Microsoft Office for Mac 2011

With Microsoft Office for the Mac 2011 (Home and Student version, $119; Home and Business version, $149), Microsoft has finally gotten it right. After a string of disappointing releases, the new Mac version of the world's most widely-used office suite is a spectacular success, and an unexpected triumph for Microsoft's Macintosh group. Compared with Office for the Mac 2008 and its predecessors, Office 2011 is innovative, better-designed, startlingly faster, vastly more powerful, and far more compatible with Office for Windows. It even includes a few features that outclass anything in its Windows-based counterpart, Microsoft Office 2010 ($499, 4 stars). If you're a casual, light-duty office-suite user or a student, iWork '09 ($79, 4 stars) is still a great option, but if you've got heavy-duty work to perform on the Mac, you'll want Office for the Mac 2011.

I used to suspect Microsoft of deliberately holding back Office for the Mac so that Windows users wouldn't be tempted to abandon Windows for OS X. No more. For the first time, OS X has an office suite I can imagine using full-time. Office for the Mac still has some minor weaknesses, and at least one feature that's less powerful in than the previous version—Office no longer syncs calendars with iCal. Overall, it's the best office suite ever for using the Mac as a serious platform for getting work done.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369733,00.asp

    

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  Pros
  Fast, flexible office application suite. Most powerful Mac office software. Highly compatible with Office for Windows. Well-integrated with OS X. Visual Basic for Applications recorded and programmed macros fully supported. Newly-designed Outlook replaces Entourage as mail/calendar/contact app.
• Cons
  
  
  
  
  
  No calendar synching with iCal. Outlook won't synch with or retrieve mail from Exchange Server 2003 or earlier.
• Bottom Line
  
  
  
  
  
  Office for the Mac roars back with fast, powerful application suite the best of its kind for the OS X platform.
  
  

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