Kelly,
Whilst the main reason for 64 bit Office is large and complex Excel files, significant performance gains have been found in other usage scenarios, such as with lengthy and complex Word documents (especially when using complex plugins such as EndNote). It is in users' interests to use 64 bit Office if they can - but this is only possible if all their plug-ins support 64 bit Office.
I see Microsoft's document as a classic support driven response (or should I call it a cop-out) - there are compatibility issues with non-Microsoft software, so, to eliminate the support burden, we will steer you towards the lowest common denominator of installing 32 bit Office even if you have an x64 OS. Whilst this makes a great deal of sense, in that many users will see no advantage in 64 bit Office, there are plenty of users, including myself, who would see advantages from 64 bit Office but are being prevented from moving to 64 bit Office because third party plug-in providers have yet to make 64 bit versions available.
The situation with 64 bit Office plug-ins mirrors the situation with 64 bit Photoshop plug-ins, but with one key difference. Photoshop CS4, CS5 and CS5.1 (same as CS5; the apparent version bump indicates it was installed as part of Creative Suite 5.5) default to installing both 32 bit and 64 bit versions on x64 versions of Windows. You can therefore pick and choose which version of Photoshop you use according to which plug-ins you need. I'm now in the fortunate position of having 64 bit versions of all but two of the plug-ins I use regularly. I start the 32 bit version of Photoshop CS5.1 if I need those plug-ins, but my default is the 64 bit version.
Office 2010 requires you to choose between 32 bit and 64 bit; you cannot install both at the same time, and you cannot mix and match between different Office applications (so, for example, installing 64 bit Project 2010 alongside 32 bit Office Professional Plus 2010 is not supported and may cause problems - indeed, I'm not sure if the Project installer would allow you to install the 64 bit version if you had 32 bit Office applications already installed). This makes the unavailability of 64 bit versions of a single plugin that you require for one Office application a total bar to moving to 64 bit Office.
Unfortunately, this creates a 'chicken and egg' effect - the apparent demand for 64 bit versions of Office plugins is reduced because the unavailability of 64 bit versions of a crucial plugin prevents a move to 64 bit Office. I, for one, have a clear intention to switch to 64 bit Office, and will not buy new products or pay to upgrade existing ones unless they support 64 bit Office. Many products that can hardly be said to be aimed at the Office power user have supported 64 bit Office for some while, including Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 and 11.0.
I wholeheartedly welcome the support for some 64 bit Office applications in Acrobat 10.1, but urge Adobe to provide complete support for 64 bit Office 2010. Currently, 64 bit versions of Visio 2010, Project 2010, Access 2010 and Publisher 2010 are not yet supported in PDFMaker. Hopefully this support will be forthcoming in a future quarterly update.
There is a mistake in your post - 64 bit Outlook 2010 is supported in Acrobat 10.1's PDFMaker. The issue with Outlook in the blog post you linked to is that Outlook 2010 doesn't have Microsoft's Save as PDF functionality - but if you have PDFMaker, using PDFMaker is the best option anyway.
28
Replies
).
AdChoices