Microsoft Office for Macintosh 2001 | 
 enlarge | From: Microsoft Software
Category: Software
List Price: $359.99
Buy New: $269.00
You Save: $90.99 (25%)
New (1) Used (1) from $139.99
Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 1077
Format: Cd-rom
Platform: Macintosh
Media: CD-ROM
Operating System: Macintosh
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.3 x 6 x 1.3
MPN: 731-00294
Model: 731-00294
UPC: 659556502553
EAN: 0659556502553
ASIN: B00004WFVN
Release Date: September 28, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
Microsoft Office 2001 builds on the excellence that Macintosh users enjoyed in Office 98. In this latest version, Microsoft revamps the form and function of the Office suite to make it feel more at home on the Mac than ever before. A curvy new interface, which echoes the elegance of the upcoming Mac OS X, reveals improvements in each component. Word's versatile editing tools now include instant access to Encarta dictionary definitions; and Excel now imports FileMaker databases, sorts and manages lists, and sports a new calculator that simplifies formula creation. PowerPoint's new Tri-Pane interface and text AutoFit feature make it easier to build presentations. Plus, the ability to save PowerPoint documents as QuickTime movies makes it easier to share them. The most significant addition to Office 2001 is the new personal information manager. Dubbed Entourage, it will handle your e-mail (AutoFormat and AutoCorrect features that are borrowed from Word nicely refine composition), address book, to-do list, and calendar. Entourage can filter your e-mail and tasks quickly with color-coded categories and custom views, and sync seamlessly with your Palm OS device, which helps to keep you organized. Entourage's presence is felt throughout Office 2001--every application will let you flag documents for follow-up and pass the reminder on to the calendar, and the address book is accessible at any time, which is invaluable if you use Word for mail-merge tasks. This integrated approach is key to Office 2001's appeal. A new Formatting Palette automatically shows tools that are relevant to the task at hand; the Office Clipboard palette keeps track of multiple items that have been copied from different Office applications; and the ubiquitous Office Assistant is always on hand with tips and how-to advice. Our advice? With features as wide-ranging as these, Office 2001 makes it easy for you to create, manage, and present your documents like a real pro. --Jack Gardiner
Amazon.com Product Description
Microsoft Office 2001 was created specifically for Macintosh and designed to give you all the tools you need, simply and effectively. Office 2001 contains Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and the new Entourage e-mail and personal information manager. With these four tightly integrated programs and innovative Mac features, Office 2001 makes everything you do--from completing common tasks to managing information to communicating--easier than ever. Use Word to create stylish, innovative, professional documents for print publishing or the Web. Use Excel's comprehensive tool set to create, analyze, and share spreadsheets. Easily analyze your data with charts, PivotTable views, and graphs, then post your data to the Web for universal viewing. With PowerPoint, you can create powerful presentations quickly. And with Entourage, you have a personal e-mail and scheduling manager. All are designed for the Macintosh and its innovative and familiar functionality.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
Too much Windoze; not enough Mac. December 7, 2002
Bob Zeidler (Charlton, MA United States)
18 out of 20 found this review helpful
Like a good boy, I had been regularly purchasing various Microsoft-for-the-Mac upgrades for a very long time. How long has it been? It's been so long that my first copy of Excel (1.0, in 1985) was free, because at the time I possessed registered copies of MS Multiplan and MS Chart. That's a long time by anyone's measure.
My most recent Excel upgrade prior to MS Office for the Mac 2001 was Excel 95; I took a bye on Office 98 principally because I've never been particularly fond of MS Word (even in the Mac versions that had worked reasonably well). For most of the fifteen years or so that I've been using Macs almost exclusively, my word processor of choice has been WriteNow: Lean, mean, full of most of the features that I need, still running on OS 9.2.2, and, regrettably, discontinued (abandoned would be a more appropriate term) several years ago.
However, with the ever-increasing hegemony of Windoze-based business networks, and with the fact that Excel 95 cannot run on a G4 Mac with OS 9.0 or newer, I bit the bullet and purchased this Office 2001 package. And, while I've now pretty much climbed its learning curve, the experience hasn't exactly been one that I'd write home about.
Here are a few nits I choose to pick (some small, some not so small):
* Somewhere between Excel 95 and Office 2001, Microsoft programmers seem to have lost track of the fact that Macs have both "Return" and "Enter" keys. (Windoze machines have no "Return" key.) The "Return" key no longer functions as it did, scrolling down one cell in an Excel spreadsheet; it now does precisely the same thing the "Enter" key does (which is limited to whatever one chooses from the "Preferences" menu). Not very bright!
* In like fashion, the MS programmers decided to reassign several of the common "Command" key functions (Fill Down, Fill Across, Insert, Delete, Clear, etc.) to the "Control" key, again in some ill-founded effort at "cross-platform"compatibility. (Imagine my surprise when I first went to insert a row or column, only to find that my selection was formatted in italics!) In the process, the ergonomic superiority of the Mac keyboard, requiring less "stretch" effort to activate these keyboard shortcuts, has now been sacrificed to the Bill Gates God of Uniformity. And Microsoft continues to place the Font menu on a toolbar, not as a Mac-standard menu. Not very bright!
