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Is iwork really a usble office suite.

W

Wellander

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 24, 2006
157
0
Huntington Beach Ca
Hi,
Is iwork really a usble office suite. Or do I need something like Openoffice/Neoofficej?
And what features does iwork have over the other office suites?
And are there any standalone speradsheet applications?(iwork does not include one)
Thanks.
 
Wellander said:
Hi,
Is iwork really a usble office suite. Or do I need something like Openoffice/Neoofficej?
And what features does iwork have over the other office suites?
And are there any standalone speradsheet applications?(iwork does not include one)
Thanks.
Click to expand...

Depends on how you use iWork, if it will be beneficial or not. How/when, or like for what would you use it?
 
I know it's useless to try to halt the proliferation of iWork vs. whatever threads, but suffice to say, this subject has been discussed to death and well into the afterlife in numerous other threads -- which can be easily found using the search function of these boards.
 
Wellander said:
Hi,
I am planning using it for a word processor and to make presentations.
Will it be usable?
Click to expand...

Sure, that's what it's for. OTOH, I just tried to open a heavily commented and change-tracked item in Pages and it crashed in half a second. But if you're not sharing a lot of work with others, it should be fine.
 
wordmunger said:
But if you're not sharing a lot of work with others, it should be fine.
Click to expand...

Exactly my thoughts and reccomendations... I find Pages to be much easier to use than Word, and just better ALL around, I highly reccomend it.. that is, if you do not plan on sharing documents often.

As for Keynote, I haven't used it yet so I can't comment. :eek:
 
Keynote is fantastic, and I much prefer it to Powerpoint. But everyone has to be honest with themselves... Pages blows. It is nowhere near as useful or sensical as a word processor as MS Word. Now, if I was making newsletters, Pages would be great; that's clearly what it is geared for. But it is a horrendous word processor... Apple has a lot of work to do before MS Office comes off my iMac.
 
rspeaker said:
Keynote is fantastic, and I much prefer it to Powerpoint. But everyone has to be honest with themselves... Pages blows. It is nowhere near as useful or sensical as a word processor as MS Word. Now, if I was making newsletters, Pages would be great; that's clearly what it is geared for. But it is a horrendous word processor... Apple has a lot of work to do before MS Office comes off my iMac.
Click to expand...


nah.....pages is fine for a word processor......true, there are those with "special" needs for a word processor, but for most people Pages is fine
 
It seems to me like after being an MS Office user during my Windows-using days, Keynote and Pages are both very hard to figure out. I'd love to learn how to use them, especially Keynote, because Mac makes everything so superior. I've just been so busy using Office for Mac because I'm familiar with it that I've barely touched my iWork '05. Good thing I paid the education price for it.

Daniel.
 
Macky-Mac said:
nah.....pages is fine for a word processor......true, there are those with "special" needs for a word processor, but for most people Pages is fine
Click to expand...

Didn't you get the memo? You're not allowed to like Pages.
 
Keynote is really great, you ought to just play with it a little. I much prefer it to Powerpoint, and Apple made it very simple to export Keynote files to a variety of other files. Unfortunately, PPT doesn't support all the transitions, and may require realigning text and objects. But if you can use Keynote, without exporting to PPT, goodness, it's fantastic.

I really cannot imagine anyone finding Pages truly useful as a word processor, but I suppose if one is using it for the most rudimentary tasks, or newsletter and other template projects, it is great. Maybe I need to try using it again though, because everyone seems so enamored with it.
 
rspeaker said:
Keynote is really great, you ought to just play with it a little. I much prefer it to Powerpoint, and Apple made it very simple to export Keynote files to a variety of other files. Unfortunately, PPT doesn't support all the transitions, and may require realigning text and objects. But if you can use Keynote, without exporting to PPT, goodness, it's fantastic.

I really cannot imagine anyone finding Pages truly useful as a word processor, but I suppose if one is using it for the most rudimentary tasks, or newsletter and other template projects, it is great. Maybe I need to try using it again though, because everyone seems so enamored with it.
Click to expand...

I use Pages for memos, reports, outlines, posters, fliers, and the office newsletter. I would call that useful. :D
 
dswoodley said:
I use Pages for memos, reports, outlines, posters, fliers, and the office newsletter. I would call that useful. :D
Click to expand...

Truly. ;)

Pages quickly replaced AppleWorks in my office, over a year ago. Within a few weeks I'd created templates for all of our standard reports and memos, including placeholder text and graphics. Awesome. The way it handles paragraph and text styles is the best I've seen in a long time. (The AppleWorks method drove me crazy, it was so bad.)

