Low End Mac Reader Specials

Memory To Go Special: MacPro 8 Core 8GB kit $232 / 4GB kit $116 / 2GB kit $72. New Macbook 2GB DDR3-$65. HARD DRIVES available -- Free shipping / LIfetime warranty.

Download Typestyler, still the Ultimate Styling Tool for Internet, Print and Video Graphics. Works great in Classic with a Native OS X Version on the way. Free Tryout: www.typestyler.com

LA Computer Company: Specials on AppleCare, iMac's, MacBook Pros and more. Optical Drives for Apple iBooks, Powerbooks, MacBooks, MacBook Pros in Stock. Call 1-800-941-7654 Click Here.

OWC: OWC Mercury On-The-Go FW400/800/USB2/eSATA Portables. High Performance A/V Rated. Bus Powered. Up to 500GB in the Palm of your Hand. Macworld Editor's Choice. CNET 'Very Good.' From $75.99!

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

25 Years of Mac

Apple Archive

With Word 2004, Microsoft Finally Gets Everything Right

- 2004.09.24

Popularity: LEMLEMLEMLEMLEM

I've always been disappointed with Microsoft Word's capabilities when it came to note-taking.

I've used Word 98, 2001, and v.X, and I have been extremely annoyed that Microsoft just couldn't seem to get the automatic bulleted lists to work properly. It almost makes more sense to use an older version that doesn't use automatic bulleted lists just to eliminate some of the frustration involved in trying to type up notes.

In the time that I could have taken down all the notes from the board or all of one or two sentences said by a professor, I end up trying to make the bulleted list feature work correctly so I can get the notes down in the right place!

Until now. that is, because Microsoft Word 2004 actually seems to work when it comes to bulleted lists. It took them six years, but they finally did it.

The notebook layout in Word 2004 works very well. There's a place for the title and date, and you can even add different sections. This simplifies finding things, as I can keep all the notes for one class in the same document - something that wasn't feasible with older versions of Word.

The other nice feature is that you can actually record parts of lectures. For instance, if they're talking faster than I can take notes, I can just push "record" and not miss anything. The best part is that things just seem to work in this version: finally. The really interesting part is that this particular feature, the notebook layout, isn't available in the Windows version of Word.

Word 2004 Notebook

What's still more interesting (on the PC side) is that the only new, useful feature in Office 2003 for Windows seems to be the feature where you can lock down portions of Word documents and only allow people to edit certain sections. Other than the newly styled icons, Office 2003 seems to be much the same as Office XP. This is a bit of a disappointment to me, as it means that documents I create on the Mac in notebook layout can only be viewed correctly on the Mac and only with Office 2004.

This reminds me of an issue I had with PowerPoint a bit over a year ago, where I had created a presentation in Office XP only to find that it wouldn't run correctly in 2000, 2001, or v.X. I guess this is typical of Microsoft and other software companies (think AppleWorks 6 files - they won't open in AppleWorks 5). That's how they get people to upgrade. It's not "Why don't you buy the newest version, it has a lot of nice features!," but rather "In order to even be compatible with the rest of the world, you either buy this new version or else."

Why did I decide to upgrade to Office 2004? Actually, it wasn't a matter of compatibility at all - it was the notebook layout feature that I'd talked about previously. It really interested me, and so far it's been a worthwhile upgrade.

The only bad news is that Office 2004 uses over 400 MB of hard disk space compared with about 200 MB for Office v.X.

The upgrade to Office 2003 on the PC side wasn't something I had wanted to do, given that I liked Office XP enough and saw no reason to have the newer version using up more RAM and hard drive space. However, I'd realised that I left my Office XP CD-ROM back in the US, and if I wanted Office on my new PC (a necessity, really), I'd have to get another copy - and, of course, Office XP isn't what's being sold in stores.

With all that said, Microsoft does seem to be making a quality product these days, for both Macs and Windows PCs. Office 2004 has yet to crash on me, doesn't give me the spinning beach ball like in Office v.X, and the features that I've used have generally worked fairly well, and much the same goes for Office 2003 for Windows. LEM

Recent Apple Archive articles

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Apple Archive articles copyright ©2000-07 by Adam Robert Guha. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.


Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Have a question?
Ask an expert!

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.