iWork vs MS Office

[peeaanuut]

In the past with my PC I have always used office because well, thats what there was. Now that I am on a mac I am thinking of iWork. here is my situation:

I dont take work home but sometimes I put together basic formated documents together at work for stuff at home. At work I have a PC with office. I also dont use excel for much, but I use vlookups and pivot tables alot when cateloging my baseball card and memorabilia collection. I know I should switch to FMP for that eventually but that is a little bit more cash than I have at the moment.

So my question is this: Will I miss any advanced features from office if I switch to iWork? Learning how to do something is not a problem if they process is different but as long as I can do the task I am happy.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be great. Also, off hand, anyone know how much HDD space iWork takes up?

Thanks!

 

[Clipse79]

If you find iwork to be odd try NeoOffice.. Its free and works great. Even the wife figured it out and has not complained....

 

[Naimfan]

I don't think Numbers does pivot tables.....and I KNOW it doesn't do error bars, because that seems to be the biggest source of heartburn with it among other folks here.

On the other hand, iWork does everything I need it to, and I like it a lot.

So I'd say go for it--if you hate it, you can eBay it!

Bob

 

[Clipse79]

A question I missed, why switch to iWork when you can have the joys of Office 2004 or soon to be 2007 for mac? No worries then correct?

 

[dsnort]

A question I missed, why switch to iWork when you can have the joys of Office 2004 or soon to be 2007 for mac? No worries then correct?

$79 vs $399

I don't think Numbers does pivot tables.....and I KNOW it doesn't do error bars, because that seems to be the biggest source of heartburn with it among other folks here.

It does not currently do pivot tables, personnaly I don't miss them. What I do miss is the ability to copy a formula in one cell, and paste it into a range of cells. Numbers seems to think I should paste one cell at a time. Or maybe I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.

 

[peeaanuut]

price is a big issue for me. If I can find a healthy alternative to office for a cheaper price I will go that route. If I have to suck it up and pay for office I will do so but if I can get office functionability with another App for more a discount I will go that route.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Microsoft Office. Advanced features. Joys. I'm having trouble with this concept.

Really, we'd need to know which features of Office you think you can't do without. For sure, iWork is not Office -- but then it's not supposed to be. Some people have a problem with this right out of the box.

You might consider the free 30 day iWork trial.

 

[Naimfan]

Microsoft Office. Advanced features. Joys. I'm having trouble with this concept.

Really, we'd need to know which features of Office you think you can't do without. For sure, iWork is not Office -- but then it's not supposed to be. Some people have a problem with this right out of the box.

You might consider the free 30 day iWork trial.

Perfect!

The 30 day trial is what sold me on it--great suggestion!

Bob

 

[peeaanuut]

$79 vs $399



It does not currently do pivot tables, personnaly I don't miss them. What I do miss is the ability to copy a formula in one cell, and paste it into a range of cells. Numbers seems to think I should paste one cell at a time. Or maybe I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.

Pivot Tables are not a big thing to me because what I mainly use them for will switch to a real database soon. Other than that, for home use I dont use excel nearly as much as I do at work. But since I dont bring work home it might not be an issue.

thanks for the info!

 

[peeaanuut]

I totally forgot about the 30 day trial. heck I think it is installed on my mini as well as office 04. Ok I feel like a dinglehead.

 

[wordmunger]

What I do miss is the ability to copy a formula in one cell, and paste it into a range of cells. Numbers seems to think I should paste one cell at a time. Or maybe I just haven't figured out how to do it yet.

You can't do that, but you can paste the formula into one cell, then drag the little circle in the corner to transfer the formula to as many adjoining cells as you like. One more step I suppose, but Excel has its own annoying quirks when copying formulas (sometimes changing them to values, sometimes not).