PCFormat Forum Archive

Changed title so I can just centralise all my Office for Mac frustrations into a single thread.

The Mac section on this forum isn't exactly rocking, but perhaps someone can help without me having to register on some random Mac support forum.

I have Office 2011 for Mac running on my Macbook, but I hate it that, in either Word, Excel or Powerpoint, every time you open a new document/presentation it cascades it instead of opening maximised. I then have to maximise the document/presentation myself.

I may be missing an über-obvious setting somewhere, but isn't there just a setting somewhere to open all documents/presentations maximised?

Edit: Make that MS Office 2011 for Mac, just in case there was any confusion.

Tis what I feared.

sounds like a job for da.da.daaaaa... the "genius" bar...

you're a mac user now... go ahead...it's ok...

Have you tried to click the green resize button on the top right hand side of the active window? This would make it full screen. If you then quite the Office program, it would save the viewing preference. When you enter an Office program again, it would automatically be resized to the previous saved state.

kthnx

Actually it doesn't save the viewing preference. It reverts back to cascaded windows after closing and opening.

Kthx.

P.S. According to the guys over at the Mac Help forums Office 2011 for Mac cannot in fact be coerced into doing this. But according to them I am just a stupid ex-Windows user who wants to do something completely pointless on his Mac. I have, they say, this brand spanking new Mac with a fantastic widescreen (yes, all 13" whopping inches of it!); why on earth would I want to work on a maximised document?

Translation: You have stumbled upon one of the many things that a Windows computer can do that a Mac cannot in fact do, but since we cannot bring ourselves to admit the limitations of a Mac we're going to resort to calling you names and telling you that what you want to do is stupid.

Hmm....that is not entirely true - I did this yesterday and I too have Office 2011. - Another workaround would be to open the window and adjust it to your viewing preference, then saving the document. Quit Office program, and then re-open.

Thnx...


Mac Help forums - @ apple.com? They are just random users from around the world, they do not represent Apple...just like here we do not represent PCF. I too have had trouble with them in the past.

The Office for Mac programs are built to do exactly what they do in Windows. You might just have to go look for some of the features. But your issue...can be done. I did it myself yesterday.

LatMyWeet..

Stuart wrote:Translation: You have stumbled upon one of the many things that a Windows computer can do that a Mac cannot in fact do, but since we cannot bring ourselves to admit the limitations of a Mac we're going to resort to calling you names and telling you that what you want to do is stupid.

I'm surprised they did not blame Microsoft for not writing Office to properly utilize the orgasmic romance explosion that is OSX

chowzen wrote:Mac Help forums - @ apple.com? They are just random users from around the world, they do not represent Apple...just like here we do not represent PCF. I too have had trouble with them in the past.

No, not at Apple. I mean the guys at mac-forums.com. I realise it's not an official Mac support forum, but fanbois tend to know how to do what needs to be done.

chowzen wrote:Hmm....that is not entirely true - I did this yesterday and I too have Office 2011. - Another workaround would be to open the window and adjust it to your viewing preference, then saving the document. Quit Office program, and then re-open.

Well, it doesn't work for me. Every time I open a document I have to maximise it myself. And even when I maximise it, it leave a small piece of real estate open on the right hand side.

So this is what a "maximised" document on my Macbook looks like:



If I want it to stretch across the entire screen I then have to drag it to full width manually.

And by dragging it to full width, saving the document, then quitting the App, then re-opening the App - have you tried that?

if that does not work - try this: navigate to ~/*user*/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Office/User Templates/***** <<here is a file named Normal.dotm
You need to open it, then change the view options to what you want. Save it in the same location, as normal2.dotm(in the drop down save options, this extension is there). Then quit word, navigate to the folder, delete the original 'Normal.dotm', rename the one you created to "Normal.dotm", open word, and let me know if it works then///
fank

Hmmm, close. It opens the first document at the same width that I saved the dotm as. However, the window is not anchored, which means that there is still some sideways scrolling play. Also, new documents opened on top of that still open cascaded instead of anchored full screen. And again, the moment I press the little + in the top left corner to anchor it, it jumps back to the window size in the screen shot above with the space on the right.

