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Doing without MS Office

M

MortimerJazz

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 25, 2007
102
0
London
I'm aware that this may be a silly question, but I'm a life-long PC user thinking about converting.

Anyway, around the workplace Microsoft Office is seen as the standard package for your word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. I'm aware that there's now a Mac version for this, but the reviews of it on the Apple site aren't great.

So my question is, are the applications that come with the Mac compatible with Office? ie could I open up my Powerpoint presentation on the way home and do some work on it?

If not, could you recommend something that would? I've heard Appleworks mentioned a few times. Is that compatible?

Thanks alot for your help,
 
there's a few options

1. Microsoft Office is available for the Mac - 2004 works now and there's a new version due within the next few months

2. NeoOffice is open-source and for many of us works well as an MSOffice alternative - I use it every day. You also can't beat free (free doesn't mean limited features either - this really is an excellent app)_=]

3. iWork (produced by Apple themselves) is inexpensive and can read-write MS Office files (although, in my experience, not quite as seamlessly as NeoOffice can). It includes a word processor (pages), spreadsheet (numbers) and an excellent presentations app called Keynote.

Edit: I guess I should mention that I'm a Mac-based user working in a largely Windows environment. I really don't have any problems at all exchanging files with Windows users. The only thing I _would_ add to the above is that if powerpoint is your primary concern, you might be best going for MS Office itself - both NeoOffice and Keynote can handle powerpoint files, but it's not quite as straightforward as sharing Word or Excel files.
 
Most Mac word processors can open Word documents. Pages and Keynote can read and write Office files. However, if you need to collaborate with people using Office, or be certain that your documents will look exactly the same in Office as they do to you, then you should get the Mac version of Office.
 
If you buy Microsoft Office 2004 now from the Apple Online Store you get a free upgrade to Microsoft Office 2008 when it is released.

Personally though I would just get iWork '08. It really is great application and it looks great to boot.
 
MortimerJazz said:
.... I'm aware that there's now a Mac version for this, but the reviews of it on the Apple site aren't great.

So my question is, are the applications that come with the Mac compatible with Office? ie could I open up my Powerpoint presentation on the way home and do some work on it?

...
Click to expand...
Microsoft Word has been available for the Mac since 1984. Microsoft Excel originated on the Mac and was ported to Windows. Microsoft's Mac applications tend to be more compatible with their Windows counterparts than one Windows version of a Microsoft application is with a different Windows version. Except for a couple of gotchas, PowerPoint on the Mac is fully-compatible with PowerPoint for Windows. Before playing back a presentation created on a different platform, you should go through and check formatting for dingbat (used primarily for bullets) and symbol characters. Microsoft chose not to make the character mapping of dingbats and inserted symbols compatible across platforms even if you have these fonts properly installed. This tends to be a minor annoyance and is easily rectified.
 
Depends how you use Office. If youre advance user NOTHING comes close to Office. But if youre the casual users then go with neooffice.
 
My wife and I are pretty heavy MS Office users due to our work environments. I switched to Mac last year and have been fighting hard to get her to use it... but she won't because it's not fully compatible with all of her Office files and formats.

Someone might say, "minor inconvenience" but for some the reality is that these incompatibilities are extremely annoying. In my wife's case they are show stoppers and she won't consider using the mac. Busy professionals have better things to do than fiddle-fart around. The computer is a tool to get work done...

Anyway... the point is that I have tried to make iWork and NeoOffice work for compatibility but I'll most likely hunker down and buy Office for Mac and hope it is 100% compatible. Then maybe my wife will start using the Mac.
 
miles01110 said:
Just get office- it's worth it solely because of Excel. No free alternative (NeoOffice, OpenOffice) comes close to Excel.

For Word Processing just install LateX packages and use TeXShop.
Click to expand...

If you are a heavy Excel user, then it really is quite necessary...NeoOffice is fantastic though, and so is iWork :)
 
Curren~Sea said:
My wife and I are pretty heavy MS Office users due to our work environments. I switched to Mac last year and have been fighting hard to get her to use it... but she won't because it's not fully compatible with all of her Office files and formats.

...
Click to expand...
You are talking, but you are not saying anything. Exactly what are the problems that your wife is having? I can't recall the last time I had a problem with a Word or Excel file that had been produced by a competent author. I included this caveat because Office applications are big, badly written, and provide lots of ways to screw-up. And as I stated in my previous post, you can expect fewer compatibility issues with Office:mac and any version of Office:win up through Office 2003 than between any two versions of Office:win. If we knew your issues, then you might find a lot of help here.
 
I'd also suggest using MS office for the mac.
while the alternatives to MS office surely are great (I have tried open office already in my pc days) it just is more comfortable using MS office if you have to share your files with windows people.

There also are few threads here and there where compatibility issues are discussed...I personally haven't encountered any when I was trying out neo office and open office but apparently it can happen.

byakuya
 
MisterMe said:
You are talking, but you are not saying anything. Exactly what are the problems that your wife is having? I can't recall the last time I had a problem with a Word or Excel file that had been produced by a competent author. I included this caveat because Office applications are big, badly written, and provide lots of ways to screw-up. And as I stated in my previous post, you can expect fewer compatibility issues with Office:mac and any version of Office:win up through Office 2003 than between any two versions of Office:win. If we knew your issues, then you might find a lot of help here.
Click to expand...

The incompabilities we experience happen all the time with graphics and bulleted lists as well as font and general formatting. I'm talking about NeoOffice and Word. As for competency this is a non-issue. We work with hundreds of other individuals who all use Word/Excel/PP and whether or not they are "competent" at Office applications doesn't matter. What matters is the work that needs to get done and the effort required to do it. Nobody wants to spend (waste) precious time on software incompatibilties.
 
Curren~Sea said:
The incompabilities we experience happen all the time with graphics and bulleted lists as well as font and general formatting. I'm talking about NeoOffice and Word. As for competency this is a non-issue. We work with hundreds of other individuals who all use Word/Excel/PP and whether or not they are "competent" at Office applications doesn't matter. What matters is the work that needs to get done and the effort required to do it. Nobody wants to spend (waste) precious time on software incompatibilties.
Click to expand...

Personally, I don't like wasting precious time fixing formatting problems created by Office users with competency issues. This can be a bigger barrier to work getting done than "incompatibilities."
 
I like iWork but then the only app I use is Numbers...was not a big fan of NeoOffice.
 
iWork 08 and NeoOffice

I have tons of Word and Excel files that I use for work and for clients; iWork 08 works on them most of the time and when it can't NeoOffice works fine. I think I will get the new Mac MS Office when it comes out, just to have for extreme cases, but it is a bitter pill.
 
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