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iWork, Office for Mac or both?

MacBookPro13"

MacBookPro13"

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 25, 2011
589
0
Ireland
Just bought my first Mac & I was wondering what do you guys think is the best for the usual stuff such as; Word Processing, Excel & presentations?

iWork, Office for Mac or install both?


Thanks for your help :)
 
I have both. Let me explain.

When I was at University I only used iWork, as I preferred the look and feel you go with it. I found it much easier to write reports.

Now I have graduate from Uni I need full compatibility with Excel. At work I primarily use Excel.
 
I think I might install both but are they not the same thing?

I used Micrsoft Office 2010 on PC and I think I might be better suited to Mac for Office too, but I would like to give iWork a chance too.
 
They do the same thing, one looks nicer (iWork) but doesn't play well with the industry standard (Office). Decide on your priorities and go from there. You don't need to buy both- if you're in school you can probably get a heavy discount on Office.
 
Thanks very much all, very helpful as usual.


One more question - If I save a word document on my MacBook, is there any way of opening this for printing on a Windows PC? (I need to use the PC's in college to print stuff & they are all Windows)
 
MacBookPro13";11826183 said:
Thanks very much all, very helpful as usual.


One more question - If I save a word document on my MacBook, is there any way of opening this for printing on a Windows PC? (I need to use the PC's in college to print stuff & they are all Windows)
Click to expand...

I use iWork and save the document as a word doc and then print it at school on Windows computers all the time. If that's what you meant? I've also never had problems with writing something on a Windows machine and then opening it in iWork.
 
i have both actually. i tired out iwork in the beginning and loved it... then after a while ( used pages the most) it got weird. i did not like the aesthtics of pages .. so i got office 2011. i LOVE OFFICE!...

it goes like this:
Word > Page
eXcel > Numbers
Powerpoint < Keynote.

overall it depends on what you will be doing most.
if you want presentations than go for iwork and if not go for office..

i love my Office so a thumbs up for Office

EDIT: although to be honest, i have been a PC person for majority of my life (im 17) and i just got a MBP, so maybe that's why Office suits me better?
 
I have both. Personal projects are done on iwork. Work/School related business is done primarily in Office, although I use iwork from time to time for school and work as well.
 
 
mmduluth said:
I use iWork and save the document as a word doc and then print it at school on Windows computers all the time. If that's what you meant? I've also never had problems with writing something on a Windows machine and then opening it in iWork.
Click to expand...

You can, but if you do any sort of formatting or unique fonts or anything that is specific to one or the other, you lose it in translation. Office, on the other hand is fully compatible with Windows versions.

I'd get office and skip iWork, as you don't want to deal with compatibility issues when working on a semester-long project in a class. That's not a fun experience.
 
Just save to PDF

If the only thing that you are worried about with iWork is printing on a Windows PC, then just save the spreadsheet/document from iWork as a PDF file and then print it from that. Then you won't have to worry about any compatability issues whatsoever.
 
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I would go with office just because it's the standard and you will find that you do not want to constantly switch between 2 programs.
 
I would like to say both, since I prefer to use iWork for my own personal documents, and Office 2011 for really anything that will need to be collaborated on to ensure the best amount of compatibility.

If I had to say one, though, I would have to say Office. It's much better, but just not quite where I want it to be as compared to iWork.

Also, iWork '11 may be out pretty soon, so you may want to hold off on purchasing iWork '09 for now.
 
Both but check around to see if you can get a discount on office. If you work for a large company that uses ms office they may have a deal. For example I work for a large bank and I can download the full suite for 10.00.

When I was a student I got it through the university for even less than that.

Check with your HR department. They may also have a deal with virus protection companies.
 
Mr. Chewbacca said:
Both but check around to see if you can get a discount on office. If you work for a large company that uses ms office they may have a deal. For example I work for a large bank and I can download the full suite for 10.00.

When I was a student I got it through the university for even less than that.

Check with your HR department. They may also have a deal with virus protection companies.
Click to expand...

I was told that I don't need anti-virus protection for my Mac. :confused:
 
MacBookPro13";11829653 said:
I was told that I don't need anti-virus protection for my Mac. :confused:
Click to expand...

You technically don't for OS X, but if you exchange files with Windows machines on a regular basis, it could be beneficial to protect those Windows users.
 
Go with office, everyone needs to know how to use excel and by far most people who even have iWork uses office word at least thats what I have seen.
 
Like others have said, if you can find a deal with your school on Office, go with office. I have bot on my mac, and my fiance has open office on hers. Out of the three, I like Office 2011 the best. It has the best feel to me.
 
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