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iWork vs Office

samalexhall

samalexhall

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 1, 2010
55
0
from what iv heard
iWork is good for presentation
Office is good for power and special functions

But which is the best of both??? OR is thre a better alternative???
I don't know which one to buy?
Which one is best?

P.S I would use it for mainly presentation but could need some special functions as I am starting an engineering degree soon :)
 
I have the same doubt.

Despite the software choice, I'll wait for the next release of both. Since their already in the oven.

In the meantime, I'm using NeoOffice.
 
Sir Lorad said:
I have the same doubt.

Despite the software choice, I'll wait for the next release of both. Since their already in the oven.

In the meantime, I'm using NeoOffice.
Click to expand...

I think i'll prob do the same seeing as they're both close to updates
 
In my opinion:

Keynote > powerpoint
Excel > Numbers

So if you are mostly working on presentations then go with iWork..... If you are going to be doing intensive spreadsheets Office hands down.
 
Apparently the transitions in Keynote are really great, but Numbers is lacking with formula features.

Personally, I use Office. But only because it was on offer when I got my MacBook - I might've just gone down the free route instead - Neooffice is supposed to be good.
 
bigjnyc said:
In my opinion:

Keynote > powerpoint
Excel > Numbers

So if you are mostly working on presentations then go with iWork..... If you are going to be doing intensive spreadsheets Office hands down.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. Personally I'd add Pages > Word too.
 
bigjnyc said:
In my opinion:
[...]
Excel > Numbers
Click to expand...

It's hard to argue with your assessment ... so I'll try anyway. ::)

If someone expects to use some of Excel's esoteric features, then by all means, get the right tool for the job. But the number of people who really "need" those functions and formulas are probably a small subset of the people who actually have Excel. My hunch, possibly misguided, is that most people would be more than satisfied with what Numbers can do.

Having said that, Numbers does have some performance issues. Multiple sheets and tables with not-very-complex lookups can really bog down performance. I'm surprised Apple didn't come out with a version that took advantage of Grand Central Dispatch right after Snow Leopard's release.

mt
 
Excel Keyboard Shortcuts

I am an Excel power user from the Windows side and just bought MS Office for Mac. The keyboard shortcuts are different. Is there a way to flip to the Windows version keyboard shortcuts?

Thanks,
RK
 
rkjlt said:
I am an Excel power user from the Windows side and just bought MS Office for Mac. The keyboard shortcuts are different. Is there a way to flip to the Windows version keyboard shortcuts?

Thanks,
RK
Click to expand...
You can customize shortcuts by going to System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard Shortcuts
 
I use Open Office - it's free and very robust. Highly Recommended!

New to Mac so I never knew about Neo Office, so I'm going to look into that myself :)
 
MacRodster said:
I use Open Office - it's free and very robust. Highly Recommended!

New to Mac so I never knew about Neo Office, so I'm going to look into that myself :)
Click to expand...

Yes, I think there's a Windows version of NeoOffice as well. I think it was bundled with some Medion PCs for a short while.
 
R94N said:
Yes, I think there's a Windows version of NeoOffice as well. I think it was bundled with some Medion PCs for a short while.
Click to expand...

Actually, NeoOffice is Mac only, since it is a port of OpenOffice to the Mac, originally done when OpenOffice had still required X11. Now OpenOffice is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and it does not require X11.
 
I use: Word, Excel, Pages, Keynote and Bento (if the last one counts)

I don't know if I'd drop more then $50 given the update in the Winter on Office. Then again, one could apply that logic to iWork most years.
 
Trouble viewing table content using Pages

I just returned my iWork software to the store (luckily they have an amazing return policy) and bought Office for Mac. I have a lot of document sharing to do with colleagues and I had difficulties in Pages viewing text within a table when the table stretched over more than one page. This was when I opened a .doc created on a PC...

When I explained the situation to the store clerk she told me she had heard that was an issue with Pages.

So if you have a lot of document sharing to do between PC/Office users, then get Office for Mac!
 
iWork can drive me crazy

I love my MBP, but there are some missing features in iWork that I find enormously irritating:
- no 'freeze panes' in Numbers...which is essential if you have a long spreadsheet (say, my year's business expense tracking) with lots of columns
- tables in Pages behave oddly (in terms of formatting) compared to Word; I can't get them to skinny up rows
- no 'style copy/paint' brush in Numbers/Pages - I live by this tool in Office
- no toolbar shortcuts for insert/delete rows/columns in Numbers - again, I rely heavily on these in Office (and in Word for tables)

It seems as if Office is better for heavy duty productivity, and iWork is...prettier, but somewhat less functional. I do like the ability of Pages to encompass the functions of both Word and Publisher, but boy, the missing productivity tools get under my skin.

Oh, and lord, I HATE that Apple Mail can't a priori include/edit tables or other HTML-like features the way Outlook can. A 10-year-old version of Outlook on my home Win XP Dell has more functionality in this regard than my far newer Apple Mail. Sigh...
 
artistinnature said:
I love my MBP, but there are some missing features in iWork that I find enormously irritating:
- no 'freeze panes' in Numbers...which is essential if you have a long spreadsheet (say, my year's business expense tracking) with lots of columns
Click to expand...

That was a strange omission since even Visicalc (circa 1980) had that. However Numbers '09 has it. It still doesn't have enough keyboard shortcuts.
 
I think it mostly depend from the "environment". If you work in a group of people sharing Office docs in PC world for reviewing purposes, then you probably better go with Office. If not, and you don't need the gorilla capabilities of Excel, then iWork is probably enough. I use 100 pages and Keynote. And have to use Excel. However, because Excel for mac is slow, unreliable and prone to crash, and does not have any support for VB macro, then I have Parallels installed, with win XP and Office 2003.
That allows me to be more than productive.
Neooffice is also a valid alternative at least as word processor.
 
artistinnature said:
I love my MBP, but there are some missing features in iWork that I find enormously irritating:
- no 'freeze panes' in Numbers...which is essential if you have a long spreadsheet (say, my year's business expense tracking) with lots of columns
Click to expand...

This was added in 2.0 (I believe). And it's not particularly intuitive where it's placed (three tiny icons on the right side of the toolbar).

artistinnature said:
...
- no 'style copy/paint' brush in Numbers/Pages - I live by this tool in Office
Click to expand...

Numbers and Pages have a very similar function. Under the format menu, there's "Copy Style" and "Paste Style." To kick things up a notch, you can right click on the toolbar, which calls up a menu that includes "Customize Toolbar ..." A window appears which include icons for "Copy Style" and "Paste Style."

Just tried it out and it work quite well; an equal to what Office offers.

artistinnature said:
- no toolbar shortcuts for insert/delete rows/columns in Numbers - again, I rely heavily on these in Office (and in Word for tables)
Click to expand...

Although it's not in the toolbar, each row and column header has its own drop down menu which will let you add or delete rows and columns. It doesn't appear that there's a way to add it to the toolbar and I'd strongly suggest you or someone (or possibly lots of someones) use the Numbers feedback command to suggest it to Apple for the next revision.

mt
 
I would suggest Word over Pages - it is simply (as much as I hate to say this) more intuitive, and has a more logical layout.

It also has autosave! C'mon apple!

Edit: as I'm using pages right now, I just realized that it also has an inferior spell/grammar check, and has no readability statistics.
 
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