Try Office 2008 free for 30 days but watch out for the high price at the end. Mac users can now try Office 2008 free for 30 days. We have some money saving conversion tips that can save you a few hundred dollars. Where to start Microsoft itself hasn’t realized the trial version is available – go to their main Office trial web site trymicrosoftoffice.com and there’s no mention of the Office for Mac trial download. But if you go you’ll find the free trial. Registration is required including giving details of your email address, snail mail address and phone number. The registration form supports only USA and Puerto Rico – not even Canada rates a mention., let alone UK, Europe or the rest of the world.

People from other countries might need to fill in a sincere looking address to get the trial. Aside from the details asked for there doesn’t seem any effort to prevent people downloading from anywhere in the world. Surely this anomaly will be fixed quickly? After registration a Product Key is displayed on web page as well as sent via email. You’ll need the Product Key to complete the installation. The 545MB.dmg file should automatically prompt for installation after the download is completed.

Office 2004 for Mac will use 1.2GB of disk space. The trial download has Word 2008, Excel 2008, PowerPoint 2008, Messenger 2008 and Entourage 2008. Entourage is the email, calendar, contacts program for Mac users, in other words it’s the Outlook equivalent for Macintosh. Messenger is for use with Microsoft Instant Messaging services. Keep your existing Office The Office 2008 trial installation will detect and offer to remove other versions of Office for Mac but you can leave them on the computer. This means you can keep your Office 2004 or Office X for Mac while trying Office 2008.

Even though you’ve just downloaded the trial version, a check for updates will prompt you to download another 150MB to bring Office 2008 totally up to date with the latest security patches. When you first start an Office for Mac program you be asked, again, for the Product Key then activate the product. Activation is usually over the Internet and is required before you use the Office 2008 for Mac trial. Each time you open an Office application you’ll see this dialog. We strongly suggest you AVOID both those options.

This update fixes critical issues and also helps to improve security. It includes fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac: Free Download - Productivity suite; Office 2004 updates also available. Download the latest versions of the best Mac apps at MacUpdate.

Buying a Microsoft Office product key direct from Microsoft is the most expensive choice. See below for money saving tips.

Click Try to use the program you’ve selected. Why just 30 days? The Office 2008 for Mac trial is for 30 days only. However the equivalent Office 2007 for Windows trial is 60 days. Why Macintosh users get half the time to evaluate Microsoft Office is anyone’s guess. Buying after the trial What Microsoft wants you to do is try Office 2008 then go to their web site, buy a product key and convert the trial installation into ongoing working software.

Bzzzzzt – that’s the worst and most expensive option. As we’ve, buying from Microsoft online direct you’ll pay a high, probably full retail, price and be encouraged to get the most expensive Office bundle. A better option is to decide which Office 2008 bundle you want, Home and Student Edition or Office 2008 for Mac.

Maybe you can find the specially priced which can cost less than the Office 2008 for Mac bundle even though it contains more programs. Buy Office 2008 for Mac at the best price you can – which is probably from a retail outlet or online store that ships a DVD and product key to you.

At the time of writing, using the ‘Buy Now’ button in the Office 2008 for Mac trial will offer you these prices, in US dollars: • Home and Student Edition $149.95 • Office 2008 for Mac, full $399.95 • Office 2008 for Mac, upgrade $239.95 • The (full or upgrade) isn’t offered at all. Buying from Amazon (with free shipping) will save you at least $36 and up to $180 (buying the Special Media Edition full version for $220). You may get even better prices elsewhere. In other countries you’ll find similar price savings. Conversion You would think it’s possible to use the Product Key from a retail copy to ‘convert’ Office 2008 for Mac trial to fully working version – but alas Microsoft says that’s not possible. Most likely this is to encourage people to buy the more expensive online product key.

The workaround is to uninstall Office 2008 for Mac trial then install it again from the DVD and product key you have purchased. To remove Office for Mac trial (or any Office for Mac) go to the Applications Microsoft Office 2008 Additional Tools Remove Office and click on the Remove Office program.

Are you trying to decide if it’s the right time to upgrade to Office 2008? Microsoft now offers a trial version of Office for Mac 2008. You can and test Office 2008 for 30 days free.

Previous trial versions of Office for Mac could not be converted to the full version; however, the Office for Mac 2008 trial is convertible to a full version of the product, either Home & Student, or Standard Edition (and Standard Upgrade). Should I upgrade? Upgrading to Snow Leopard has pushed some users with older versions of Office installed to consider upgrading.

Consider the pros and cons • Office X is end of life software. No further updates will be issued. • Both Office X and Office 2004 will run on Snow Leopard, but a few minor issues have been reported. • It was that support for Office 2004 would be extended for those users that have had to stay with Office 2004 for VBA support. • Office 2008 does not include VBA. It’s returning in Office v14. • You can run both Office 2004 and Office 2008 applications at the same time.

