Why is Excel 2016 for Mac so bad?

Anonymous
2016-08-27T19:22:32+00:00

I'm wondering what people think - Excel 2016 for Mac seems to be so bad that it must be intentional. Am I wrong? Is Microsoft still waging a low-grade war on Mac users by making their products subtly awful on a Mac? Is it just that they have really bad developers? Is it that the developers are good but the management somehow makes them do terrible work? Is it that whoever is in charge of designing Excel for Mac has an ex who uses it for his/her job and this person has devoted his/her life to making his/her ex's life bad in confusing ways? Has a nefarious actor infiltrated Microsoft in order to make their products just bad enough that companies will continue to use them but their awfulness will create a small long-term drag on the US economy? Answers would be appreciated. Thanks!

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | MacOS

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  1. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP
    2018-06-10T16:26:51+00:00

    Hi mintymiller,

    Good point. While this forum lets us jawbone, there is a UserVoice forum Microsoft uses to receive feature requests. For Excel, it is

    Excel for Mac

    Live previews is one of my own high priority wishes, yet I don't even see a suggestion for it. If you put a suggestion for Live previews and reply here with the link I will certainly vote for the suggestion and make comments encouraging implementation.

    Same thing with Find All. Make a feature request.

    You can use VBA to Find All

    https://www.thespreadsheetguru.com/the-code-vault/2014/4/21/find-all-instances-with-vba

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-06-10T21:08:48+00:00

    Hi mintymiller,

    Good point. While this forum lets us jawbone, there is a UserVoice forum Microsoft uses to receive feature requests. For Excel, it is

    Excel for Mac

    Live previews is one of my own high priority wishes, yet I don't even see a suggestion for it. If you put a suggestion for Live previews and reply here with the link I will certainly vote for the suggestion and make comments encouraging implementation.

    Same thing with Find All. Make a feature request.

    You can use VBA to Find All

    https://www.thespreadsheetguru.com/the-code-vault/2014/4/21/find-all-instances-with-vba

    I will, but one can’t but wonder why on earth these features are not already in there? What prevents MS from giving Mac users features that Windows users have enjoyed for years?

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  3. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP
    2018-06-11T15:12:09+00:00

    I am sure if it were easy to make happen, Microsoft would have given us live preview ages ago. Although I personally asked for this at a meeting with Microsoft reps. in UserVoice there is little demand. I would love it, though.

    Sometimes a new feature gets introduced that has questionable value. For example, the annoying toolbar that displays wherever the cursor is in Office for Windows is liked by some, but not very many. Same with filter buttons on PivotCharts. They are rarely used, and after slicers were introduced to offer the same functionality, Microsoft decided not to put the filter buttons on PivotCharts on the Mac. Personally, I agree and consider those features very annoying clutter.

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-09-02T11:44:29+00:00

    'Embedded Objects other than Word or Excel files is not supported on Macs. Other file types cannot be embedded on a Mac & if embedded on a PC they cannot be opened on a Mac.'

    Unbelievable. How dreadful this software is for a Mac user. How can you actually charge money for software that does not work? Absolutely shameful .

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  5. Anonymous
    2018-09-15T04:19:13+00:00

    I really did not like MS forcing me to upgrade for Excel 2011 to 2016. having done so I amn doubly resentful. Not only is it a whole lot more expensive but its is terrible. I am on a Mac and if MS think this is going to forces me back into Windows they are very mistaken. It merely confirms my original decision to leave Windows. Incidentally I have to have (not for much longer!) Win10 on my Mac (in Oracle VirtualBox) and as an OS it sucks. 

    1. Auto-recover used to be in a folder of your choice. Now it is somewhere in the MS cloud. I couldn't find it and as soon as you aren't on line guess what ? No auto-recover. That sucks. I now have to remember to save every 5 minutes just like in the late 80's. That sucks. Two days ago I closed a file by mistake and lost 2 hours work. Auto-Recover, allegedly on, was wholly useless. That sucked.
    2. What propelled me into this whinge is I am working on a big spreadsheet and trying to select big blocks of data. Dragging the cursor off the edge of the screen doesn't work properly any more. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. It wastes my time and it sucks.

    3.Writing formulae is a whole lot harder. The cursor cannot easily be  placed on a cell directly adjacent  to the cell you are trying to write a formula for. That wastes my time and it sucks.

    1. Opening files is a whole lot more clunky. It is probably 2 or 3 more clicks than in Office for Mac 2011 (which I had no complaints about). That sucks. I wish I could go back. 
    2. With the latest update when you click "Save as" Excel now adds "Copy Of" to the front of the file name. That wastes my time and it sucks.

    There are other issues too. But heck, I am meant to be working, not whinging.

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