Office for Mac vs Windows

When I bought the new MacBook, I vowed to myself that since I was going to install and run Windows XP via VWware Fusion, I would not need to move to Microsoft's version of Office for OS X (Office 2008) . However as time went on I grew curious about how Word and maybe Excel would be if run natively in the Mac. I downloaded and tried the demo version and was pleasantly surprised to feel that I liked writing in Word 2008 for the Mac than using Word 2007 on Windows. Word 2007 is just "too much" sometimes, but I do appreciate it's richness of functionality.

I discovered that the Office for Mac version was really not that expensive (about £100 here) so I splurged and bought a copy. I find that I'm using for many of my writing projects as I do like it. [It reminds me of Word 2.0c from the early 1990's which I think is still the best writing program ever--alas, that for another posting someday.]

Today I discovered why Office on the Mac is a "deal". The product lacks macros. I cannot do keystroke recording of macros. I cannot create macros. I cannot edit macros. I'm told it "respects" macros in files created by other versions of Office, e.g. Office 2003 and 2007 for Windows. But macro functionality has stripped out. Gosh. There are times that with a small macro I can do a lot to remove the drudgery of something.

What a surprise. No macros in Office 2008 for the Mac.