• Office for Mac v14 with Outlook for Mac won’t be released until the holiday season of 2010. Do you want to wait that long? • Entourage EWS version has improved performance for Exchange users. I would advise all Office X users to upgrade to Office 2008. There have been many improvements since Office X was released. Do you really want to be stuck with the 4GB limit for Entourage databases?

Office 2004 users that don’t use VBA should also consider upgrading. Entourage’s database in 2008 is more stable and the Spotlight search alone is worth the upgrade. If you are an Exchange user, the improvements for Entourage makes it a worthwhile upgrade. If you don’t need Exchange support you can get Office 2008 very reasonably from. $126.99 (price can vary slightly) This version comes with 3 CD Keys and can be used on three computers at the same time.

Still undecided? And test out the new features. Quick Facts The FAQs offered by Microsoft for the trial can be found on, but I want to bring your attention to the following issues.

• Do not select to remove old versions of Office during the install process. • It’s important to understand that the download version is a bit different from the retail version in that it has to be activated if you purchase the trial version. • You cannot use a retail key to activate the trial. If you download the trial then later purchase, you must remove the trial to install the retail version. • You can’t use the trial installer if you lost your retail CD. • Feature wise, there is no difference in the download version from retail version. Winstar Spanesi Serial.

• Your order and confirmation email contain important info. Be sure to keep this info. • Physical backup media are available for purchase along with the product, or alternatively, customers can purchase the Extended Download Service, which allows the customer to re-download the software from Digital River for 3 years after the time of purchase. What do I get when I download? The current trial is version 12.2.0 (SP2).

This is the standard edition of Entourage and includes Exchange support as well as the Automator actions not included in the Home & Student version. If you meet the requirements for Entourage Web Services (EWS), you can upgrade to v13 after updating to 12.2.1. EWS has improved Exchange support over the 12.2.1 version. The Business Edition extras (tutorial videos, templates and themes, RDC and Entourage EWS on disk) are not included with the trial. [Note: The standard version of Office 2008 upgraded to EWS v13 is the same as the business edition without the extras mentioned above.] Will I need to upgrade after downloading? Yes, currently all users will need to upgrade to 12.2.1.

This is a small updater that contains a fix where Open XML files couldn’t be opened. Tip: Before updating Office 2008, it’s important to quit all applications. Easy way: Log out of your User under the Apple in the menu bar. When you Log in, hold down the Shift key. This will disable all startup items including the hidden ones like the Microsoft Database daemon. What happens to my Entourage data if I decide I don’t want to continue with Entourage 2008? The trial version of Entourage is not set to leave your mail on the server for POP accounts.

POP accounts delete mail from the server when it downloads so it’s important that you set to “leave on server” so the mail will still be available to download if you switch back. • You need to select “leave on server” so the messages will be available to download to your older version. This only gets message you receive. You would need to export your sent messages from Entourage 2008 for import into your old Identity if you are using a POP account.

• Export as.rge file and import this file into Entourage 2004. This option is not available for Entourage X.

Under Tools in the menu bar, select Accounts. Open your Account and click on the Options tab. Do not select to remove older versions of Office during the install. The importer will leave your older identities alone in the Office X Identities or Office 2004 Identities subfolder of the Microsoft User Data folder. When you first launch 2008 Trial, it will make a brand new Office 2008 Identities subfolder in the same Microsoft User Data folder, and will start off with a totally different, brand new, fresh empty identity. You can select to import your old data at this time. Pink Panther Passport To Peril Download Mac. Your old Identity is still safe.

Any time you choose to go back to your previous version, you can. And, if and when you upgrade to a purchased copy of 2008, you will be able to go on using your Trial 2008 database regardless if it’s the trial version or a retail version. Install the trial For detailed screenshots of the install process, Remove the trial If you decide not to purchase the trial version or want to install a retail version of Office 2008, you will need to fully remove all traces of the Office 2008 Trial version. • Run “Remove Office” found in this location: Applications/Microsoft Office 2008/Additional Tools/Remove Office/ • Manually remove these files: • Delete Microsoft Office 2008 settings.plist file: /Users/username/Library/Preferences/Microsoft/Office 2008/Microsoft Office 2008 settings.plist • Remove all office2008pkg receipts in /Library/Receipts • If you are running Snow Leopard, remove the com.microsoft.plist files in this folder: In the Finder toolbar under Go, paste in this path: /private/var/db/receipts • Empty the trash.

Handy Links: • • • • Purchase Office for Mac and Snow Leopard at Amazon.com and help support this site. • • • • • • • [Tip: compare the price of Office 2008 for Mac Special Media Edition to the standard edition. Often it’s cheaper.]. This is hopefully the last contact, I will have with a product by Microsoft for a very long time. Yes, MS-bashing is too easy, but I almost looks like they try to fail. How can they NOT provide a decent deinstaller for their own product INSIDE the installer of the commercial retail version??? I just spent 100 Euros on their product, and I have to open the terminal to remove files in /private/receipts?

That’s just embarrassing! How are normals users solve this? My wife would have tried to return it to the store and start crying there, to get the money back •.