Graphs and equations

[Praetorian®]

I switched to Mac about three weeks ago. I was used to use Microsoft Office 2007 for my school work before. Now I got iWork '08 in my MacBook but I think there aren't as much graph options as in Office. It looks like iWork can do only simple financial and statistical charts, nor the mathematical graphs of functions.
As long as I need to have graphs in a printable document with some text around, I can't use only Grapher or Matlab.
Is Office 2008 like Office 2007 in the making of graphs? Or would you recommend any other software for my work?

I got same difficulty with writing equations. In Office 2007, there was equations editor but I haven't found any editor like this in Pages. I'm getting into writing equations in Grapher and paste them into Pages but it would be better to have one software for both word processing and making the graphs/equations.

I hope I won't have to install Windows+Office 2007 in my MacBook because one of the reasons why I switched to Mac was to get rid of Windows and other half-working Microsoft stuff.

 

[NAG]

Yeah, Numbers graphing isn't up to par with Excel yet, unfortunately (hopefully iWork 09 will fix that).

Office 2008 is basically Office 2007 except it lacks VBA and the UI is slightly different.

Here is an archived thread about a similar question.

 

[AppleMatt]

I use both Office 2008 and Office 2007 Ultimate on my Mac. For the latter I make use of Parallels with a minimal Windows XP install, then set to coherance mode (i.e. so Windows applications and windows run seamlessly alongside Mac ones).

I love Office: mac 2004 and was a big advocate of it. Unfortunately, IMO, on 2008 they really dropped the ball. For one, the equations you made in Office 2007 aren't compatible with Office: mac 2008.

If you've got Windows and Office legally on your PC, I'd move them over with Parallels. You'll have a familiar experience and you'll save money over buying Office: mac 2008.

That, or go for Office: mac 2004.

AppleMatt (all in my opinion)

 

[NAG]

I'd go with VMWare Fusion over parallels, personally, if you want to do the virtualization route. Either way you have to buy the virtualization software and have a valid license for windows to install.

And yeah, Office 2004 isn't really that bad. They didn't really upgrade when they went to 2008, sadly.

 

[Am3822]

Why can't you use MATLAB for the plots? If you have it and know how to use it, there should be no problem exporting the figure to a format which Pages can handle (and you could add labels and legends as much as you want in MATLAB).

By the way, if you're willing to take the plunge, why not give LyX a try? The learning curve is not as steep as in LaTeX and the resulting documents are OK.

 

[Praetorian®]

I know my University offers Matlab for free but I've never used it, so I've wanted to find some all-in-one alternative before start to learn using Matlab. It looks complicated to me.

And thanks for your LyX recommendation. I think I'll give it a try.

By the way, I tried Office 2008 trial about 2 weeks ago but it was pretty slow when I was typing. There was very very short (but still annoying) latency between time when key was pressed and time when letter appeared on screen. Is it ok in full version? Or was this issue somehow caused by my computer? (hope not)

 

[Praetorian®]

If you've got Windows and Office legally on your PC, I'd move them over with Parallels. You'll have a familiar experience and you'll save money over buying Office: mac 2008.

Yea, I got both Windows and Office legally from my University but I keep this as the last solution because I don't want to waste space on my hard drive by installing Windows+Office+Parallels if there is possibility to have just one Mac compatible software.

 

[Am3822]

If I may ask, Praetorian, what is your university subject? I know from personal experience that MATLAB is widely used in engineering (especially electrical but also mechanical, to a certain degree) and the exact science. If that is the case with you, then the time it will take you to learn how to use MATLAB would be wisely spent.

 

[Praetorian®]

If I may ask, Praetorian, what is your university subject? I know from personal experience that MATLAB is widely used in engineering (especially electrical but also mechanical, to a certain degree) and the exact science. If that is the case with you, then the time it will take you to learn how to use MATLAB would be wisely spent.

I'm studying at Faculty of Nuclear Sciences and Physical Engineering of Czech Technical University in Prague. And you're probably right that the time it will take would be wisely spent...

 

[AppleMatt]

By the way, I tried Office 2008 trial about 2 weeks ago but it was pretty slow when I was typing. There was very very short (but still annoying) latency between time when key was pressed and time when letter appeared on screen. Is it ok in full version? Or was this issue somehow caused by my computer? (hope not)

I remember this on the Office 2008 trial. It doesn't happen on my copy of Office 2008 with SP1, but I can't really definitively say it was a trial bug.

Just did a quick test, on my eight core 2.8GHz 2008 Mac Pro, Office 2007 Ultimate opens in one bounce, almost instantly. Office 2008 opens in 8 bounces and thrashes the hard-drive (both Excel).

Apart from that, 2008 is working at a completely acceptable speed. Just annoying that it's slower than 2004.

AppleMatt

 

[Praetorian®]

You said you got Parallels+Windows+Office 2007. If I may ask you, how much hard drive space does it take together?

 

[MisterMe]

I switched to Mac about three weeks ago. I was used to use Microsoft Office 2007 for my school work before. Now I got iWork '08 in my MacBook but I think there aren't as much graph options as in Office. ...

There are numerous applications on the Mac that do graphs and charts. You don't need Microsoft software. Since you are a student, I will recommend that you look at QtiPlot. It has all of the power and none of the price (as in zero) of Origin. It requires the installation of the Qt frameworks and Python 2.5, also free.