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iWork or Office: what do you have?

  • iWork

    Votes: 20 46.5%
  • Office

    Votes: 20 46.5%
  • Other...

    Votes: 3 7.0%

  • Total voters
    43

wayland1985

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 16, 2008
551
27
Which do you use? I had office 2004, and wasn't impressed. iWork seems okay.... What are you using? Should I buy Office 08 for myself???
 

jonbravo77

macrumors 65816
Feb 20, 2008
1,000
25
Phoenix, AZ
I use office 2008. Depends on what you need it for. For the work I do I need PowerPoint 2008 since it is compatible with Microsoft Office 2007 (for the most part). Haven't really touched Keynote but from what I have done it's nice just not for the business I do, no one really uses keynote.

But like I said, just depends on what you need it for.

EDIT*** You can find more info here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/614649/ there is also an informative link in the #2 post.
 

munkery

macrumors 68020
Dec 18, 2006
2,217
1
NeoOffice is a good free replacement. Better than OpenOffice. NeoOffice is a port of OpenOffice specifically for Mac OS X. It is better integrated into Mac OS X with features such as access to the system grammar checker that are not available with OpenOffice. NeoOffice can also handle the latest Microsoft document formats (docx, pptx, xlsx) which OpenOffice cannot.
 

dukebound85

macrumors Core
Jul 17, 2005
19,131
4,110
5045 feet above sea level
NeoOffice is a good free replacement. Better than OpenOffice. NeoOffice is a port of OpenOffice specifically for Mac OS X. It is better integrated into Mac OS X with features such as access to the system grammar checker that are not available with OpenOffice. NeoOffice can also handle the latest Microsoft document formats (docx, pptx, xlsx) which OpenOffice cannot.

open office aqua (what i linked to) is better than neooffice as it has the osx interface but not ran on flash which is slow like neooffice

what are you talking about? open office is more advanced than neooffice as neooffice lags behind open office feature wise. remember its neooffice that incorporates open office features, not vice versa

open office can most certainly handle the latest MS office formats
 

munkery

macrumors 68020
Dec 18, 2006
2,217
1
open office aqua (what i linked to) is better than neooffice as it has the osx interface but not ran on flash which is slow like neooffice

what are you talking about? open office is more advanced than neooffice as neooffice lags behind open office feature wise. remember its neooffice that incorporates open office features, not vice versa

open office can most certainly handle the latest MS office formats

OpenOffice loads a little faster than NeoOffice but it does not use the system keyboard shortcuts or grammar checker.

By default OpenOffice has no grammar checker. You can install LanguageTool but it is quite limited, especially when compared to leopards system grammar checker.

OpenOffice can not save in docx, pptx, or xlsx and the last time I checked it couldn't open them either.

NeoOffice also incorporates the systems Media Browser to more efficiently provide access to media to use in a document. OpenOffice can not access this.

It is not flash but Java. Both OpenOffice Aqua and NeoOffice use Java. Wander around the preferences you will find that they both use Java. NeoOffice uses as much if not more Aqua in its user interface, including proper Mac icons.

Only thing interesting in OpenOffice is bibliography management which is not yet fully implemented. NeoOffice is usually only a few months behind OpenOffice in implementing new OpenOffice features so when bib management is available NeoOffice will have it soon enough. Even that is not important if you know how to make (very easy, by the way) or can find (not very easy) bibdesk templates that function with neooffice.
 

knmlee

macrumors newbie
Nov 28, 2008
27
0
I use both. I prefer Excel to Numbers for serious number crunching. I prefer to uses Pages & Keynote if I'm creating documents for print or pdf distribution. I use Word / Powerpoint for documents that need to be exchanged with my Windows colleagues.

Both suites have their uses. If I had to choose just one, I would probably go with Office because of Excel.

Fortunately, iWorks is pretty cheap so I don't have to choose just one.
 

renerothstein

macrumors newbie
Dec 17, 2008
1
0
Las Vegas
iWork, Office

Which do you use? I had office 2004, and wasn't impressed. iWork seems okay.... What are you using? Should I buy Office 08 for myself???
iWork and its counterpart for making slides can be useless and troublesome to personal Mac-ers. No software seems to have ability to alphabetize a list of names. That might be included in Office and I should have checked before I purchase iWorks.
 

nastebu

macrumors 6502
May 5, 2008
354
0
The latest version of Open Office certainly does open all the recent MS Office format.

I like Office 08 quite a bit though. PowerPoint is much improved and is at least in the same league as Keynote now.
 

exegete77

macrumors 6502a
Feb 12, 2008
529
6
I use iWork for some work, and NeoOffice/OpenOffice.org for anything that will be cross-platform. Have not had any issues or problems. With one caveat: I don't use VBA macros, so have not explored it. When I worked for a Fortune 50 company I used Excel 2003/VBA extensively everyday. That would have been critical had I continued.
 

munkery

macrumors 68020
Dec 18, 2006
2,217
1
I use iWork for some work, and NeoOffice/OpenOffice.org for anything that will be cross-platform. Have not had any issues or problems. With one caveat: I don't use VBA macros, so have not explored it. When I worked for a Fortune 50 company I used Excel 2003/VBA extensively everyday. That would have been critical had I continued.

NeoOffice has pretty good support for Excel VBA.

open office can most certainly handle the latest MS office formats
The latest version of Open Office certainly does open all the recent MS Office format.

Sorry, to make sure I was not talking out my rear, I downloaded OpenOffice to see if it could open the latest MS Office formats. OpenOffice IS able to open these formats but it can not save in them. I must have been using an early beta of OpenOffice 3 when I tried it out as it could not open the latest MS Office formats at that time.

OpenOffice also loses a lot of the document's formatting, such as text will no longer be centered and etc., much more so than NeoOffice when dealing with these formats.

But, other than those issues, you guys were right about MS Office format support in OpenOffice.
 

Chase R

macrumors 65816
May 8, 2008
1,279
81
PDX
I voted Office only because I'm in college and EVERYTHING is in Office formats... Otherwise I would probably spend the time to get to know iWork better.
 

pyramis

macrumors member
Dec 2, 2008
63
0
Palo Alto, CA
iWork reads and write Office formats decently enough to have no problems exchanging docs with Mac or Windows Office users, even with such things as Tracking Changes. I do keep an old Office 2004 version on hand for Excel number crunching and the (very) occasional Word doc compatibility issue.

These pragmatic issues aside, when I'm writing a new document or creating a new presentation, I go straight for Pages or Keynote every time for a far more satisfying product and usability experience. MS software design is simply clunky. Plus, once you are familiar with the usability language of Apple design in one app, you become pretty fluent across most of their software products.
 

yoppie

macrumors 6502a
Oct 19, 2007
870
0
My vote is for Microsoft Office 2008. I have tried using iWork but it feels weird. I also like knowing I will be able to trade off documents without problem with my classmates and professors.
 
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