THE LATEST VERSION of Office for Mac has been long awaited by Apple users. Not least because it's the first version that runs properly on the Intel chips that power all modern Apple computers. While it doesn't launch as fast as I'd like – even with plenty memory on the machine – it's a much better user experience than before. <\/p>\n
The two parts of the suite that have received the biggest overhaul are Word and Entourage (the Mac Office equivalent of Outlook). When you fire up Word, the first thing you notice is that the toolbars have been cleaned up substantially. <\/p>\n
What Microsoft has done is take the idea of contextual menus it first introduced in the most recent version of Office for Windows to the next level. What that means is in the Toolbox that sits just off to the side of the document window you only see the formatting options relevant to what you're doing, such as entering text or inserting an image. <\/p>\n
There's also a small bar above the text window that gives you a number of options for creating tables, charts or inserting other document elements, such as a table or contents that used to be buried beneath 100 menus and that only Word experts could find. <\/p>\n
Entourage has also been cleaned up and has better exchange integration than ever before. It also synchronises brilliantly with the built-in Apple address book and calendar, making it possible to use the program you like most rather than being forced to choose Entourage just because it works better with your server. <\/p>\n
There's also a nice little side program called My Day that runs either together with Entourage or on its own and pulls your calendar information and To Do items so you have a nice, neat view of what's on the agenda for the next few days.<\/p>\n