does office 2004 work with OS 10.5.7 and....

[sandbox]

In the process of updating 2 or 3 of my macs I'm wondering if I need to purchase a new office package?

Also, what version of adobe suite works in the latest OS?

I guess what I'm wondering without listing 124 applications and 67 utilities is what won't work?

Is there a list somewhere?

Is this a good time to purchase or should I wait until the next new hardware or software OS is released?

Is august or september better than July to purchase new equipment?

Is something about to change or update that I should time my purchase too?

[Shades of Gray]

I think Adobe CS4 is the best for the latest OS. That is what I use, never a problem.

I do not have MS Word, but I am sure (if you don't need VBA) that Office 2008 would be better. (I use OpenOffice.org 3.1 / NeoOffice 3..01).

[pendragon]

My €.014 worth-

Office 2004 does indeed work with 10.5.7.

Many, but not users have found Office 2008 significantly faster, especially on launch, and it is far more "Mac Like" (IMNHO), and of course, it has a few more bells and whistles. But if you are comfortable and familiar with Office 2004, I found no real operative reason to upgrade. That all said, if you are eligible for a super-duper student discount or such, then have at it. Otherwise, I say save your money.

FWIW:
1. Office 2004 and Office 2008 can both reside in harmony on the same volume. So if you get Office 2008, you may (also) wish to keep 2004. Note: If you install 2008, you will be asked, at the end of the install process, if you wish to remove all old Office copies--don't do that if you choose to keep 2004.
2. While Office 2008 may have many improvements, AFAIK, Entourage is generally still believed to be the weakest link in the Office suite.

HTH

[Texas Mac Man]

Office 2004 works on my Mac with 10.5. Also Adobe CS2 works.

[Paddy]

I've seen some reports of Adobe CS3 apps crashing and not performing with 10.5.7. It IS supposed to work with Leopard however. I have CS4 and it's supposed to be fine. (I've still got to do the 10.5.7 update...)

However, CS4 is Intel-only, in case you have any non-Intel machines.

I don't know of a list of incompatible programs beyond the 10.5 update. Typically, the incremental updates don't break things quite like the .x updates sometimes do. Are you running 10.5.6 on the Macs now?

What are you thinking of buying? The buyer's guide at MacRumors is a good way of determining where the various models of Mac are in the update cycle:

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/ Apart from the laptops, most are "neutral" right now - in the middle of the cycle. Given Intel's roadmap on their chips, I don't think we'll see new desktops before the beginning of 2010, but I could be wrong. The shortest cycle has been about 8 months in the past, which would make early November the soonest anything new on the desktop front would likely appear.

Adobe CS4 came out last fall -  typically it's 18 months between new releases for them. Office 2008 came out in January 2008. Lord knows when M$ will get around to a new release; it took them four years for the last one. They're supposed to be putting VBA back in; I don't know if that will hasten or slow down a new release.

Edit: Tom, you're lucky and I assume that you're also not running it on an Intel Mac - many, many people report incompatibilities between Leopard and CS2. It's also not native to Intel and runs under Rosetta, very slowly. http://forums.adobe.com/thread/439617

[sandbox]

Shades said:

QUOTE

I think Adobe CS4 is the best for the latest OS. That is what I use, never a problem.

Thanks shades, I also have neoOffice but I'm not sure it's all I need. i run into problems with Windows Flies from Gov. agencies and MacOffice has saved me.

Pendragon said:

QUOTE

But if you are comfortable and familiar with Office 2004, I found no real operative reason to upgrade. That all said, if you are eligible for a super-duper student discount or such, then have at it. Otherwise, I say save your money.....2. While Office 2008 may have many improvements, AFAIK, Entourage is generally still believed to be the weakest link in the Office suite.

I am familiar with 2004, and speedy startups at my age are less impressive than they used to be.
Entourage is my email client, I guess i've been lucky, cuz so far, after 4 years nutin has broke. I can get a discount because I am presently called upon to instruct folks with ability issues, but it's far less then I used to these days.

Texas-M&M said:

QUOTE

Office 2004 works on my Mac with 10.5. Also Adobe CS2 works.

That's interesting, I think that is the version i have?
I wonder if something smaller wouldn't work though. i don't use it as intended, really...I crop pictures in Photoshop and sign them. I use GoLive .....still....as primitive as it is these days. That's about it. There must be something that could crop/sign photos with that wouldn't require a suite? And....I'm sure there must be something that can replace GoLive as a stand alone application?

Paddy said:

QUOTE

Are you running 10.5.6 on the Macs now?....What are you thinking of buying?

Panther

Right now I'm replacing  an emac, an ibook, an emachine linux box and adding a ipod touch..

I like the plastic ibook...it's durable. I think i would dent, scratch, and mangle an aluminum macbook pro, but I want the options it offers. I like the mini, and I'm thinking about adding another to my collection. They're smaill, COOOOOL and quiet.

The eMac is nice but HOT as are my Towers an HP, emachine, G3. Living in a jungle where your almost always running AC, keeping the heat down is a big plus. If you need to heat your Toronto snow cave I've got a deal for you!

[Paddy]

The iMacs are nice...my son has one (bought last summer, so it's one generation older than what's available now). Even plays WoW on it, so it's a very capable machine. No significant heat generation - in fact, when we moved his G4 out of his room, he complained that he wasn't as warm as he had been!!

I wouldn't buy a Mini now - despite the fact that they were updated, I think they're still underpowered compared to the rest of the lineup. I suspect/hope that they may get a significant overhaul with the next round of updates.

