starting college this fall. just wanted to take in opinions on your experience with the two of them on apple. i just need something like microsoft word and presentation. which one would be the best for me? i know the knew 2008 office mac came out but i've heard a lot of bugs on it.
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iwork of office?
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iWork. Far cheaper, far better. Everything you make can be beautiful.
And everything exports to Office formats, so you're good to go. If you want to preserve some things like you-specific fonts and some formatting, you can even export to images or PDFs for keynotes and the like.
And everything exports to Office formats, so you're good to go. If you want to preserve some things like you-specific fonts and some formatting, you can even export to images or PDFs for keynotes and the like.
Or try OpenOffice.org. It's free and has additional features like a database program included, and can save to almost every format. Can also export presentations as .flv
iWork,TextEdit,NeoOffice
Neooffice.org is OpenOffice for Mac, and I find it satisfactory. I only use it when I want to open, edit, and return Word files I've received with the maximum preservation of formatting. There's no need to spend money on Office for Mac, or have MS software in your Mac, unless you need some very specialised business and scientific functions which are exclusive to Office. NeoOffice/OpenOffice is a very satisfactory equivalent for most people.
Word documents can be opened very quickly in TextEdit application which is preloaded and which is a lightening quick way of opening, creating and editing documents with basic formatting. TextEdit documents can be saved in Word, RTF, HTML and other formats.
iWork has the kind of advantages over Office that the Mac OS has over Windows. User friendly, aesthetic and logical way of working. Really draws you into creating documents (Pages), presentations (Keynote) and spreadsheets (Numbers) in new and interesting ways. It even makes spreadsheets look really attractive and interesting, and fun to work with, though that's the area where there's the biggest lack in business/scientific functions compared with Office. Pages 'publications' can be easily exported in Word, Pdf, RTF, or Plain Text. Keynote presentations can be exported in PowerPoint, Pdf, Flash, QuickTime, Images, Flash, Html and iPod formats. Numbers spreadsheets can be exported in Excel, Pdf and CSV formats.
I've given up Office after many years and have not missed it at any point. Don't bother with it unless you really do need some of the more specific high level functions. I would not like to be without iWork and I use it intensively.
Neooffice.org is OpenOffice for Mac, and I find it satisfactory. I only use it when I want to open, edit, and return Word files I've received with the maximum preservation of formatting. There's no need to spend money on Office for Mac, or have MS software in your Mac, unless you need some very specialised business and scientific functions which are exclusive to Office. NeoOffice/OpenOffice is a very satisfactory equivalent for most people.
Word documents can be opened very quickly in TextEdit application which is preloaded and which is a lightening quick way of opening, creating and editing documents with basic formatting. TextEdit documents can be saved in Word, RTF, HTML and other formats.
iWork has the kind of advantages over Office that the Mac OS has over Windows. User friendly, aesthetic and logical way of working. Really draws you into creating documents (Pages), presentations (Keynote) and spreadsheets (Numbers) in new and interesting ways. It even makes spreadsheets look really attractive and interesting, and fun to work with, though that's the area where there's the biggest lack in business/scientific functions compared with Office. Pages 'publications' can be easily exported in Word, Pdf, RTF, or Plain Text. Keynote presentations can be exported in PowerPoint, Pdf, Flash, QuickTime, Images, Flash, Html and iPod formats. Numbers spreadsheets can be exported in Excel, Pdf and CSV formats.
I've given up Office after many years and have not missed it at any point. Don't bother with it unless you really do need some of the more specific high level functions. I would not like to be without iWork and I use it intensively.
Hi!
I have both and I must say I prefer Office, but that may just be because I'm used to Windows
iWork is good too, but I personally like Office better, so I recommend Office
I have both and I must say I prefer Office, but that may just be because I'm used to Windows
iWork is good too, but I personally like Office better, so I recommend Office
Here's another vote for iWork.
I use Numbers regularly, and find it quite easy to work with. I also use Keynote, which I far prefer to Powerpoint. And as has been noted, each of these allows you to save in multiple formats, so you don't lose compatibility.
I don't use Pages very often--I switched to LaTeX some years ago, and have never looked back--but when I do use it, I find that it is less obnoxious than Word. In fact, annoyance with Word prompted my move to LaTeX.
That reminds me: if you do ever start using LaTeX, another bonus of iWork is that you can very, very easily import beautiful equations into Keynote!
Good luck!
I use Numbers regularly, and find it quite easy to work with. I also use Keynote, which I far prefer to Powerpoint. And as has been noted, each of these allows you to save in multiple formats, so you don't lose compatibility.
I don't use Pages very often--I switched to LaTeX some years ago, and have never looked back--but when I do use it, I find that it is less obnoxious than Word. In fact, annoyance with Word prompted my move to LaTeX.
That reminds me: if you do ever start using LaTeX, another bonus of iWork is that you can very, very easily import beautiful equations into Keynote!
Good luck!
I would say iWork if you don't need to make complex spreadsheets. Pages allows you to save docs in word 2003 or word 2007 formats as well as other ones, and personally used as a simple word processor and keynote which is 100 time better than powerpoint. and the fact that it's faster and much cheaper!