Stuart, if you're like me then you will hate the way that Mac OS "maximises" windows when pressing the green zoom button.

If you install this great little program called Right Zoom it will completely maximise all windows when pressing it. You can also select specific programs to ignore this feature if you want...

There are some annoyances that take getting used to, but same goes for Windows. Every time I boot into my Win 7 install for gaming or something I can't wait to get back into OS X.

ryanrich wrote:There are some annoyances that take getting used to, but same goes for Windows. Every time I boot into my Win 7 install for gaming or something I can't wait to get back into OS X.

Simple and elegant solution to that problem...
Stop gaming.
You can still play browser games like Farmville on your mac, that's all your kind need

I don't play such tripe.

Steam has been available on Mac for a while now, so there are quite a few options when it comes to gaming nowadays. I had COD: Black Ops, StarCraft 2 etc on PC though, so I just carried on playing em there.

ryanrich wrote: Every time I boot into my Win 7 install for gaming or something I can't wait to get back into OS X.

Ja, I must admit that I'm not there yet. After using my Macbook for two months now, I still don't get Mac fanbois. Certainly, there are some things nicer than Windows; but then there are some things in Windows nicer than Mac. It really is six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Office 2010 for Windows is definitely superior to Office 2011 for Mac though, in terms of user-friendliness, etc.

Anywho, seems like RightZoom has worked for the last week or so as I want it to, so thanks for that.

Stuart wrote:Anywho, seems like RightZoom has worked for the last week or so as I want it to, so thanks for that.

HA..
Grats to the OS that needs a 3rd party add-on to accomplish something so mundane... it should be integrated.

No it works the way it's supposed to work. When you click the green maximise button the OS sizes the window to whatever size it thinks is best for that situation. I prefer the standard maximise though, so I use RightZoom.

Stu, one of the main things I like is the battery life. My MBP last around 5 hours on heavy usage and about 7-8 hours if I need to push it. I don't know of another i7 notebook that is so thin and light that does the same. Like you say though, when it comes to the OS both do some things great and some not so great, so I have OS X as my main OS and then Win 7 x64 running on VMware Fusion for all my other needs... I also love the trackpad gestures. Once used to those you can do some awesome things. There's an app called MagicPrefs that lets you customise just about every gesture you could want, and it works great with the Magic Mouse.

Agree about Office sucking compared to the Windows version. 2011 is WAY better than 2008 though, at least now we have proper Outlook and not that Entourage nonsense.

Sojourn wrote:

Stuart wrote:Anywho, seems like RightZoom has worked for the last week or so as I want it to, so thanks for that.

HA..
Grats to the OS that needs a 3rd party add-on to accomplish something so mundane... it should be integrated.

+1

Ryan is right about how the maximise button works, but that in itself is a bit of a puzzle to me. You would think that the best "maximised" size is always full screen. Evidently Apple disagrees. Anywho, RightZoom is far more intelligent.

ryanrich wrote:Stu, one of the main things I like is the battery life.

You're absolutely spot on there. I only use my Macbook for work purposes, but I also get 5-7 hours out of it, which is awesome. I actually just leave the charger at work during the week and just bring the machine itself home. When I use it at home I just run off the battery. Haven't come close to running out yet.

ryanrich wrote:Agree about Office sucking compared to the Windows version. 2011 is WAY better than 2008 though, at least now we have proper Outlook and not that Entourage nonsense.

I've actually really missed Office 2010 over the past couple of months. And Nero. And my Delete key. And Page Up / Page Down.

In conclusion, the Mac keyboard is somewhat sucky.

Haha yup, the keyboard shortcuts for delete and such took some getting used to, and also CMD + O to open things and not Enter etc. Now I'm so used to it though that I can't work on an IBM keyboard anymore...

I haven't even learned the keyboard shortcut for delete.

CMD + Backspace

ryanrich wrote:CMD + Backspace

Why what? The Mac keyboard is very different to that of an IBM keyboard. There are tons of shortcuts centred mainly around the Command and Option keys...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Keyboard

ryanrich wrote:CMD + Backspace

No, that deletes an entire word rather than one letter at a time.