Is iWork really that bad?

[Forkjulle]

I'm considering buying iWork because I like iCloud and the design/integration of Apple stuff.

I'm not a heavy user; just the month-end invoices and some documents / spreadsheets here and there.

Surely iWork is good enough?

 

[GGJstudios]

Surely iWork is good enough?

Sure it is.

I prefer MS Office for Mac, for maximum compatibility with Windows users. If you don't want MS Office for some reason, there are many alternatives, such as iWork, NeoOffice, LibreOffice, OpenOffice, Google Docs, etc. Searching the forum will reveal dozens of threads discussing these various alternatives and the pros and cons of each, such as this small sampling:

MS Office 2011 and Retina Display
Microsoft Office 2011 on Retina Macbook Pro
Microsoft office on retinaMountain Lion & MS Office 2011
Microsoft Confirms Office 2011 and 2008 Compatibility with OS X Mountain Lion
Microsoft office 2011 compatable with mountain lion?
Poll: iWork vs Office vs something else
Office or iWorks?
iWork (09?) VS Office 2011 for Mac
Office 2011 Mac vs iWorks?
iWork 09 vs Office 2011 on MBA
Poll: MS Office for Mac 2011 vs iWork
Poll: Office or iWork?
iWork vs MS Office 2011 for the basic user​

 

[r0k]

I'm considering buying iWork because I like iCloud and the design/integration of Apple stuff.

I'm not a heavy user; just the month-end invoices and some documents / spreadsheets here and there.

Surely iWork is good enough?

The answer is, it depends. I like iWork better than MS Office. But there is a small caveat. Some documents created on Windows versions of Office won't quite come across. Sometimes LibreOffice does better and sometimes iWork apps do better. But there are a few isolated incidents where neither quite do the job. I prefer to do without since I have MS Office at work and I'd really rather not have MS software on my Mac, the fact that MS Office was first developed for the Mac notwithstanding.

 

[DakotaGuy]

I prefer Office for Mac because when it comes to compatibility with my Windows computer at work I know it's just going to work. I also know if I send a Word, Excel or PowerPoint document to a co-worker or my boss from my Mac it is going to look right on their PC. Your needs might be different and iWork might be acceptable for you.

 

[ErdnaseMac]

depends

It really depends on what you want to use it for and which of the applications you are referring to:
I found numbers to be pretty bad compared to excel.
Pages does a good job with formatting and layout, it is very easy to use and you can directly export every page as is to PDF, which I find a very usefull feature. However, it does not include cross-referencing which makes it a bad choice if you are writing something scientific.

Keynote for me is far better than PowerPoint as here the way it looks and animations are created are the key issues.

Best
Nase

 

[throAU]

As above it depends.

If you're a small business or just doing home stuff, numbers will probably be fine.

Otherwise, it is no match for something like Excel.


However the good news is that the apps are cheap. I'd give numbers a shot and see if it is good enough for you. If not, try LibreOffice or OpenOffice or whatever they call it these days.