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iWork vs MS Office

G

GreatestDane

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 26, 2010
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Hi

I'm about to buy a Mac that I'll use for school, and now I don't know if I should buy iWork or Office. I will mainly use word/pages and occasionally powerpoint/keynote.

What would you buy?
 
I would pick iWork because of Keynote. It is by far the best presentation software I have ever used. Very well streamlined and laid out.

As per Pages, it is still missing some things and could be better. Numbers = Joke, that is all on that front.
 
This is a tough question and a matter of personal preference. I enjoy using iWork much, much more. Pages and Keynote are fantastic. Excel does have more computational features though, but Numbers is easier to use.

Unfortunately, there is a flip side: compatibility. If you're doing collaborative projects with PC users, you're really going to need Office. Especially since iWork does a pretty bad job with docx, pptx, and xclx formats. Give iWork a try through the trial version. If you really like it, you could get both. Not a great solution, I know, but it's what I'm doing now after trying to get by with iWork alone.
 
dissolve said:
This is a tough question and a matter of personal preference. I enjoy using iWork much, much more. Pages and Keynote are fantastic. Excel does have more computational features though, but Numbers is easier to use.

Unfortunately, there is a flip side: compatibility. If you're doing collaborative projects with PC users, you're really going to need Office. Especially since iWork does a pretty bad job with docx, pptx, and xclx formats. Give iWork a try through the trial version. If you really like it, you could get both. Not a great solution, I know, but it's what I'm doing now after trying to get by with iWork alone.
Click to expand...

+1

I have both Office 2011 and iWork. iWork is easier, faster, and does most of what Office can do. Excel is stronger, but if you don't need fancy Macros, and crap, Numbers is fine...
 
Sorry to say, because I personally like iWork, but many professors insist on
Powerpoint for presentation projects. The self-proclaimed free thinkers usually turn out to be the most intellectually rigid, IMHO.

So, to be on the safe side, if you can only choose one, I would suggest Office. But if you can pick up a discount on iWork (which may be possible if you purchase it at the same time as your new Mac), it's well worth having them both, and you'll probably find yourself using iWork more than Office.

Enjoy that new Mac!
 
I have very basic needs for the typical "office suite" and thus I use iWork. It's less expensive and it's made by Apple so I think it will run better than MS Office [on Mac].

Like the person above me said, OpenOffice.org is a great FREE suite and compatible with MS Office and looks a lot like it too.
 
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