Ithaca College

In January ITS announced the availability of Microsoft Office 2008 as a free upgrade for installation on college-owned Macintosh computers and encourages Mac users to upgrade at their earliest convenience.

Office 2008 is substantially different from the current version. Here are some resources to help new users understand what to expect with the new version:

• Come to an Office 2008 overview workshop (students welcome to attend!)
• Review the major new features in our What's New guide (pdf)
• Visit the Mactopia web site for online documentation, tutorials, forums and more
• Read about removed functionality of VBA macros in Known Issues

Faculty should be aware that Office 2008 will be installed in labs and eClassrooms during Summer 2009. Faculty should therefore plan to upgrade before the fall semester to allow plenty of time to become comfortable with the new interface and features.

Users who are not ready to upgrade yet will have until August 31, 2009 to do so. After that date, Office 2004 will no longer be supported or installed by ITS, except for cases where the user is unable to upgrade due to the VBA macro issue. Those who wait should install the Converter in the interim. The new version of Office uses different file formats, which will likely be encountered as more people move to Office 2008, and the converter may be needed to work with those files.

Please visit our Microsoft Office 2008 Support page for detailed upgrade information and a complete list of Office 2008 FAQs.

ITS Helpdesk
helpdesk@ithaca.edu
4-3282