Is iWork a true substitute microsoft word.

[yourtoys7]

My friend wants an ipad but need microsoft word/ excell for business. This way he can add info. and work on it when not around desctop.
Will iWork work or is there anything else that can/ does work well? Thank you.

 

[deadwalrus]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B117 Safari/6531.22.7)

No.

 

[MacDawg]

No, iWork isn't a really great solution on the iPad as a Word/Excel substitute
However, you can try DocsToGo for editing documents

The iPad is really a supplement to a laptop, not a true replacement
Especially when working with with MS Office docs

 

[mloffa]

iWork on an iPad vs. Microsoft Word on a desktop is not a fair comparison.
But, to answer your question, no.

The iPad should be good for light writing.
Anything more complex should be taken elsewhere, IMO.

 

[mizvalorie]

I have found Pages is a great substitute for Words...however I have heard that numbers is not a great substitute for Excel...

 

[seajay96]

highly doubtful. None of the iPad office solutions are very robust, especially in terms of special formats in Word docs or in terms of equations/formatting in excel.

Tell him to upload a typical file to dropbox and go into an Apple store or Best Buy and try it out...I'm pretty sure one of the demos will have the iWork apps loaded on it.

 

[ditzy]

It depends on how extensive the edits are. I have had more issues editing office documents on my work laptop which runs windows XP with office 2003, than I have editing the same document with iWork apps on the iPad. But it wasn't painless either.

 

[FSUSem1noles]

I love the iWork suite, but No, it is not an adequate substitute for Word..

 

[yourtoys7]

It would be on the light side of use. Not a heavy user, but was wondering when he's away if some work can be done.

 

[vrDrew]

I caught this story on Fast Company today: Hungary Uses iPad for New Constitution:

Steve Jobs will surely be happy when he gets word that Hungary’s new constitution is being written on an iPad, actually my iPad [...] The best is I don’t have to wait for minutes to turn it on, like with a normal laptop. I can open it anywhere and can take advantage of every minute. It’s a miracle!

So, to answer the OP's question: Pages, Numbers, and Keynote are alternatives to Microsoft Office. Many things Office does, such as extensive footnotes, macros and pivot tables, etc. - the iWork suite falls short.

But if you're a right-wing Hungarian politician, and you need to bang out a new constitution capable of taking your country's shaky democratic institutions into the 21st century - without wasting precious seconds while your laptop boots - it seems it works just fine.