Comments on: Saying hello (again) to Visual Basic

By: John Caulfield

John Caulfield — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:35:51 +0000

Ok so you can’t write VBA in 2008 but can you run a macro from 2007. The macro’s window certainly pops up like Excl 2007?

By: Kate

Kate — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 19:44:46 +0000

Agree that sales have been good, since most people don’t know a macro from a mud hen and like me, run into the problem by accident. Other big thing driving sales, I would guess is that many, like me, chose to switch to Mac when the other choice was Vista. Not impressed to learn that I will have to buy the next iteration of Office to get functionality that every other version of the software previously in existence has. Not comforted to learn that Microsoft, given a choice between shipping “crap” now and shipping “quality” later, chose the former.

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 05:54:53 +0000

I have entirely different issues w/ Office 2008, which I got most importantly due to wanting access to .docx and .xlsx formatted documents that I sometimes receive. My issues aren’t total deal-breakers, but irritations.

I have tons of really old documents in Word 4 and Word 5 format, even a few in Word 3. Word 2008 doesn’t open them in any easy way. I can use the Open dialog, but then I have to figure out the path to to the file I was trying to open. Grungy. Or I can open ‘em in AppleWorks via MacLinkPlus to see if the file is the right one & if so, close it, & go thru the above. Also grungy. There may be a better answer, but I’ve looked & don’t know where it is. Word 4 & 5 didn’t have macros, so I don’t see why Word 2008 requires this workaround just to open a file. (Maybe it was too embarrassing to explain to people that Word 6 w/ evil macros was the problem – I never got Word 6! – & it would look bad if Word 2008 would easily open Word 5 files but not Word 6 files.)

Word ought to open files from *all* previous versions. Ditto for Excel & PowerPoint. This should be nearly seamless. A few oddities are ok – for instance, if an ancient file uses ancient bitmapped fonts, it’s ok to warn about that when opening the file. Similarly, a Word 6 file w/ macros should be easily accessible but the macros don’t have to work – in fact, they should be OFF by default, even if you include the capability.

About VBA & scripting: I never used VBA. Glad to hear it’s coming back, not so much for my own use, as because VBA is essential to Excel/Mac’s commercial future. I have simple scripts in AppleWorks, and I do some fairly light scripting in FileMaker. Haven’t done much w/ Excel 08, but one project worked *really well*, much better than in Excel 98 which had been my previous version. Remember, I don’t use VBA. PowerPoint is similarly much better in 2008 than in 98.

I intentionally use a rather old Mac & OS 10.4 so that if I have to, I can boot into OS 9. (Yes, I’m a fossil.) On that rather old Mac (933 MHz), Word 2008 is slow to open. Grrr. Microsoft went thru that before w/ Word 6; Word 98 was much improved. But something I like about my setup: I can save in my choice of .doc or .docx & test .doc files w/ Word 98 to make sure others w/ old sw can open the files.

I tried OpenOffice. I’m glad I have it handy, just in case, but I use it only when someone sends me a file that opens in it.

By: toby

toby — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 20:54:17 +0000

Will macros VB really be back, and if so, when?
I created hundreds of commands using 2004 for Mac, which I use in translating repetitive texts. I upgraded to 2008 when suddenly a bug in the Macros caused them to stop working completely. I have no idea why this happened – launching macros now causes word to shut down.

I have currently my first mac (powerbook G4) running Word 2004 for Mac, and it’s functioning well. But the computer is about to croak, sadly. I will need to either purchase a new Word 2004, or wait for the new version.

Which is why I ask – when is it planned?

Much thanks!

