Pros & Cons - Microsoft Office on Macintosh OS X

VE Day · Post by **VE Day** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 5:16 pm

Hello Boys and Girls and Everybody.
I have recently started using a Macintosh computer to replace the dinosaur of an unbelievably unreliable PC that I have been using for the last 10 years. So far I have been very pleased. I have been using OpenOffice for quite a while now as I find it is mostly superior to Microsoft Office in many ways, HOWEVER - OpenOffice lacks the Voice Recognition Software that I have been using more and more in Microsoft Office, plus I cannot use Open Office to format documents using Textboxes.

My understanding is that by installing Wine onto my Macintosh OS X I may be able to install my copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2003 - but will the facilities in Microsoft Office such as Voice Recognition Software work if I install it on a Macintosh using Wine? (I have a 2GB Intel Macintosh)

My memory tells me that to get the Voice Recognition software in Microsoft Office working on my PC I had to go to Control Panel and fiddle with some commands there before I could use Voice Recognition Software because although the Voice Recognition Software comes as standard with Microsoft Office 2003 it does not install automatically when you install the software.

Please is there anyone with experience of installing this using Wine that can advise?

Thank you.

James Mckenzie · Post by **James Mckenzie** » Sun Mar 01, 2009 10:56 pm

VE Day <[email protected]> wrote on March 1st:

Hello Boys and Girls and Everybody.
I have recently started using a Macintosh computer to replace the dinosaur of an unbelievably unreliable PC that I have been using for the last 10 years. So far I have been very pleased. I have been using OpenOffice for quite a while now as I find it is mostly superior to Microsoft Office in many ways, HOWEVER - OpenOffice lacks the Voice Recognition Software that I have been using more and more in Microsoft Office, plus I cannot use Open Office to format documents using Textboxes.

Please do the OpenOffice.org folks a favor and file a bug report for this as an enhancement request for the Mac.

My understanding is that by installing Wine onto my Macintosh OS X I may be able to install my copy of Microsoft Office Professional 2003 - but will the facilities in Microsoft Office such as Voice Recognition Software work if I install it on a Macintosh using Wine? (I have a 2GB Intel Macintosh)

You should be able to install Office 2003, but please visit the Applications Database for hints and how-to information before attempting the installation.

My memory tells me that to get the Voice Recognition software in Microsoft Office working on my PC I had to go to Control Panel and fiddle with some commands there before I could use Voice Recognition Software because although the Voice Recognition Software comes as standard with Microsoft Office 2003 it does not install automatically when you install the software.

Most of the folks here use Dragon Naturally Speaking version 8 as it has the best support from Wine. I don't know if the internal feature of Microsoft Office 2003 is supported under Wine and my opinion is that it is not as this appears to be a feature of WindowsXP and WindowsVista.

Please is there anyone with experience of installing this using Wine that can advise?

Please visit the Applications Database. There is a wealth of knowledge there on how-to install applications and features.

Also, which version of Wine are you planning to use?

James Mckenzie

VE Day · Post by **VE Day** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 6:00 am

James Mckenzie wrote:
Please do the OpenOffice.org folks a favor and file a bug report for this as an enhancement request for the Mac.

Also, which version of Wine are you planning to use?

Thanks for your reply James.
I will report the Bug with Textboxes to OpenOffice.org as suggested.

I don't know which version of Wine would be the best for running Microsoft Office 2003 yet, I was hoping to get some pointers to which is the best version to choose by asking folks on the Internet with experience of using them with Microsoft Office 2003.

James Mckenzie · Post by **James Mckenzie** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:57 am

VE Day <[email protected]> wrote on March 2nd:

James Mckenzie wrote:

Please do the OpenOffice.org folks a favor and file a bug report for this as an enhancement request for the Mac.

Also, which version of Wine are you planning to use?

Thanks for your reply James.
I will report the Bug with Textboxes to OpenOffice.org as suggested.

I don't know which version of Wine would be the best for running Microsoft Office 2003 yet,
I was hoping to get some pointers to which is the best version to choose by asking folks on
the Internet with experience of using them with Microsoft Office 2003.

Please look at the Applications Database on the WineHQ web site. This might be your best
source of information at this time.

Also, please be aware that there is a Mac specific version of Office. I've read reviews
that it is better than Office for Windows. However, it does not come with Access
the 'want to be' database that ships with the Windows version.

James McKenzie

Post by **dimesio** » Mon Mar 02, 2009 10:46 am

VE Day wrote: I don't know which version of Wine would be the best for running Microsoft Office 2003 yet, I was hoping to get some pointers to which is the best version to choose by asking folks on the Internet with experience of using them with Microsoft Office 2003.

Use the latest version of Wine. Set riched20 to native after installing. As for speech recognition, I've never tried it, but I wouldn't have high hopes. Plug-ins in general don't work in any version of Office under Wine.