For some reason, Apple seems to have a problem on its hands with Pages. A lot of Mac owners seem prepared to completely dismiss it, apparently without even trying it. This is very puzzling. Very, very puzzling.
 
rspeaker said:
I really cannot imagine anyone finding Pages truly useful as a word processor, but I suppose if one is using it for the most rudimentary tasks, or newsletter and other template projects, it is great. Maybe I need to try using it again though, because everyone seems so enamored with it.
Click to expand...

just curious what exactly you use word for that pages can't do or sucks at? certainly not doubting you, just wondering where you are finding the limitations.
 
jelloshotsrule said:
just curious what exactly you use word for that pages can't do or sucks at? certainly not doubting you, just wondering where you are finding the limitations.
Click to expand...

You're assuming he's actually used it. I'm not prepared to be so generous. I suspect many of the people who dismiss Pages launched it maybe once, saw the template chooser pop up, decided that they didn't need to design a brochure or a flyer, quit, and went back to Word. Honestly, I think some Word users need a 12-step program or something, so they'll at least give half a chance to a word processor that doesn't look and behave exactly like Word.
 
Im inclined to agree. I absolutely love Pages. It has the same feel as Keynote does - letting you get on with things. Sure it doesnt have as many features as Word, but I havent come across a single instance so far where I have missed a feature not in Pages. It has all the groundwork covered for me, using it for general letters, university papers etc.

It kills me to see people reduce it to a template layout program. I have never even used those templates!
 
Being a college student and needing to share files constantly, Microsoft Office is really the choice to go with. However, iWork is a great suite if you don't need to share work and just want good results.
 
I have used Pages about half a dozen times, and was almost instantly frustrated with the way it behaved. Let's be honest though... I used it when I got my first Mac last year, so perhaps I was still enamored with Word. I still am. Maybe it's familiarity. After my first post on this thread, I opened Pages, I fooled around with it a little bit. It was okay, and I was able to find things I wanted to do much easier than last year when I used it. I told my friend in January I wanted to type up all my notes from class in Pages this semester, just to get used to it, and to ween myself of Microsoft. I haven't typed up a single word from my notes in any word processor, but I plan to get started soon, and may use Pages.

Maybe I haven't been fair to Apple. But I did try Pages, several times. Maybe not fairly, as my Mac knowledge was limited, but I tried it, and it was not as easy as say iTunes, iPhoto, or MarbleBlaster (just kidding; that game wasn't any fun for me. Not surprised Apple did away with it.) So, my decree is to give Pages another, honest shot, armed with my knowledge of Keynote and OSX. Sorry if I offended anyone, or gave a wrong impression. But to the original poster, please keep is mind iWork does not have a dedicated spreadsheet app, which may affect your purchase.

I guess I drank the MS Kool-Aid. Let's see if Apple will convince me iWork is worthy.
 
Fair enough. :)

Here's a little exercise for you to try. Open an Word document in Pages, then open the style drawer. If your Word document is of any length (and especially if it's passed through hands other than yours), it will be filled with useless, redundant and junky paragraph and text styles. Then see how easy it is to clean up the mess in Pages. A small thing, perhaps -- but one that sold me on Pages. But then, I've never really been a Word fan.
 
I think Apple needs to add a spreadsheet app to really make iWork a useable office suite.

Then they should add it as standard/free on every new Mac with pay upgrades, just like with the iLife suite.
 
m-dogg said:
I think Apple needs to add a spreadsheet app to really make iWork a useable office suite.

Then they should add it as standard/free on every new Mac with pay upgrades, just like with the iLife suite.
Click to expand...

I agree, iWork needs a spreadsheet. They could even do it in a way that would be non-threatening to Microsoft (let's face it, no one thinks iWork will seriously compete with Office). But...if they also throw in FileMaker, adding in application interoperations, then I would not hesitate to pay the same price for iWork that I would pay for Office.
 
I use Pages exclusively at home for all my college papers/projects and have turned many of them in Word Fromat without any problems (except I have to watch the fonts carefully). The only place I think that you really need Word is if there is a particular feature in Word that you need or if you must share documents with others.

Just to clarify that last statement, sharing documents is not sending a Word file to a professor. Sharing documents is when you have to collaborate on a document with others using the Track Changes feature and such. Most people don't even know how to use this function so I haven't found it to be a big issue.
 
kgarner said:
I use Pages exclusively at home for all my college papers/projects and have turned many of them in Word Fromat without any problems (except I have to watch the fonts carefully). The only place I think that you really need Word is if there is a particular feature in Word that you need or if you must share documents with others.

Just to clarify that last statement, sharing documents is not sending a Word file to a professor. Sharing documents is when you have to collaborate on a document with others using the Track Changes feature and such. Most people don't even know how to use this function so I haven't found it to be a big issue.
Click to expand...

Exactly. I would only add that using Word doesn't protect you from font issues, especially if you're going cross-platform. Only a couple of fonts are safe, and IMO they are boring and ugly. We use one text font for all of our work products, a font that I've never seen anyone else use. So for us, PDF is the only way to go for final products.
 
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