By: Clifford Longley

Clifford Longley — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 14:32:23 +0000

I’ve just placed an order for Mac Word 2004, having already bought Word 2008 two months ago, in order to get macros back. I had a whole suite of macros for my MS Word X, but for some reason that application will not run on the new (post October 2009) iMacs. This is not the fault of Snow Leopard by the way, as Word X (plus macros!) works perfectly on my Intel MacBook with OS 10.6.2.
I am a journalist, editor and book author, and my needs may be slightly different from some of your other respondents, which is why I am writing this. I found macros invaluable for editing, or for tidying up imperfect text either due to my own bad typing or someone else’s. I had one f-key to trigger a macro which would swap a character with the one to its right (a macro I called “transpose”) as this is one of the most common mistpyings (see what I mean!); I had one f-key to delete the whole word under the cursor wherever it may be, one f-key to translate Roman text instantly into italics, one to insert page numbers into a document, one that would make the first letter of a word Upper Case (and another key for vice versa), an f-key for spell check (less necessary but I used it all the time); one to change fonts from Courier to Times Roman or back — and so on. The joy of macros was that you worked out the sequence of things you wanted to do to the text, eg select a letter, “cut” it, move one space forward, paste letter into text – and then just repeated it with the record macro command on, having designated a function key, then saved it. Apple script just will not allow that. I am so frustrated by the lack of macros with 2008 that I am prepared to fork out for the older version, 2004, where macros still work, thank God. If I had the money to sue Microsoft I would, I’m so cross!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 08:28:57 +0000

PIVOT TABLES in Excel should be identical to those of Windows. Having to drag fields onto the sheet to see the affect does not work near as well as dragging them to the ‘input’ boxes that Windows uses.

Also, this situation begs the question “Why don’t you put the Office 2004 VBA into a service pack for those of us who bought 2008 and had to ‘downgrade’???

By: Thomas Roll

Thomas Roll — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:10:24 +0000

The fact that VBA was lost in the upgrade to 2008 was a sad event, but the big problem for me was that no SDK or interface was detailed that would enable me to provide the functionality in Excel that 2004 did.

It was not a question of there not being a particular interface (VBA) available to me, but the fact that there was NO interface available at all. Without an SDK or a detailed interface, we had no method by which to provide the functionality required by our users.

Be it XCode, VBA or a some other method – please give us an interface that we can use to extend the functionality of Excel to meet the needs we have. My requirements are not met by off-the-shelf products, and more than likely never will be. I doubt that I am alone.

By: John

John — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:51:03 +0000

In the original “blathering”, Schweib said “I’ve been told that we must have cut VB to intentionally drive users to use virtualization and Windows Office 2007 on Macs”.

It may not have been intentional, but that’s the only way I have been able to run Excel on my Mac and maintain compatibility with Office 2007.

It’s not just the lack of VBA, it’s the crippled filtering, the lack of graduated color conditional formatting, the lack of filter by color, the lack of sort by color, all features that I became dependent on in 2007.

Microsoft is in denial about the lack of compatibility, look at this page:-

http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/office2008/why-office.mspx

“Compatibility is Essential
No one likes being caught off guard, especially when the pressure’s on. That’s why it’s vital that shared documents, presentations, and spreadsheets open as they were designed—regardless of the computer or operating system.”

and

“Microsoft ensures that Office 2008 for Mac is forward, backward, and cross-platform compatible.”

and

“Office 2008 for Mac is the best option for Mac users who share documents at home, work, or at school.”

The above statements are just not true.

It is my belief that the high sales rate is a result of misleading advertising.

By: Phillip Blue

Phillip Blue — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:15:18 +0000

To all those who are disillusioned with MacBu at Microshaft I urge you to try Neo Office I did in January and I havn’t looked back. Now I have no Microsoft products in my office and my computers all seem to work better.

By: Oakland Tracy

Oakland Tracy — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 00:24:22 +0000

“This seems to me to be a strong example for the MacBU naysayers that we’re really listening to what all of our users want, and that we’re most definitely not slow-marching to some bagpiper’s funereal drone!”

Put it back into Office 2008 or give me a free upgrade to the next release of Office and I’ll actually believe that line.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:06:55 +0000

On the comment that sales were great despite lack of VB — a lot of people (my whole department included) NEVER IMAGINED this functionality would be missing in the upgrade. Had we known, we might have reconsidered. Or, at least, opted NOT TO DELETE the old office during 08 installation app.

Issue should have been better handled.

