iWork vs Office vs something else (merged)

i use iwork for home stuff. at work, on PCs i use Office.

I use Microsoft Office because I do a lot of co-writing with colleagues who are all using Windows.

I prefer iWork and use it for personal and home-based business stuff.

For my day job I have to use Office (PC), so I keep a copy installed on my Mac just in case I need to work with those documents.

Office for me, I need the compatibility, I also find that iwork's application suite to be lacking in a number of features

I use iWork in the office and send as PDF. People don't need to edit my documents.

I use both for different things

Word > Pages for work
Pages > Word for personal docs and design

Excel > Numbers for most things
Numbers > Excel for simple sheets

Keynote > PowerPoint for virtually everything

Mix and match the best tool for the job

iWork for the following reasons.

1. It does what I need it too.
2. It's a fraction the price of MS Office and uses less system resources.
3. At the time I was deciding OpenOffice was not really reafy on the Mac. And looking at the current varients, it seems like it has gotten a bit bloated as well.

Office. Mainly because I already know how to use more advanced features, especially in Excel.

Got daughter using Keynote vs Powerpoint for school presentations. Hers look so much better than those using the stock PP template. But she has to make sure to keep a copy of Quicktime on a thumb drive to install it on the PC if it doesn't have it.

I was adoring iWork until I saw a printout from Pages. It was a complete disaster. The difference in line-spacing in a paragraph could reach as much as 1.5mm and was easily seen with a naked eye. I know neither of them (Pages/Word) is a professional typesetting software, but I just couldn't believe that Jobs let something like that go out...

Using Office against my will. I dream of a world where all customers use Macs and iWork is the standard

Libre Office

At work - MS Office (mostly excel) but privately it is Libre Office on both Macs and Windows. Waiting for iPad version (noticed to be available next year). Very compatible with most office files. And no cost.

// Gunnar

Always iWork unless document source has to be shared, then Office or occasionally OpenOffice.

kubaw said:

... but I just couldn't believe that Jobs let something like that go out...

Click to expand...

For some reason I seriously doubt that Steve Jobs had anything to do with this problem.

iWork for 95% of what I do. I share PDFs/printed paper of a good deal of what I do, and I like the way iWork templates give a big head start on making my stuff look professional. I find iWork very easy to work with. Most of what I need is great looking relatively simple documents. I'm not writing complex footnoted research papers.

I can use one application (Pages) to create many different types of documents: forms for internal use, forms for external use, letters, reports, meeting minutes, ads for the newspaper, rack-cards, brochures, class hand-outs, etc.

The content from many of the Pages documents are also used in Keynote documents, and vice versa.

kubaw said:

I was adoring iWork until I saw a printout from Pages. It was a complete disaster. The difference in line-spacing in a paragraph could reach as much as 1.5mm and was easily seen with a naked eye. I know neither of them (Pages/Word) is a professional typesetting software, but I just couldn't believe that Jobs let something like that go out...

Click to expand...

I'm surprised, and I suspect it's something specific to your installation. I certainly have no issues with this line spacing, nor do I see it in other people's Pages documents. My sample is small, of course, but it's enough that I'm confident that it's your installation and not due to the application. Post this over at the Apple Community forums - they have one specifically for Pages, and there is some very high-powered help there. Good Luck.

kubaw said:

I was adoring iWork until I saw a printout from Pages. It was a complete disaster. The difference in line-spacing in a paragraph could reach as much as 1.5mm and was easily seen with a naked eye. I know neither of them (Pages/Word) is a professional typesetting software, but I just couldn't believe that Jobs let something like that go out...

Click to expand...

By default Pages sets the line spacing based on the largest font used in a line, so if the font changes mid paragraph the line spacing may change. However line spacing can be set to exact values if desired. It just doesn't do it by default. I let mine auto-adjust so that it will handle embedded equations which typically require more space.

iWork

I love the ability to be able to buy Pages, Keynote and Numbers separately. It means that I only have to buy each one when I need it. I have bought Pages and Keynote so far, but I have no use for Numbers. You can also save Pages files as Word documents so that eliminates all compatibility problems

Open Office isn't beautiful or fully MS Office compatible, but it is cross-platform and free. I have been using the word processor and spreadsheet applications for my modest needs for more than 10 years.

I started with MS Office on Windows and then transitioned to Open Office on Windows. If I still wanted to run something like this in a Windows environment, I would be curious about the free version of Kingsoft Office based on this article from PC World.

Yes, I also have iWork, but it is not that intuitive (imo) if you are coming from years of using MS Office. I have used Pages, Numbers, and Keynote selectively in circumstances where I felt I had the option to be less productive. I am delaying a more dedicated effort to learn iWork until the next major update.

kubaw said:

I was adoring iWork until I saw a printout from Pages. It was a complete disaster. The difference in line-spacing in a paragraph could reach as much as 1.5mm and was easily seen with a naked eye. I know neither of them (Pages/Word) is a professional typesetting software, but I just couldn't believe that Jobs let something like that go out...

Click to expand...

Not to be a SmartA$$, but you do know that you can control that with the Inspector, right?

Coachingguy

I use iWork for anything I don't need to distribute. Office for Mac for everything else. Office for Mac really isn't great, it's slow.

i use pages but I also use powerpoint, as some one else said its a mix and match.

MacSignal said:

Open Office isn't beautiful or fully MS Office compatible, but it is cross-platform and free. I have been using the word processor and spreadsheet applications for my modest needs for more than 10 years.

Click to expand...

ARGH!

Stop recommending Open Office!

It's dead now to all extents and purposes.

LibreOffice is the same product, only made a trillon times better and not held back by Sun, Oracle or blinkered ideologists.

coachingguy said:

Not to be a SmartA$$, but you do know that you can control that with the Inspector, right?

Click to expand...

Sure I do. The problem is - maybe I didn't make it clear enough - the spacing is different between lines in one single multi-line paragraph. And line-spacing is set for paragraph as a whole.

I'll try to post a scan of this printout later to let you see what I mean.

talmy said:

By default Pages sets the line spacing based on the largest font used in a line, so if the font changes mid paragraph the line spacing may change. However line spacing can be set to exact values if desired. It just doesn't do it by default. I let mine auto-adjust so that it will handle embedded equations which typically require more space.

Click to expand...

Nope, single font used (Times New Roman 12pt).

snberk103 said:

I'm surprised, and I suspect it's something specific to your installation. I certainly have no issues with this line spacing, nor do I see it in other people's Pages documents. My sample is small, of course, but it's enough that I'm confident that it's your installation and not due to the application. Post this over at the Apple Community forums - they have one specifically for Pages, and there is some very high-powered help there. Good Luck.

Click to expand...

Maybe you are right and this is rather a problem with printer or printer driver (hp laserjest 1320, 600 dpi). I will try to make a PDF and check if I can spot the difference. If not - I will give my apologies to iWork ;]

Thanks guys.