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. Anonymous
    2019-07-26T19:46:29+00:00

    I"m personally, nearly on the conspiracy bandwagon on this one.  Inability to easily search related emails and the sender in Outlook, and Excel has a thousand little things that make it impossible to move at any sort of pace- things like never scrolling over or down when highlighting cell ranges.  I have to click the first and then Shift+Click the last.  What's going on there?? That is such an incredibly small fix.

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  2. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP
    2019-09-13T14:09:03+00:00

    Hi PKaaaaay,

    When I drag while selecting cells the window scrolls. Could you go to the Excel menu and choose About Excel and reply with the version of Excel you have? You should not be having a problem with scrolling while selecting cells.

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-09-19T00:27:53+00:00

    It's genuinely so awful it shocks me. 

    FOR EXAMPLE:

    Have you ever tried to edit a combo chart? As in, you want to swap up which data are plotted as a bar chart, and which are plotted as a line? it's ABSURDLY COUNTER INTUITIVE. the process necessitates you watch a several minute youtube tutorial because the path to getting there is shockingly confusing. I think the developers were purposefully understaffed or under qualified in an not-so-subtle effort by management to incentivize people to purchase PCs over Macs. 

    This is actually genius, since I am buying a PC this Winter simply so that I can work on Excel from home without having a brain aneurism. Nice move, Satya.

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  4. Jim G 134K Reputation points MVP
    2019-09-22T13:06:29+00:00

    Keep in mind that Excel for Mac and Excel for Windows use the same code base. Editing a combo chart is the same on both platforms.

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