Microsoft Word 14, Office 2011 (Microsoft) First, even though it’s fundamentally a 32-bit Carbon app, it has both the look and feel of its Windows counterpart while simultaneously making dramatic steps to be more Mac enabled. Worse, the Macintosh version always seemed a little less capable, a little less business oriented than its corresponding app on the Windows side. For a long time, the MacBU went its own way, and while modern Mac OS X apps leaped into the future, embracing all that Apple advocated, Word 2008 seemed, at times, antediluvian. For example, we in the Macintosh community have come to recognize certain UI elements, certain Core Graphics technologies, certain ways of doing things as either hip or backwards. The key to understanding and using Microsoft Word version 14 as part of the Microsoft Office 2011 suite is to leave the attitude behind and try to understand what the users want and what Microsoft tries to deliver.Īnother way to approach MS Word is to appreciate what Microsoft has done even as we recognize that such a monster program will have flaws. A program of this scope, almost like a public figure, has responsibilities, flaws, advocates and detractors. There has never been a Macintosh program that has been so loved, so reviled, so controversial, so often purchased, so written about, and so often taken as a signpost for the health and well being of the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit as MS Word.