* While tools have been added to the toolbox library, the ability to customize toolbars for one's own use has actually been reduced! And the tools don't always load consistently, suggesting some bugginess that requires a Microsoft patch or two, not yet available. And, unlike previous Excel upgrades in my experience, this one appears to provide no additional chart types. Not very bright!
* Word is incompatible with RamDoubler 9.0 (another patch still not available). But, for once, my newest (G4) Mac has more memory than RamDoubler can deal with. Nevertheless: Not very bright!
* Word files - as always - are bloated for reasons that have little to do with content or formatting. (As a comparison, a 25-page file, containing a few tables and some minor formatting, which occupies 91K of HD space as a WriteNow 4.0 file and 96K as a WordPerfect 3.5e file, occupies 194K as a Word 2001 file.) If not "Not very bright!", then "Why?"
* The ubiquitous Windoze paperclip "Advisor" has been transmogrified to a less-than-winsome "flex-toy Mac." Gimmee a break!
* Entourage is incompatible with Outlook or Outlook Express. Its inclusion is specious at best, and one wonders how many will use this module.
* Once again, as far as a database module is concerned, Mac users are left in the lurch. Access continues to be notable by its absence (not that it is every database user's "dream program"), and FoxPro has long been history as far as Microsoft support is concerned. Moreover, a Mac port of SQL is just a fantasy. And VisualBasic is only present in crippled form, to support the modules that are VB-capable.
There are a few (very few, I'm sad to say) gains:
* PowerPoint works fine. But I have little need for it, save for the odd PP file that gets attached to my e-mail thanks to some chain letter or other.
* The modules run acceptably fast. But I think this has as much or more to do with G4 speed and available RAM as it does to "tight" coding by software engineers.
* Word works acceptably well (but not particularly great) as a platform for HTML coding.
* I've got the cross-platform compatibility that my business-related activities require.
For those G4 users needing a single module but not needing "full" cross-platform compatibility for other applications, my advice is to limit yourselves to just the Office 2001 module (saving some bucks), hang on to your WriteNow 4.0 program (it'll run just fine on OS 9.x G4's) or download a free copy of WordPerfect 3.5e, take a bye on Entourage (Outlook Express works just fine, and is bundled free with Explorer), and, if you need a database program, there's always FileMaker Pro.
Summary: A "forced" upgrade for G4 Mac users who must use Excel. More steps backward than forward for those of us who prefer Macs but need the cross-platform compatibility. At best, three stars, and then only with the greatest of reluctance.
Bob Zeidler
 ($$$) ... September 1, 2002
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
High priced, low grade programs. Apple needs to develop office programs of their own.
 Very pleased with the PowerPoint improvements May 7, 2002
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Once you get over the learning curve of Office for Mac 2001, it is far superior to the Windows counterpart. They moved items around, came up with a new format window, and moved controls over to the left hand side of the screen. However, I am impressed with the overall flow and feel of the products. There isn't too much in the way of new functionality here, which was a bit of a disappointment. Resolution of imported graphics into PowerPoint has to be unbelievably high to get a good projection on a large screen. As a person who works with graphics and color quite a bit, the improved options for choosing almost any color you can think of is quite welcome. I haven't made the jump to OS-X yet, so I haven't experienced that version. But if you are still running 9.x - I highly recommend this version.
Very pleased with the PowerPoint improvements May 7, 2002
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Once you get over the learning curve of Office for Mac 2001, it is far superior to the Windows counterpart. They moved items around, came up with a new format window, and moved controls over to the left hand side of the screen. However, I am impressed with the overall flow and feel of the products. There isn't too much in the way of new functionality here, which was a bit of a disappointment. Resolution of imported graphics into PowerPoint has to be unbelievably high to get a good projection on a large screen. As a person who works with graphics and color quite a bit, the improved options for choosing almost any color you can think of is quite welcome. I haven't made the jump to OS-X yet, so I haven't experienced that version. But if you are still running 9.x - I highly recommend this version.
Why Make it More Complex? October 14, 2001
A. C. Self (UK)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Every time I upgrade, some features are better but many more have become over-complex. Lets face it - how many people are capable of using even a quarter of the features of Word? Who wants 150 templates? I never use them - I make my own.There seem to be some serious problems with Word. Tables in Word on the Mac are a nightmare. Its all so unpredictable and can be very slow compared to a PC. For no apparent reason (usually when I've cut'n pasted a row - or reduced the font size using keystrokes rather than the mouse)it crashes. It even took Excel with it last time. I hate the new drop-down autofill in Excel 2001. The old one was fine and quicker. Why "improve" something just for the sake of it? They have done something really odd to the sort function with numbering. At one time it sorted 2 after 20 ...another "improvement"? As for the multilevel numbering. If only they would stop changing it. I just get my head round the latest version and they change it again! The contortions one has to go through to miss out a level .... Overall I like the look of Office 2001 and some of the features are great. I even like Entourage - contrary to popular opinion. Why isn't there a decent built-in fax facility? I am having a dreadful time with Symantec - it won't open with anything I posess! In desperation I was going to try Appleworks but was put off by the reviews ....
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