By: Stuke

Stuke — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 02:45:09 +0000

Well, a little over a year since my last post, and Microsoft is still “confident” they’re making the right decision and timing to bring VBA back to Office. Great, I get to pay $100s to upgrade to Office for the Mac 2011/2012 and get the functionality of 2004, maybe something more. Are you kidding?

By 2011/2012, Apple’s Numbers will mature, OO/NeoOffice will have grown on more desktops, and Microsoft will (re-)introduce VB in Office. Don’t you guys see a problem here? You’ll on the downward slide as a result of 2008. Yes, as Apple’s market share rises and moms and dads equip those school machines with Office (“because we need it”), you’ll continue to have the “cool-boss-guy” tell the world 2008 sales are phenomena. But, your customer base will actually shrink as those new Mac users file other means of producting “office” documents on the Mac.

Here’s the only way to redeem yourself in 2011/2012. Have all those Product IDs of paid 2008 customers entire them to a completely free version of 2011/2012. Then we’ll see how sincere the Mac BU/Microsoft is about it’s Mac base. You’ll definitely re-ignite some level of true loyalty from the Mac community. Charge $129 or $349 for an upgrade and it will be Adios for good!

By: Mark Eisler

Mark Eisler — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:58:06 +0000

I have just switched to Mac from Windows as much for the quality of the hardware (Macbook Pro 15″ with SSHD) as the elegant OS, with both of which I am entirely delighted. Like other commentators before me, I was not forewarned of the unexpected lack of VB in the current version of Office for Mac (2008). It is a complete and utter disappointment and deal breaker!

Over the years I have built up a library of custom Excel functions and write and use a number of VB programs having Excel as the user interface in research and teaching in veterinary science. Without these, Excel seems rather toothless and holds little thrall for me. Indeed I might as well use a free spreadsheet such as the online Google Documents for simpler spreadsheet tasks. To have to run Windows on my Mac and / or load an earlier version of Office for Mac seems such a retrograde step! A free upgrade to the next version of Office for Mac with VB support for those of us who have unwisely invested in v2008 would be the very least we should expect! I’m not saying anything new here, mainly just adding another name to the petition to MacBU to keep its promise!

By: Toby

Toby — Sat, 30 May 2009 22:47:15 +0000

When exactly is the VB version going to be available, and can we patch it in to the Office 2008 for Mac?

(I, too, am very disappointed about the totally unexpected lack of Macro editing capacity in the new version. I have created 33 macros for use in my professional translating work, and must use an older version of Word to operate them.)

By: SectVGym

SectVGym — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:55:19 +0000

I need VB now, not later. I need it for the scorekeeping program and the state qualifying program that was written for our gymnastics program. I didn’t know our program used VB until I tried to open our scorekeeping program to check some scores and I got the “Visual Basics does not work in Office 2008 for Mac” message…I want to throw up. It eliminated errors in choosing qualified participants to advance to state competition. I don’t know much about this programming stuff, but I want to be able to open a program and have it work. Period, end of sentence.

I am a simple end user. I don’t know what else to do besides uninstall Office 2008 and put it in the shredder. Thanks for making me miserable.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 13:23:13 +0000

This is a bummer no doubt. The main problem, there IS NO INDICATION ANYWHERE OF THIS HUGE ISSUE AT TIME OF PURCHASE!!! I was repeatedly told by ads and sales people for Mac that my files would be compatible. I don’t own an earlier version, so cannot solve my problem that way…if that’s what I need to make this run as promised I should NOT have to purchase it. I bought my Mac and the Office suite just a few months ago. Now I find I am stopped in my tracks. Of course, I have not been able to find an older version to download IF I was willing to pay the extortion fee. JW

By: Nathan

Nathan — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 14:08:38 +0000

In my view, Microsoft has revealed either its incompetence and/or its desire to punish apple. I suspect some combination of both. I am amazed that the business community continues to rely on such an unstable and unreliable product.

By: Yves Champollion

Yves Champollion — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 23:01:08 +0000

I code the Wordfast translation tool used by dozens of thousands of translators, Mac users included.

