You haven't looked at Office 2007 lately have you? MS majorly revamped the UI. I hate it but don't hold your breath expecting ANOTHER UI revamp anytime soon.
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iWork '07 with Spreadsheet (Screenshot)
- Thread starter DavidLeblond
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You haven't looked at Office 2007 lately have you? MS majorly revamped the UI. I hate it but don't hold your breath expecting ANOTHER UI revamp anytime soon.
I use Pages 06 on a daily basis, multiple times a day. I also have MSWord but it is a rare thing for me to use it. When iWork first came out I was so excited but was really disappointed with it. I had to force myself to use it and now it is my app of choice for so many projects. I use it for notes, letters, lite DTP and more.
I wish that you were able to set some defaults with the lists and bullets and in some other areas.
Hopefully, this will be a major update to Pages.
Keynote is very good already. One thing I would like to see is the export to FLA to be able to include transistions.
I wish that you were able to set some defaults with the lists and bullets and in some other areas.
Hopefully, this will be a major update to Pages.
Keynote is very good already. One thing I would like to see is the export to FLA to be able to include transistions.
Another reason to like iWork
Well, you really don't have an option now do you? You can thank Microsoft for that. Micrsoft loves to force you to buy over priced outdated software. Be grateful you can run Parallels to do more advanced work, since the OS X version sucks.
You should also be grateful that Apple is subtly, but forcefully, putting pressure on Microsoft by releasing iWork. By not attempting to make iWork a professional office suite, it gives Microsoft an incentive to keep developing Office on the Mac, but at the same time, Apple could easily take that space from them by creating a Pro version of iWork, so it's also an incentive for Microsoft to keep improving their software. I didn't really make that point in my last post, but it's another reason why I like iWork. Apple is making very intellegent business decsions that benefit their customers.
That is unacceptable as a solution. It's a shame that this seems to be the only solution for an increasing number of things on the Mac. Rather than getting real OS X Cocoa apps we are having to run Windows now to get fully powered apps such as for personal finance, CAD, etc, and now for productivity (word processing, etc). What a shame
Well, you really don't have an option now do you? You can thank Microsoft for that. Micrsoft loves to force you to buy over priced outdated software. Be grateful you can run Parallels to do more advanced work, since the OS X version sucks.
You should also be grateful that Apple is subtly, but forcefully, putting pressure on Microsoft by releasing iWork. By not attempting to make iWork a professional office suite, it gives Microsoft an incentive to keep developing Office on the Mac, but at the same time, Apple could easily take that space from them by creating a Pro version of iWork, so it's also an incentive for Microsoft to keep improving their software. I didn't really make that point in my last post, but it's another reason why I like iWork. Apple is making very intellegent business decsions that benefit their customers.
I like how you price compare with educationaly priced software. The fact is that most OS X users don't qualify for that discount and if you buy and use the software without qualifying for it you are stealing. Office for OS X is between $400 - $500! It's outragously priced for what you get. So the premise of you argument is flawed. iWork is still only $70.
I think there's no doubt in anyone's mind that Office has a lot more features than iWork. Office also costs US$321 more than iWork ($400 - 79). What people really need to be asking themselves is whether the extra features in Office are worth paying five times the price. Even if you already have a copy of Office, the price of an office upgrade is still close to three times the price of iWork.
Personally, the only thing I use in MS office that is not available in iWork is spreadsheets. Keynote is teriffic and Pages, while it doesn't do everything, does everything I need it to do (without a bunch of features I never use getting in the way). If Apple's spreadsheet can do that, they will replace office on my mac -- and save me a couple hundred dollars in the process.
Personally, the only thing I use in MS office that is not available in iWork is spreadsheets. Keynote is teriffic and Pages, while it doesn't do everything, does everything I need it to do (without a bunch of features I never use getting in the way). If Apple's spreadsheet can do that, they will replace office on my mac -- and save me a couple hundred dollars in the process.
wow, i don't remember how many users have said that,
1. Im in shcool, teaching or studying, I bought education ver. legally
2. if macmall is listing it, and not asking for proof, and ppl buy it, what do you suggest?
3. it would be really interesting to see the numbers about how many ppl who own M$ office is currently in school, and how many is buying with a eduction discount (no matter they are in school or not)
4. if u wanna compare to M$ office, price is a factor, function is another one, you can't keep saying "iWork isn't designed to compete with M$ Office" while using the rhetoric of "iWork is cheaper than M$ Office".
I bought my first Mac last March and at the time I purchased Office. A few months later I purchased iWork. After trying to use Pages as the first choice for word processing, when away from work, I can honestly say that Pages seriously lags behind Word. I hope Pages is severly updated to have at least half the features of Word. If it contained the basic word processing functions, then Steve and the rest of Apple could claim a success in the new version.
Sometimes I think the folks at MicroSoft forget that we don't all have two 20+ inch widescreen displays hanging off the back of our machines...
Sometimes I think the folks at MicroSoft forget that we don't all have two 20+ inch widescreen displays hanging off the back of our machines...
this is exactly same problem with IE6, its toolbar occupy way too much space.
but, I kinda feel Office 2007 would allow you to rearrange the toolbar, does it?
Yep.
My favorite word processor is still FullWrite Professional. Simple clean interface. I am not an icon fan. I prefer menus. What I really like about FullWrite Professional is that special menus appear when you need them. They show up at the end of the Menu bar so it is very easy to locate and use them.
And it was programmed in assembly language so it is fast and takes up very little space on your HD.
One thing that I do not like about MSFT Office is the difference between the Windows and Mac versions. My favorite versions of both were 97 PC and 98 Mac. They had the same interface so it was so easy to go from Mac to PC and vice versa.
