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iWork '08 or Office '07?
- Thread starter qwerty546
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With just text and simple formatting, Pages is great for my schoolwork even when I need it to be opened in Word. If I need more, I copy my text to NeoOffice, edit and then send it to Windows as a .doc file.
Powerpoint does accept Keynote, but badly. You can export to .pdf or .flv etc.
WEll the support is very poor, the best way to do it would be to export your documents as word or powerpoint. The export will not be totally accurate with your original document. It really depends on the complexity of your documents as to how messed up it might get. Powerpoint doesn't support all the things in keynote so some things will be missing such as some transitions.
For pages you can always print as .pdf and the teacher should be fine with that. And for powerpoint you can export as quicktime or something like that.
As you are a highschool student i'd imagine you won't be producing anything too complex and therefore the extra features of word might be overkill. There is always the freeware alternatives such as neooffice and openoffice, and the iWork trial to see how well they will match up to your expectations.
For pages you can always print as .pdf and the teacher should be fine with that. And for powerpoint you can export as quicktime or something like that.
As you are a highschool student i'd imagine you won't be producing anything too complex and therefore the extra features of word might be overkill. There is always the freeware alternatives such as neooffice and openoffice, and the iWork trial to see how well they will match up to your expectations.
I don't know what school you went to, but my old college only accepted word docs for online submission. Luckily the formatting requirements were so minimal (12pt Times, double-spaced) that Pages could easily export to that with no layout issues.
Obviously a better school than yours which doesn't enforce the use of Microsoft office.
As already said simple documents are capable of being exported but as you build up the document to be more complex then you will run into issues. This is something that even crops up between different versions of Office.
Almost every college in the US requires online submissions to be done as word/office docs. It's because of the software used on the backend to handle the uploads (webct, blackboard, etc.). It's not a school-specific thing in any way really. Besides, if you choose a school based on the file formats they accept, you're probably missing the point of education.
I was not suggesting to chose a school based on files types. All I said was that the teacher should accept a .pdf. And as a University student in his fourth year I think I know the point of education.
Out of curiosity, do you use Blackboard or WebCT in the UK? Those programs are very, very prevalent in US higher education. They are meant for online clases more than anything, but still, they present an obstacle for Mac users.
My uni does use WebCT, it is such a joke it is ridiculous. I have spoken to my lectures about this but they just don't see the user interaction problems. WebCT is very slow and hard to navigate and organised in a completely stupid way. Apart from this the only obstacle i have with it is the security certificate that comes up when i log onto it.
So you've never had a problem sending PDF files? I'm currently in a similar predicament as the OP, and I'm not sure if I want to waste money on Office.
Personally, I avoid sending any word processing files to anyone, unless their explicit requirement is to edit or alter the text, which is something nobody should really be doing if it's got my name on it. With limited exceptions, all of my finished work products leave the office as PDF files. The advantages of this method are substantial and the downside is zero.
My lecturers generally want printed copies so haven't had much experience with them, however the files they host are quite often .pdfs and I have uploaded pdfs. See both attachments, first is lecturer created pdfs in WebCt and the second is a pdf i've uploaded.
Attachments
iWork '08....I use iWork '05 currently, and am planning on updating to '08 soon. I've had no trouble using it with my XP based school. I export it in MS Word format, or print it at home if I have it formated. Or turn it into a PDF, and print at school.
Pages is good, I personal like it more then word. It had some good preformated designs, Keynote is world above PowerPoint, I've not really used Number(played around a little at the Apple store, and it had some thing to help students out)
Pages is good, I personal like it more then word. It had some good preformated designs, Keynote is world above PowerPoint, I've not really used Number(played around a little at the Apple store, and it had some thing to help students out)
I am in the same position. I take university classes through distance learning and I am required to submit assignments in Microsoft Office format; Although I'm sure a .pdf would work just the same because they shouldn't be editing them anyways.
I recently purchased iWork '08 with my new Mac and I am definately curious at to whether the exporting to .doc format will work correctly and sufficently enough for my Profs.
Being a PC to Mac switcher I am sick of Microsoft Office/XP/Vista and I am looking for a change; hence the switch. I hope that I can switch to Mac without having to rely on MS software.
I recently purchased iWork '08 with my new Mac and I am definately curious at to whether the exporting to .doc format will work correctly and sufficently enough for my Profs.
Being a PC to Mac switcher I am sick of Microsoft Office/XP/Vista and I am looking for a change; hence the switch. I hope that I can switch to Mac without having to rely on MS software.
If i had to submit something electronically i would kick up a major fuss if it had to be in Office format, how can they guarantee the way they see it is the way you intended. PDF ensures that.