I've still had mixed experiences with iWork - particularly within a college environment.
Certain elements of Microsoft Office Documents are lost/changed when you convert to/from Pages/Numbers/Keynote.
If you will be doing a lot of work - particularly collaborating with other students/staff then you may find that something put in a document by someone in Office changes to a static image (e.g. WordArt) in your version of the document.
If you then convert that document back to Word/Excel/PowerPoint format, then the other person reading it will be unable to edit some of the things you have added.
iWork might offer Office compatibility, but its biggest achilles heel is how it converts files instead of opening them in their original format.
I personally use Office 2008 and I've had no problems with my college work on it. Microsoft has put a lot of great tools in that let you check how well your documents will open in other versions of Office.
I have iWork, but I don't think that within the last year I've used it properly. I did make a funny resume with the templates once...
I used iWork all last year for college, and found it very distracting for my professors when I asked for help during class.
"What is this? This isn't Office, iWork....why didn't you just get office!?"
I'll admit, Pages, Keynote, and numbers are much 'lighter' feeling applications for me, but Microsoft has set a standard with Office that iWork just hasn't found yet for me, unfortunately.
All of these issues and more are addressed in the guide article linked above, not to mention the literally dozens of previous threads on this topic which can be found by using the forum search.
I have an iWork question and figured i might as well ask here rather than in a new thread.
How do i stop the review message when i open up a spread sheet. I don't recall exactly what it says, it gives a message and then an option to ignore or review, the issue is a missing font as the sheet was created in Office 2007 (Windows), i changed the font but it still pops up everytime i load the document. It isn't really a problem, more just a nuisance i encounter whyen i bring Office documents over to iWork..
How do i stop the review message when i open up a spread sheet. I don't recall exactly what it says, it gives a message and then an option to ignore or review, the issue is a missing font as the sheet was created in Office 2007 (Windows), i changed the font but it still pops up everytime i load the document. It isn't really a problem, more just a nuisance i encounter whyen i bring Office documents over to iWork..
On the topic of bugs with MSOffice 08... I haven't experienced any yet, plus there was a major update for it a week or so ago that I downloaded, perhaps that's fixed some of the alleged bugs. To be fair I haven't tried iWork yet.
Off topic but yay, we have the same macbook with exactly the same specs =)
Off topic but yay, we have the same macbook with exactly the same specs =)
It really depends on what you'll be using it for. If spreadsheets are of big importance to you, Numbers just can't live up to Excel right now. Word is easier to work with than Pages, but Pages has a bit more functionality. Keynote is a big winner over PowerPoint. Entourage is a piece of garbage that shouldn't influence your decision. iWork is cheaper, yes, but there are still positive aspects of Office over it. Also note that exporting to office formats doesn't always go too well. It works, but you lots of things are lost/altered.
I would use Office
I just got done months of Word Processing work and much rather enjoyed Office over iWork
Big Apple guy too
I would go for iWork '08 myself. I've used it in college with no problems, and it makes really nice-looking documents!
But if you need number-crunching power, Excel definitely does > Numbers.
As for Pages and Word, they're close. I personally like Pages, but it's just personal preference.
Keynote and PowerPoint, on the other hand, is absolutely no contest. Keynote blows PowerPoint out of the water, hands down.
But if you need number-crunching power, Excel definitely does > Numbers.
As for Pages and Word, they're close. I personally like Pages, but it's just personal preference.
Keynote and PowerPoint, on the other hand, is absolutely no contest. Keynote blows PowerPoint out of the water, hands down.
I tried to use iWork but I just couldn't get used to the interface.
I pick Office. Plus, office works better for typing Japanese Documents which is important to me.
I pick Office. Plus, office works better for typing Japanese Documents which is important to me.
MS Office
I have Office 2008 and iWork '08. But after testing iWork a few months ago I switched back MS Office. Office has more features and is definitely more compatible with the PC version of Office. I am a student, too. And when you have to work together with other people who use MS Office, like I often have to, it's easier to exchange files back and forth. (no import/export) This holds true especially when you're working on a presentation or with excel files. Ever tried to export a Numbers file to Excel? Horrible result.
I have Office 2008 and iWork '08. But after testing iWork a few months ago I switched back MS Office. Office has more features and is definitely more compatible with the PC version of Office. I am a student, too. And when you have to work together with other people who use MS Office, like I often have to, it's easier to exchange files back and forth. (no import/export) This holds true especially when you're working on a presentation or with excel files. Ever tried to export a Numbers file to Excel? Horrible result.
I really like iWork, but ask yourself how much you'll be exchanging documents with other people who might not use iWork. It's true that Pages does basic Word doc import/export, BUT when it comes to complex docs with tracked changes, foreign fonts (as mentioned above), lots of formatting, or tables and images (like a college thesis perhaps?) you will consistently run into problems transferring docs back and forth from Pages to Word. It's the unfortunate truth. Again, I love and use iWork (Keynote is beautiful), but when doing anything collaborative, Office is usually a necessity for me just because it's what most people use.