IWork v's Office 2008

You have Office 2007 for the PC, so that means that you can use it for all Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access files.

If you have the install discs, you could uninstall on your Dell laptop and install on your MacBook. To do this, you would need to purchase Windows XP or Vista, and VMWare or Parallels.

This would provide you 100% compatibility with the PC side of the house and allow you to use Access which does not come with Office Mac 2008. Sometimes this can be very important depending on your school and curriculum.

If you go the route above, then iWork08 for the Mac would be a wonderful choice. You get the best of both worlds if you will; iWork08 on the Mac side and Office 2007 on the PC side.

If you don't want to run Windows on your MacBook, then I would say go with Office 2008 because you will have better compatibility with Office 2007 on the Windows side with Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Hope this helps.

Get Office.

Yes, iWork is compatible with Office documents blah blah, however, there is no guarantee that your files will look the same when you export them between Apps. It's a lot simpler to just have Office. No need to 'export as', no fuss, no muss. And everything will look exactly the way you want it to if you're moving files between Office '07 and '08.

sushi said:

You have Office 2007 for the PC, so that means that you can use it for all Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Access files.

If you have the install discs, you could uninstall on your Dell laptop and install on your MacBook. To do this, you would need to purchase Windows XP or Vista, and VMWare or Parallels.

This would provide you 100% compatibility with the PC side of the house and allow you to use Access which does not come with Office Mac 2008.

If you go the route above, then iWork08 would be a wonderful choice. You get the best of both worlds if you will; iWork08 on the Mac side and Office 2007 on the PC side.

If you don't want to run Windows on your MacBook, then I would say get Office 2008 because you will have better compatibility with Office 2007 on the Windows side with Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

Hope this helps.

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i agree completely.
that definitely seems like the best route in your situation.
if your looking for integration, you cant get much better than the exact same product!

but if money is an issue, try an open source solution, such as open office. try that before purchasing anything. it may suit your needs.

I've had some issues getting Word files into iWork. Basic stuff seems to come in OK, but the more advanced the document, the bigger the chances off issues. I seem to recall issues with getting Tables of Contents and the like carried over.

So, I echo what the others have said. For the best compatibility, go with Office 2008. Depending on your college, you can often get the pro version for around $70.

I'll agree with what severl people have already said - if you need to exchange files with other people (quite likely), it might be best to just get Office 2008 for your Mac. As much as I love iWork, I've had enough formatting issues with Pages importing Word files that I had to get Office. OpenOffice.org had issues too, so that wasn't a suitable option for me, but since it's free, I think it would be well worth having a look and trying it out for a while.

Hope that helps .

Dave.