I just finished a maths assignment for school with office 07 (excel and word), but my laptops hard drive got destroyed because i droped it. So this weekend I am doing it again on my mac (laptop is at school getting repaired) with the trial of iWork '08 and it is miles ahead on simplicity, ease of use and the ability to format documents really quickly. definitely reccomend iWork
You did a maths assignment in Pages, What did you use to write the equations?
As much as don't like word and its equation editor I like the integration so I can quickly edit them on whatever machine I am on.
Honestly, you probably need both and if you can only afford one you might as well buy MS Office, bearing in mind that if you want Office 2007 you will also need to buy a copy of Parallels/VMware and Windows XP so even the student edition of Office for Windows will work out very expensive. The student version of Office 2004 would be the most cost effective but it can be quite slow on an Intel based Mac and you don't have time to wait for Office 2008 which won't be out until next year.
iWork can save in the Office formats and does a pretty good job in my experience but it can often be necessary to load the result in Office and make some final tweaks depending on the formatting. Of course, formatting doesn't necessarily survive from one copy of Office to another, especially between generations. I can reasonably well share docs between Office X and Office 2000 but do find that the results, particularly with PowerPoint, can be quite variable depending on how the versions interpret the order of style applications for instance. The Office document format doesn't entirely dictate what is presented on the page it seems. Much of the presentation is down to the internal workings of Office which is why you should really never expect an Office document to survive intact when you share the file with someone else. The only way to reliably share documents and have the presentation survive is to use PDF. If you can use PDF then there is no problem using iWork as its PDF export is as good as it gets. If they insist on files in Office format then they are a) nimrods and b) probably going to blame any formatting problems on your choice of software even if you are using Office for Mac.
In the end, you should realise that there is very little you can do to change the way people use Office formats and you can't fix the fact that the formats are fundamentally broken and MS likes it that way. If your school is reasonable and accepts PDF then you are golden, otherwise welcome to my world where I currently have Office 2K on Windows XP Pro under Parallels, Office:mac version X, NeoOffice 2.2, iWork 08 and even a copy of AppleWorks all on my MacBook Pro just to make sure I can successfully work with other people's documents.
When it comes to my own documents though, I use iWork since it is so much nicer than any of the other packages I have.
iWork can save in the Office formats and does a pretty good job in my experience but it can often be necessary to load the result in Office and make some final tweaks depending on the formatting. Of course, formatting doesn't necessarily survive from one copy of Office to another, especially between generations. I can reasonably well share docs between Office X and Office 2000 but do find that the results, particularly with PowerPoint, can be quite variable depending on how the versions interpret the order of style applications for instance. The Office document format doesn't entirely dictate what is presented on the page it seems. Much of the presentation is down to the internal workings of Office which is why you should really never expect an Office document to survive intact when you share the file with someone else. The only way to reliably share documents and have the presentation survive is to use PDF. If you can use PDF then there is no problem using iWork as its PDF export is as good as it gets. If they insist on files in Office format then they are a) nimrods and b) probably going to blame any formatting problems on your choice of software even if you are using Office for Mac.
In the end, you should realise that there is very little you can do to change the way people use Office formats and you can't fix the fact that the formats are fundamentally broken and MS likes it that way. If your school is reasonable and accepts PDF then you are golden, otherwise welcome to my world where I currently have Office 2K on Windows XP Pro under Parallels, Office:mac version X, NeoOffice 2.2, iWork 08 and even a copy of AppleWorks all on my MacBook Pro just to make sure I can successfully work with other people's documents.
When it comes to my own documents though, I use iWork since it is so much nicer than any of the other packages I have.
I don't know about WebCT, but we use BlackBoard. I have to say that, while it has improved with recent releases, I still find it very slow and unwieldy at times. I suspect the trend towards online content/course management will increase pace at UK institutions. This is for several reasons, which include: easier compliance with University QA regulations; demonstration of learning quality to QAA and also the ease with which plagiarism checks can be done on electronically submitted work. Indeed, I think that is one reason Word is required in some places - that the plagiarism software can't unravel PDFs with inset images/complex formatting etc. (a shame, as I would take a PDF over .doc as a submission any day) Last but not least, I suspect the providers of these platforms give a very hard sell. Anecdotal evidence suggests that they are doing well - certainly BlackBoard (NYSE:BBBB) in terms of stock price (or it was last time I checked)!
Rest assured that some lecturers find these online systems as frustrating as you do. Unfortunately, they are often not given any latitude at all in these matters...
I like it, though I find its not very stable. If I have it open, along with many other programmes, and then go into Expose, it crashes quite frequently. It also had some annoying bug in it that if I exited the programme, and clicked 'no' when it asked me whether I wanted to save the file or not before I exited, it'd just crash.
I'm planning to get iWork hoping that as an Apple programme its a bit more stable.