I am starting a new thread in order to elicit comments about the Mac version of ChemDraw. I have seen lots of comments about this on these forums, but I would like to take a different approach. In particular, I would like to outline where I think we are on this issue. It will be a long post and at the outset I tell you that I have been a beta tester for Cambridge ChemDraw products for a number of years. I have also talked with developers of other software, specifically about their experience providing products on the Mac platform. What I hear is that Apple is notorious for making changes between the final final-candidate release and the official release of a new OS or OS update. Some of these changes have dramatically affected the developers’ software at the last minute. I don’t know if that is what happened in Cambridge’s case on the Snow Leopard release. We are all also aware of the Microsoft attitude toward the Apple platform. But I also think that Cambridge could be more transparent about the issues they are facing as new releases are put forward.
With that as background, I am going to describe some testing I have done this morning. I have a 2.4 GHz Core Duo iMac as my home desktop, a new Macbook Pro laptop, and an older iMac on my desk at work (college professor). I am running Snow Leopard (10.6.2) on all three machines. On all of these I use ChemDraw and MS Office products. I have not spent much time with Pages or Keynote.
On one of my machines I have copies of Office 2004, 11.5.6 (henceforth termed Office 11) and Office 2008, 12.2.3 (Office 12). I also have copies of ChemDraw 8 std (CD8), ChemOffice Ultra 2008, 11.0.503 (CD 11), and ChemOffice Utra 2010, 12.0.767 (CD 12). I have played a little with the interoperability of the SD products with the Office products, particularly looking at the issue of editing structures. I have the following observations:
1. CD8 and Office 11 play nicely together. You can edit structures back and forth. However, with Office 12, the images pasted into Word from CD are not further editable; they have become picture files. (Unfortunately CD8 crashes for me if you try to save a file under Snow Leopard).
2. CD11 behaves like CD8 – it works with Office 11 but not office 12.
3. CD12 behaves likewise – it works with Office 11 but not Office 12.
4. Office 11 is prone to crashes in Snow leopard.
If you recall, between Office 11 and Office 12, Microsoft removed the ability to use macros or to embed metafiles. (This causes problems for me when I get files from students or colleagues which have macros or metafiles embedded in them.) It is my suspicion that these have been important for the editability of CD images pasted into Office products. I have heard rumors (whether true or not I do not know) that MS will reinstate that capability in the next full update – but at the rate they move that could be 2 years away☹.
Now I would like to hear on this thread from two audiences.
1. From readers I would like to hear if my observations are the same as yours, if you can provide additional information about other editions of the ChemDraw products, and what your current experience is with the iWork products (Pages and Keynote).
2. From Cambridge, I would like to hear a little more information about whether the embedded macros and/or metafiles is the issue with the interoperability with Office products; if so, a case number on which we can all comment in a unified way to Microsoft; and a clear statement about what your intentions are in this matter. Are you actively working on it, or waiting on Microsoft? Is it a team approach, or one guy working in the back room? Your customer base deserves to know so they can plan. And please, in the future do not release a new version when you know a new OS is on the verge of release, and make known limitations clearer in your marketing to Mac users!! Frankly, it makes you look incompetent or unconcerned about the user base when you wait until after the software has been purchased and people start complaining.