When: Contact John
Where: A virtual meeting - contact John for details
The Office Applications SIG meets virtually each month to discuss business productivity applications.
In addtion, Office Applications SIG leader John Livingston is available evenings and Sundays to answer your questions. To make a request, post a new message on the Office Applications SIG conference board on the dBug ExChange, or if you are not a member, e-mail John at electroscribe@dbug.org.
If you aren't a dBug member, John will reply once to your question. For more follow-up, you will need to join dBug.
Preparing to move to Microsoft Office 2011 for Macintosh
Your Office Applications SIG leader has invested in Office 2011 Home and Business for Macintosh. Unlike previous releases, it appears the Macintosh Business Unit is not going to come out to dBug or invite us to Redmond for a dog-and-pony show; so it will be up to me to share my experiences with you, the dBug members. Couple of very annoying things about Office 2011 for Macintosh right off the bat:
- There is no upgrade pricing. Have to pay the full price. In order to get the e-mail client, had to pay for the "Home and Business: version in full.*
- No more "One Desktop/One Laptop" feature in the license. My choice was to pay for one license or two.
- Although Microsoft's Office for Mac web site has a lot of information for making Outlook for Mac work on Exchange servers and import data from Apple Mail, iCal and AddressBook, have so far not found specific page with step by step instructions for updating from Entourage 2008, so will have to be your trail blazer.
NO MORE MACTOPIA, NO REDIRECT, OFFICE FOR MAC MOVED HERE
Did find this site by entering the phrase "Entourage" at this URL
Under the title "Items from Entourage don't appear"
Solution: Import the Entourage information into Outlook.
- On the Outlook for Mac File menu, click Import.
- Click Entourage information from an archive or earlier version, and then click the right arrow.
- Follow the instructions
No, am not going to unwrap the box, record the install key on a flatbed scanner, insert the disk and pray. Am going to prepare for the journey first. Stay tuned.
Before I install Microsoft Office 2011, am going to do a few things to keep from losing the Entourage data and the Word and Excel customization that I have been working on for the past 15 to 20 years. First, am going to make sure my Macs are healthy and have no directory issues that would muck up the installation of Office 2011 (good save in keeping this a "G-rated" posting).
- Am going to get my Time Machine drive out and run a thorough Time Machine backup.
- Am going to run DiskWarrior to be sure there are no directory or system issues on either of my Macs (yes, Microsoft, I did get the two-license back). An alternative would be holding down the Shift key while restarting and booting up in "Safe" mode, in which my Mac would check for directory errors.
- Will run Software Update from the Apple Menu and make sure I have the latest OS. If I find my Mac needs a Mac OSX update, will download it separately and manually install it.
- If any OS updates are necessary, will still boot my Macs up in Safe mode just to make sure they don't create any issues.
- After doing all of that, will then back up my Office 2008 and Entourage settings to a separate USB or external hard drive.
>>Hard Drive>Users>{You, the logged-in Home user}>Documents>Microsoft User Data>Office 2008 Identities>Main Identity> >>Hard Drive>Users>{You, the logged-in Home user}>Library>Application Support>Microsoft>User Templates Those include Word's Normal.dotm or Normal.dotx template, so just do the whole folder.
Installing Microsoft Office 2011 for the Macintosh:
Save your receipt, serial number and proof of purchase.
- If you purchased your software online, download and save your Internet or e-mail receipt to a safe place on your hard drive or external drive.
- If you buy the software locally, see if you can pursuade the vendor to e-mail you a receipt (the Mac Store did this for me). Save it to a hard drive.
- Open the shrinkwrap on your Office for Mac 2011 box.
Opening the shrink wrap invalidates your right to return the software ! - Gingerly remove the Office:Mac 2011 DVD from the original packaging and put it in a sturdier CD or DVD holder.
- Take the original packaging to a flatbed scanner, place the orange Product Key label on the scanner, and make a PDF scan of the license key. If you don't have a scanner, make a photocopy of it.
The license key is absolutely critical. You must have it if you want customer service or need to reinstall Office 2011. - Save the scanned PDF to the same folder as you saved the receipt
- Close all other programs on your Macintosh, but make sure you are connected to the Internet.
- Now, take out the DVD, insert it in your Mac.
- Click on the Install package folder and Microsoft will take over from here.
If your vendor won't do this, take your receipt home or to a flatbed scanner and make a PDF scan of it.
- Office Installer had me accept the license agreement, asked me if I wanted to save my old settings or set up new ones, and asked me about installing Microsoft fonts. I kept my current settings and had it install fonts.
- After it was done, it launched a web based Getting Started page.
- It then immediately asked me for my license key. I entered it, and it showed me a screen with the key information on it and told me to save it. Using the Mac commands to make a screen shot (Command Control Shift 4), I drew an outline around the screen and saved the screenshot to my desktop as a .PNG file. I then named it and put a copy in that license folder we've been using.
- I opted out of the chance to have Microsoft automatically collect information "to improve the user experience" (yeah, right) but did immediately register the software in case I needed to contact tech support.
- I launched Microsoft Word, which offered me all kinds of help for newcomers. I made sure the custom toolbar I used in Word 2008 showed up as well as the full menu bar. Both did.
- I bought Office 2011 specifically to see how Outlook works. I need about a week of working with it in private before I am willing to share my experiences with the rest of the world.
- I went to Apple's support site for MobileMe and downloaded the instructions for setting up an iMap account on Entourage. They have a different article for Outlook, but that is Outlook for Windows, not the new Outlook for Mac. Microsoft also has a Knowledge Base article about setting up iMap accounts in Entourage in general.
Please be sure to post any replies to Office Applications SIG, not just Mentors.
John I. Livingston, SIG Leader
All are welcome.