The removal of VBA in Office 2008/Mac is primarily a problem for… Ms-Office. What I mean is that translators who buy a Mac and/or Office do it thinking “will that run Wordfast?”. So they stick to Word:2004. That’s what they all tell me. They’ll skip Office 2008, it’s that simple. Just fine. 2004 is stable, 2008 doesn’t offer any cutting edge anyway. As far as Mac-based translators are concerned, MS will not recoup its investment in Office 2008, but we’re unhurt – there seems to be a justice out there.

MS seems to be now run on short-term ROI principles. In the Bill Gates era, parting with VB was an unthinkable thing. A Word processor (Word) is a processor, a number cruncher (Excel) is a cruncher, at least he got that right. An application that can neither process nor crunch on automatic is a crippled one. Let’s hope the recession restores vision and reason at the helm.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 07:36:54 +0000

Up until excel 2008 I was happy to fork out my hard earns for mac office. I felt I was getting value for my business. I use VBA extensively and this new version does not do half of what excel 2004 did for me. 2004 was good but awfully slow compared to excel 2007 for windows so I decided to bite the bullet and buy Office 2007 which I have to boot up in bootcamp. Excel 2007 is great, but that is the best I can say for windows other programs (that I have tried) and OS. I want mac excel to be at the very least, comparable to excel 2007 for windows and I want it now so I will not have to use windows at all.

By: Claire

Claire — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:20:54 +0000

Is there any deadline for when the new office with Excel VBA will be available? Just figures today that my office 2008 doesn’t support this… Is there no download available so VBA can be used in the meantime?

By: Guy Gallo

Guy Gallo — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:16:09 +0000

As a developer for Word since version 2.0 on Windows, it’s a little odd to phrase the question “what parts of VBA are important…”

The entire design of this word processor and what made it so interesting to program for — is that anything you can do in the application UI was accessible through wordBasic (and then VBA). That one to one correspondence has diminished over time — but should still be a goal.

The IDE in MacVBA has never been on a par with the Windows IDE. AutoComplete and keystroke access to parameters (for instance). The link between IDE and Help items more tightly integrated. It would be nice to have them a bit more on par.

A cross platform nightmare has always been how dialogs (due to differences in font rendering) do not translate. What looks great on the Mac is too big on the PC, what’s right for the PC is illegible on the mac. The only workaround is to customize every dialog with a custom (and more mappable font) — like Courier. It would be great if there was some sort of translation table/conversion.

Importing forms/modules did not work on the mac as it does on the PC — which makes module management and cleaning of templates harder.

Other than that — anything the PC can do the Mac VBA should be able to do the same. The exceptions really are limited to OLE integration and Shell(api) commands which need to be reprogrammed using AppleScript on the mac. (examples of how to do that would be nice).

By: dan

dan — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:32:04 +0000

i just bought Office 08 without any knowledge of the lack of VBA support for the software and i am very much not happy about it. But if you are bringing VBA back in the next version of Office it would make me much happier.

As far as what i would like to see for VBA in the next Office… i don’t think you should change the look and feel of the developement environment too much, i feel you may alienate a large base of VBA users by changing where things are and how you go about finding them. i feel much the same way for the object model, it would be kinda turn off to find objects don’t work the same between MAC and Windows Office. one thing i have always wanted in VBA i would be to have the ability to add fully functioning objects of own in VB world. this may be a bit much to add, but for an old object oriented programmer like myself i would really like more OO characteristics in the VBA model.

until i get VBA support for mac i am forced to play my version of PONG in excel on windows. why shouldn’t i be able to play on mac?

By: VBA to return in the next version of Office Mac !? | keyongtech

VBA to return in the next version of Office Mac !? | keyongtech — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 16:46:51 +0000

[...] VBA to return in the next version of Office Mac !? More info here: http://www.schwieb.com/blog/2008/05/…-visual-basic/ Whether it’s worth rewriting macros or not depends on you and what you need them for. Note that [...]

