An overview of Office 2011 for Mac
Since I picked up the new laptop last week I have played around a bit with Office 2011. This post is a high level overview of the suite. As I have time and resources, hopefully I will get an opportunity to dig deeper into each application.
Microsoft released Office 2011 for Macintosh on 10/26 and being a new player in the Mac arena I thought I would give the application a try.
The interface looks similar to the Office 2010 setup for the PC and includes a ribbon style menu structure, which I still think is a good change for Office in general. There are some applications, like OneNote and SharePoint Workspace, which have not been ported to the Mac, but over all the other applications, seem to function on par with their PC counterparts.
The Ribbon that PC Users of Office love or love to hate makes an appearance throughout Office 2011. When the ribbon first appeared in Office 2007 I was a bit skeptical about how useful it would be simply because I had memorized so many of the keyboard shortcuts for previous versions of Office. After a few weeks, the ribbon was the best tool I had seen in Office in a long time. I have not looked back since. I think the fully integrated ribbon will take some getting used to, but after a short learning curve you too will hopefully find it very useful.
Office Web Apps are also new to this release (and in Office 2010 for the PC). This means you can edit and create documents anywhere using your computer and Office 2011 or a browser based version of an office application from any computer.
The goal of this post is to be very high level with the new release of Office; more in depth posts about specific applications or features will likely follow.
Figure A
Choose a template to get you started
While all of the Office applications show the template selection dialog when they are started I have found one template in Word quite useful so far is the Notebook layout template. It behaves in a similar fashion to OneNote on the PC with a few differences, but for general note taking and organization it will work nicely.
Word
Word has a few interesting features. The biggest one is the full screen view for documents. Maybe this comes from my use of the PC version of Word which begins with a full size document, but having the document not start out in full screen mode was quite strange. Finding the option to push the application to full screen was a great find.
- Visual style guides allow users to create, and easily manage styles for documents they use. Working with styles allows you to easily change many properties about a document or section of a document to meet your needs by changing headings, text, and other included items.
- Search – Have you ever wanted to find a section of a document and the usual document find functions aren’t where you need them? In Word 2011 the search box is integrated into the application and lives in the top right corner of the application and will help scan the document for the keyword or words you enter, highlighting them where they are found.
- Co-Authoring – Working with others on a document simultaneously has never been easier. Until recently emailing documents or using a check-out scenario was the only way to share and work on documents with others. Now, if the authors are online, they can share authoring responsibilities in real time.
- Visual Basic – Complete routine tasks with Visual Basic macros. Using macros can speed up repetitive actions, like inserting a standard block of text or apply some formatting to specific document sections with a few simple keystrokes.
Figure B
Word 2011
Another starting observation
When starting an Office 2011 application for the first time, a splash screen is displayed to provide a sort of jumping off point for the application. It provides information regarding features of the program you’ve opened. Figure C shows the welcome screen for PowerPoint.
Figure C
Welcome to PowerPoint 2011
PowerPoint
PowerPoint 2011 brings some exciting and very creative new features to the table. From a presentation gallery to complex layouts for your slides, the possibilities are endless.
- Presentation Gallery – a set of templates created to give every presentation a unique and professional look and feel. You can integrate photos from iPhoto and other slide friendly items like text parts to help create the perfect presentation
- Slide Layouts – Creating your own layout for presentations is key to bringing your own style. With the capabilities in PowerPoint 2011 this has never been easier. The Reorder Objects tool allows you to rearrange slide object anywhere you like on the slide. Using this tool, you can layer items from front to back and get just the look you need.
Figure D below shows the main PowerPoint application window.
Figure D
PowerPoint
Excel
Excel is the most used data manipulation application in all of business because it is easy for users to produce results all on their own with little outside help.
Some of the new features in Excel 2011 include:
- Tables – simple and easy to format and occupying its own tab on the ribbon, tables allow users to make quick work of formatting information
- Pivot Tables – easily summarize information using a quickly changeable set of information in a pivot table
- Improved filtering – use filters to separate large sets of data to show only the items truly of interest
Below in figure E, the main Excel application window is displayed.
Figure E
Excel
Outlook
I was really excited to see what Microsoft brought to the Mac in Outlook. It feels a bit like Outlook 2010 and seems overall to be simple to use. This is likely the biggest new item in Office 2011. Microsoft is including its first release of Outlook rather than Entourage for Email, Calendaring, Tasks, and Contacts.
Note: Outlook 2011 will only work with Exchange 2007 and Exchange 2010 when adding Exchange mailbox accounts. It also supports POP3 and IMAP.
The Outlook 2011 interface is shown in figure F
Figure F
Outlook 2011
Categories in Outlook seem to be more focused toward the user than those in Outlook 2010. When selecting Categories on the Mac the following list is displayed:
- Family
- Friends
- Holidays
- Junk
- Manager
- Networking
- Personal
- Team
- Travel
When I look at the same list in Outlook 2010, the displayed options are less helpful:
- Red Category
- Yellow Category
These can be customized, but out of the box they are far more descriptive in outlook 2011.
Unified…
Do you keep multiple email accounts? You know, one at home, one for work, and one for sweepstakes entries? Outlook 2011 can bring all of those email accounts together in a unified inbox scenario to allow you to see all of your mail from all of your accounts at the same time.
Imports
Outlook 2011 also supports PST imports. This means you can bring email (and other things) from your Windows based Outlook environment to your Mac with no effort at all.
These are some of the things included in Outlook 2011. Surely there are many more features than this post has shown and as I get a chance to play more with the individual applications, I will share my thoughts and experiences with you.
Get into the act and play with Office 2011
I have gone through some of the new highlights of Office 2011 and what it brings to the table, but there is no substitute for playing with the applications and kicking the tires for you. Microsoft offers a trial of Office 2011 to get you started. Many of the features mentioned in a specific application are available throughout the Office suite and work similarly in all applications. My hope is that this will pique your interest enough to download the trial version of Office 2011 for Mac.