Today Office is getting so bloated. But unfortunately, no other suite package can compare to features. And very few are cross platform.
I would love to see a start up that would create an office suite that would run on Mac, Windows and Linux with total file, menu/icon, and feature compatibility. And of course it could open and write Word, Excel and PowerPoint files seamlessly.
I couldn't agree more. I own and run my business using Pages and it intergrates just fine in the PC world. Some the Pagees bashing are from those who want Apple to become MS. I hope we don't. Apple keep doing what you are doing. I look forward to iWork 07 and using Apples first entry into spreadsheets in quite some time.
I didn't imply you were personally using software illegally and if it came across that way I apologize. However, the licensing agreement for educationaly discounted software states you must be a full time student or teacher, and for you to make the price comparison assumes nothing is wrong for others to use this software who do not qualify; and that assumption is ethically wrong. Just because you can find a vendor that doesn't inforce this policy doesn't make it acceptable to recieve a discount for which you are not eligible for. It is this that I object too, for your whole arguments rests on an unethical premise.
As far as numbers and percentages of student/teachers, you are a minority, to suggest otherwise would be ludicrous.
I only mention iWork's price to demonstrate that it's a reasonably priced software package by comparison to Microsoft's $400-$500 package. The fact that Office offers more advanced features can not possibly justify such a huge price disparity; in addition to the fact that they haven't updated it in over 4 years just makes it worse! I have no where in my posts stated that the two products are comparable in any way other than iWork offers a more useful subset of functionality at a more reasonable price. If you actually read my posts you would see that my whole argument revolves around features vrs. price not rhetoric; Apple has priced it's software resonably with the feature set it offers, Microsoft on the other hand has not.
I second that entirely. Would be very cool indeed, especially if export file sizes are low.
Oh for sure! That "icon" makes or breaks whether I use this app or that app to get my work done.
ClarisWorks --> Appleworks
Many thanks for all you did with this programme. I have iWorks and keep an eye on its development, but after a short use of Pages, I went back to Appleworks.
I run a small business totally in Appleworks and find that it does (almost) everything I need. WP is just for letters, I use WP with embedded spreadsheet for billing (including automatically generating a billing number). I can include calculating tables with Pages, but it is neat and simple in AW. All business calculations are easily done in AW spreadsheet. For reports, Pages ability to automatically make "contents" is nice, but not essential.
One of my clients (a huge organization with thousands of employees) communicates by Word which I open with Pages and reply by exporting to Word. Nothing I have ever received from them requires more than is in AW. I also get information from them in Excel which I open with Word for Mac (only used under extreme need). Again, nothing that AW couldn't do.
My point is that for many, including in my business, there is no need for all that Word or Excel offers.
(I was going to name myself ProDos in remembrance of the early years, but my wife thought it might be misconstrued!)
Many thanks for all you did with this programme. I have iWorks and keep an eye on its development, but after a short use of Pages, I went back to Appleworks.
I run a small business totally in Appleworks and find that it does (almost) everything I need. WP is just for letters, I use WP with embedded spreadsheet for billing (including automatically generating a billing number). I can include calculating tables with Pages, but it is neat and simple in AW. All business calculations are easily done in AW spreadsheet. For reports, Pages ability to automatically make "contents" is nice, but not essential.
One of my clients (a huge organization with thousands of employees) communicates by Word which I open with Pages and reply by exporting to Word. Nothing I have ever received from them requires more than is in AW. I also get information from them in Excel which I open with Word for Mac (only used under extreme need). Again, nothing that AW couldn't do.
My point is that for many, including in my business, there is no need for all that Word or Excel offers.
(I was going to name myself ProDos in remembrance of the early years, but my wife thought it might be misconstrued!)
No doubt iWork is reasonably priced. I use Pages the majority of the time and enjoy it although I hope to see improvements in speed, use of inspector, floating windows, etc.
Where I work, we can get MS apps such as Mac Office for $20. Most people I know that work for medium to large companies get this deal as well. It's kind of a sneaky (smart) corporate world thing that MS does. As long as I work where I work now, I can use the software. Leave and I am supposed to remove it from my computer.
I constantly use Pages in the corporate world to FIX Word documents that have been totally destroyed and corrupted in regards to Styles and formatting. Then I convert them back into .doc or pdf format and all is good. Easy schmeezy. I know few people that can fix those things directly in Word. I gave up long ago although I do use Word a lot.
They've had versions since BYTE magazine was still alive (7 years ago?) that would take up all but one line with toolbars.
Clearly, something different would be indicated. Someone complained to me the other day about the way Pages works but couldn't describe anything. The only thing I can surmise is that different is wrong.
I'm certainly glad to see that iWork is progressing. It's interesting to get beta software in a retail package but it's still inexpensive and it would be quite a bit more money for such software otherwise.
I would agree that Pages is more of a toy however I doubt the same thing can be said about Keynote, give me that over Powerpoint anyday!
Agreed. Pages may not play in the same space as Word, however I would argue that Keynote one-ups PowerPoint in pretty much every way and succeeds at being a legitimate alternative and direct competitor to PowerPoint.
There is OpenOffice or NeoOffice I havn't used them enough to know if they have as many features as M$ Office.
The problem is: When you don't qualify for the educational discount, you could use a pirated copy from bittorrent as well. It doesn't make a difference, legally, how you break the license agreement.
Google
Google's Docs & Spreadsheets doesn't seem to be Safari friendly-that's why I don't use it on my Mac.
I bet the charts will be of similar quality to Keynote's.
Google's Docs & Spreadsheets doesn't seem to be Safari friendly-that's why I don't use it on my Mac.
I bet the charts will be of similar quality to Keynote's.