My older son has a last generation aluminum MacBook. It seems pretty darn sturdy and it's a lot nicer than the iBook IMHO. (better screen, faster processor etc.) However, I'd recommend comparing the two side by side at the store. And you can crack, scratch and scuff up a white iBook - I don't think they're as tough as the unibody models.

If you're only using Photoshop as you describe, I'd highly recommend the much cheaper Photoshop Elements. It does almost all the same things Photoshop does except for the pre-press stuff you need if you're doing color-critical commercial work. However, it too is Intel-only.

I love Dreamweaver, but there are alternatives, though none with its power and flexibility. I need to be able to hand code, so something like RapidWeaver just doesn't do it for me. Ditto iWeb, which drove me squirrelly when I tried it (BIZARRE file system - talk about ridiculous overhead). BUT if you don't need to be able to hand code either will work.

[sandbox]

We don't game or run high energy software, we do office work, word docs, appleworks data base,  filemaker, pagemaker, quickbooks, music, watch a short flick now and then and handle tons, tons of email. I'll look into Elements, and I'll still have these Panthers for a while if I need more. The G3 will go to a youngster I know and the old linux box is going to a linux guy.
Now that i have online speed of 20mb down I may run and hdtv box on the new mini and a 22 inch Dell SP220 monitor that I have on hand. I set one up a month ago and it runs sweet.

I do hand code but lately i've been outsourcing most of the web stuff. I just need to load what I have in Golive into something else that will play nice with servers. A good file system works for me.

What about iWorks, is it worth anything?
Will appleworks work?
How about filemaker pro 7
Toast 6

[krissel]

Running 10.5.6 right now on my G4.

AppleWorks runs fine.
So does Filemaker Pro 7
Toast 5.2.3 runs as well.
BTW, PhotoShop CS works as does InDesign 2,  Illustrator 10 and GoLive 6.
Whether there would be a problem on an Intel machine...don't know.  Haven't put all these apps on my 15" MBP.

I have iWorks 06 on the G4 and the '09 on the 13" MPB I got my folks.  Pages is supposed to replace AppleWorks and Dick loves it. I still use AppleWorks a lot. Old habits and all that... However, it has been predicted that Snow Leopard will not run AW.  Boo hoo.

That little MBP is a really sweet machine. It is very solid and IMO very much worth the extra bucks for the potential longevity as a portable piece of hardware. It has the kind of feel that you just know you can pick it up and not worry about a bump here or there. My only complaint is that is keeps self-assigning an IP with my folks' wireless router and I have to do the diagnostic routine to get it to connect. Other than that it really is what the iBook should have been a few iterations ago.

[sandbox]

Thanks kris, I guess the software will have to be tested on an intel machine. I use appleworks database, or Jane does and since there are no convertible applications to turn a appleworks into a filemaker doc I've been keeping both.

I'm pretty much settled on the MBP even though I like the ibook and probably the Macbook, the options have turned me around. I have an extra ichat camera to place on the monitor of the mini display and a few old mics around for audio, so the new mini should be good to go without buying more stuff.

How's that iTouch doing?

[krissel]

Well, I didn't want to leave you hanging as to the Intel question. I fired up my MBP and connected to the G4 and ran all the apps above without fail. So the processor has no effect.


As to the iTouch, I confess that I haven't used it much mainly because I need to get a new pair of reading glasses that are a little stronger. I can use a lot of the apps but many have small text that I just can't see easily. It stinks getting old...

What I really am anxious to try is the WiFi ability but haven't set it up yet. The games are fun and of course it is a nice music player. Haven't tried to upload movies yet either. The next model will probably have a camera in it which will make it a really handy gadget. But that one I would have had to pay full price for and this one was pretty cheap.

[Xairbusdriver]

Pages is mainly a "page" layout program, for which it is fantastic. It does have a fair number of charting capabilities into which spreadsheet data can be imported. But so does Keynote. Neither of those two apps are designed as replacements for a database or a spreadsheet. Numbers is the newest of the iWorks suite and is supposed to have much greater spreadsheet capabilities, however, any database use would be pretty much limited to the way a spreadsheet would do that. In other words, nothing more than a non-relational db. I suppose a graphic can be placed in a cell, but I've never seen any spreadsheet database that could compare to even the simplest FM setup! And FM is light years ahead of using any kind of spreadsheet when it comes to stand alone 'solutions' for use by anyone other than the 'designer!'

Of course, the iWork suite is quite costly, at ~90 bucks, at he Apple Store, considerably cheaper just about anywhere else.

BTW, Paddy, "old habits" are not all bad, especially if they've only been worn occasionally.

[krissel]

Ok, I am now logged in via the Touch and my home WiFi. I have two of my glasses on top of each other to get the power to see. It takes a long time to type but not too bad. Wish my thumbs were smaller.
But it is really amazing how this works.
Got to get new glasses...

[Xairbusdriver]

Try the reverse pinch movement for regular pages. Also nice to have a landscape keyboard now, pretty much every where. Of course, a regular eye exam is always best. If Inelps difteremciate befween sone leffers thaf are very sini1ar.

[Paddy]

SB, I can add to Kris' assurances that both GoLive & Appleworks work fine on my MacPro. I still do two web sites with GoLive 6, though they'll be shifted over to Dreamweaver soon, as they're due for overhauls.

Whether the same will be true of Snow Leopard is anyone's guess - if you don't want to be forced into application updates immediately, you may want to buy the new Macs now to ensure that they'll be able to run 10.5.x. It IS a good time to buy a Macbook Pro - they've just been updated. Or you can get some pretty good deals in the refurb store.

BTW - what the heck is this one??

http://store.apple.com/us/product/G0GR3LL/A?mco=MjE0NjE5MA - as far as I know, there is NO MBP with a 2.93Ghz processor!!?? Curious...