of design tools, styles and, of
course, templates, to make creating visually useful spreadsheets and
charts a breeze. In my view, once someone can see the numbers you're
working with, they'll be able to understand the point you're trying to
make.
There's also a "Formula Builder" to help the computationally
challenged, such as this writer, create formulas to use in putting a
spreadsheet together. An "auto-complete" feature can help bring things
together as well. And the spreadsheet is large enough for just about
anything, up to and including the federal budget: Excel 2008,
Microsoft says, can handle spreadsheets of more than 1 million rows
and 16 thousand columns.
For me, and for other users, the true tests of a Mac spreadsheet are
ones of compatibility, with both spreadsheets and templates created in
the Microsoft Windows-based version of Excel, and with Windows-based
Excel files. So far, so good: Excel 2008 allowed me to open my
corporate expense report form and print it out for the account
department to marvel over.
There's a bonus, I believe, in being able to demonstrate this kind of
compatibility: if you're the corporate "renegade" who's trying to
persuade the I.T. department that a Mac is needed for your
work, being able to seamlessly interact with your Windows-using
counterparts is a plus. As mentioned last week, so far I've seen no
area where there isn't that level of file compatibility between
Windows and Mac versions of the various Microsoft Office components.
Microsoft PowerPoint for Mac 2008 offers a similar level of
compatibility with its PC counterpart, and also offers Apple's Keynote
a run for the money. On the plus side for PowerPoint, it draws on the
best of the Windows version and on integration with multimedia tools
on the Mac; I believe you can easily insert images from Apple's IPhoto
library into your PowerPoint slides. A similar range of
formatting palates and enhancement tools exist in PowerPoint on the
Mac side as are found in the Office 2007 for Windows version.
But unlike Apple's word processing or spreadsheet programs, the simply
named Pages and Numbers, it might be a toss up for some users as to
whether or not PowerPoint surpasses Apple's Keynote. This is, I
suppose, a "theological" issue: If you're a confirmed Keynote user,
you might not want to go back to PowerPoint. But, again, for the
corporate Mac "renegade," having PowerPoint available, and again
having it truly compatible with the Windows version, is a plus.
Don't mistake my ambivalence about presentation software for an
overall ennui, however. I'll repeat what was said here last week:
Microsoft beats the world with this Mac office productivity suite.
It's an essential for home, school and business users, particularly in
a world where, for better or for worse, Windows dominates and
Microsoft Office's Windows version still have a lion's share of the
market.
Microsoft's Mac-related Web site,
http://www.microsoft.com/mac/default.mspx, features details on the
Office for Mac 2008 suite, which should be rolling into area stores
any day now. For corporate buyers, several Internet sites are
reporting a Feb. 1 date for announcement of "enterprise pricing," or
what's more commonly known as the corporate discount you'll receive on
the products.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Mark Kellner has reported on technology for industry newspapers and magazines since 1983, and has been the computer columnist for The Washington Times since 1991.Comment by clicking here.
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© 2008, News World Communications, Inc. Reprinted with permission of The Washington Times. Visit the paper at http://www.washingtontimes.com
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