By: Tony Stepanek

Tony Stepanek — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 13:11:35 +0000

I’ve created my personal Time Journaling System based on Outlook and VBA functionality.
Task records in special folders acts like projects and sub-tasks, special contact folder is used as a list of partners and special journal folder with my own template works for journaling of time used for particular project, task and partner.
Even in the journal template, there is VBA script for internal functionality. Most of the evaluation is than based on VBA macros with dialogs etc. and even reports are created from Outlooks VBA by connection to Word.

I plan to switch to Mac, but missing VBA is a kind of trouble. As a freelancer, but with several partners using my Time Journaling System as well I need it for daily use.

I do use VBA in Excel for simple data transformations or for simple program solvers.

Having VBA in Office:mac would be great.

By: VBA and VSTA - The Future? - Shaun Cassells at MyITForum.com

VBA and VSTA - The Future? - Shaun Cassells at MyITForum.com — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 18:42:12 +0000

[...] Does this mean the next version of office (2010) will no longer support VBA macros? Looking a little further, I discovered VBA support was removed from MAC Office 2008 because of the PPC to x86 processor change. However, the lead programmer for windows says VBA will be returned to next office revision http://www.schwieb.com/blog/2008/05/13/saying-hello-again-to-visual-basic/ [...]

By: L. Crowe

L. Crowe — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 21:09:27 +0000

I write a lot of Macros via Word 2003 and Visual Basic on an XP machine, which are then used by numerous staff members multiple times a day. Worries about macros being potentially broken by changes in any given OS/Office upgrades (be it in Vista or Mac OSX) certainly slow down company’s ability to bring in new machines and roll out new upgrades — too much testing is needed first, too many little compatibility worries . . . Dropping Visual Basic from Mac Office 2008 just makes things worse. So I’m glad to hear that VB will be coming back in the future — I’ll likely buy Mac Office at least for myself at that time. Until then, I’ll stick with older versions of Office or will make sure to the Windows versions via Parallels on my Mac. . . Many thanks for working on this!

By: SP1 für MS Office 2008 Mac erschienen at NETWAYS Blog

SP1 für MS Office 2008 Mac erschienen at NETWAYS Blog — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:02:08 +0000

[...] es in Office 2008 nachzurüsten. Es gibt dazu eine offizielle Pressemeldung und einen Blogpost, der die Hintergründe [...]

By: Back to Basic (Visual Basic) | alexmak.net

Back to Basic (Visual Basic) | alexmak.net — Mon, 26 May 2008 06:03:59 +0000

[...] ????? ?? ??????? Office ??? ????????? ???. ? ?????????, ???????????? ????????, ??? ????????? Visual Basic ???????? ? ???? ?? ????????? [...]

By: currie

currie — Wed, 21 May 2008 12:24:56 +0000

I have VMWare Fusion, and can run Windows XP with applications on it for work (particularly Framemaker, Netmeeting, Windows specific tools like VoIP phones, and Office). My company is big on using Word/Excel/Powerpoint.

However, I have found that NeoOffice is quite capable of opening Word/Excel/Powerpoint files and resaving them as Office documents. I have a 2GHz 2GB ram Macbook Duo_core.

The Neooffice site states at http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/features.php

Handles Most Excel VBA Macros NeoOffice includes the Excel macro support developed by Novell’s ooo-build project. The ooo-build project is an open source project that continually develops feature enhancements to OpenOffice.org.

And its free too. I urge you to download it with the latest patches and try it. Set its preferences to save as Office format instead of its own format.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 21 May 2008 03:48:40 +0000

You have commented that despite the short falls of Office 2008, it is selling well. In my case, I purchased it prior to realizing it had been neutered. I welcome VB’s return, I used to use it constantly. By the way, I am now a two computer user, my old lap top sits at the side of my new one just so I can run what I need to. Please double your efforts to restore to faithful long term users the tools we trusted would always be available. Dumbing down a product is never a way to win up grading customers, failing to publicize adequately the neutering of excel prior to its release left me an extremely disillusioned user. My mouth dropped when I realized I had just spent money on a giant step backwards. So thank you for for working on bringing it back. Will it be a software update, or a repurchase?