iWork '09... Goodbye to Office '08???

[benspratling]

Until iWorks offers to "save as" PDF, .doc, .docx, ect It isn't much use to me.

Understanding File Formats: FAIL

When iwork 09 comes out for windows it may push Office out the market a little tiny incy wincy bit but i doubt thats ever going to happen and i doubt the industry standards going to be dropped any time this decade.

.doc vs. .docx: FAIL.

And until iwork allows me to seriously work with references, ......, it's useless to me.
Long live office 08

Visiting www.apple.com/iWork/ before commenting on it: FAIL

iWork '09 is very nice and can be used full-time assuming you don't need to share your documents with any PC user,

Visiting www.apple.com/iWork/ before commenting on it: FAIL

 

[Gray-Wolf]

From what I remember, as long as you can print in a program you can save to PDF. It's under the print settings not save.

Also, you can save to .doc in pages. Go to file > export not file > save. I don't know if pages 09 will do docx yet but I thought they added it (terrible format anyway).

The only real problem with using Pages instead of Word is for those moron companies who require documents to be in .doc. Pages gets most of the formatting right but not all of it so it looks a little different in Word. This is especially frustrating with resumes. That's what PDF is for!

Word has more to "Save as". Exporting, is not the best way to deal with it, when you are doing updates to documents.

 

[nanoboy]

Don't see any problems between .pages and .doc round trips

Well, it's certainly more of a standard than Pages files. You can hand someone a .doc file and they usually find a way of opening it. Not so with many other formats.

i use Pages '08 exclusively, and work with Word and Windows users mainly my supervisor when writing research papers in collaboration.

I export my work from my .pages file into .doc file and email it to him. He edited it (with track changes on) and emails his .doc file back to me. I open the .doc in Pages, everything's there (track changes) and no alteration to any formating.

When you talk about industry standards, the parties involved in the collaboration should understand what the bare minimum standards currently out there is and choose to use it. At the moment it is the MS 2003/04 .doc file format. It is fully compatible with Pages '08.

Even MS 2007 (Windows alone) .docx is not fully compatible with the MS 2003 (Windows alone) .doc in terms of formatting or displaying inserted equations. Let alone cross-platform. So the industry standards for now is NOT .docx.

As a personal experience, the only thing to take note of in using Pages and do the export/import to .doc roundtrips, is that when inserting pictures, do not use "float about text" or "wrap around text", just untick these in the Inspector after you have inserted a picture. Everything else is perfectly fine.

 

[lamadude]

Visiting www.apple.com/iWork/ before commenting on it: FAIL

When I said I wanted a reference manager in pages I meant built IN into pages, not just compatibility with endnote. Word 2008 has a built in reference manager. Also you didn't adress my problem that I can't easily switch the spell check language, which I absolutely need since I'm writing a thesis in 4 languages.

Wanting to push iWork over office with little regard to what people say they are needing: FAIL!
I know what pages can do and I visited the site, it just doesn't have the features I need.

 

[xUKHCx]

I have never used Office on any regular basis

If you have used it regularly in the last few years you would realise the compatibility complaints you have leveled at office are essentially not true or are no where near as bad as you make out.

I have shared documents with many people and I usually see the end results both on their computer screen and as a print out from their computers. Over the course of the past 3 years I have only once had an issue with non compabaility and that was a colour issue on a drawing where a black line turned up red. This was with complex documents with lots of cross referencing, images, emdedded excel charts. Am I slightly luckier than others perhaps. The last couple versions of Office have improved this area a hell of a lot. I tried to switch to pages but the constant switching between formats and exporting and then rechecking the documents to see if they were correct etc. became a nightmare.

Yes Pages has come on a lot since it was first introduced and yes you can use as a replacement.(I really can't stress this enough) It all comes down to personal circumstances. If you are a big excel/word user Pages/Numbers isn't really up to it. If you can create documents that you have total control over then Pages is great and can make really good looking documents (although Word can also, just takes a bit more bashing). It is an OK* tool at the moment.

*It will remain as such until they add inbuilt autosave like TextEdit has rather than relying on third party scripting to do the job.


So in answer to the original question, I am not sure how well MathType works with Pages 09. It would be worthwhile testing it out and checking how well it carries across to .docs. If it does to your satification then by all means switch but I would keep Office around on you mac as a fall back.

 

[Macmanus]

I personnaly prefer the lightness of Pages over Word 08 heavy machinery. Opens very quickly. Have not tested Pages with long documents though.

But the main reason I stick with Office is the poor integration of French typo in Pages (I mean unbreakable spaces), which is automatic in Word. Same problem in Mellel, a great soft otherwise.

BTW, It's wrong to say people mainly use Endnote for footnotes. A lot of us use Bookends, a much cheaper alternative.

I'm waiting for the next version of Office, and Word à la Word 2007, with a ribbon interface and much much more faster launch.

 

[Diaresi]

To get equations and bibliographies, you have to spend $350.

So, it's $450 for what you can get in Office 2008 for $110 from Amazon.

Way To Go Apple! *




*If you have a sarcasm detector, it should've blown up by now...

 

[IJ Reilly]

If you have used it regularly in the last few years you would realise the compatibility complaints you have leveled at office are essentially not true or are no where near as bad as you make out.

You haven't really refuted my argument that if you stick to simple formatting and common fonts, you'll have no significant problems sharing documents either between versions of Word or Pages. Since this is what most people actually do in the real world, this is the reason why they do not encounter major issues, and the more minor ones, they probably never hear about. But again, if you take advantage of the features unique to any of these word processors (including the many versions of Word), and in particular if you deviate from the most basic pallet of fonts which you are certain will be on the computers of every person who may look at the document, then you will encounter formatting issues which over which you simply have no control. To me that's an intolerable restriction, which is why I recommend using the word processor you prefer, and sending others PDF files to view.

 

[Sesshi]

I don't think that was what the OP was asking.

No one doubts that MS Office will be around for ever and a day.

OP:
Can you now use iWork 09 instead of MS Office?

For me, the answer is yes.
But then again my needs are pretty simple. No huge spreadsheets or mass mail merges to '000s.

And Keynote is a lovely lovely program.

I use to think so as well, but ever since I moved the bulk of my work over to Windows and have forced myself to use Powerpoint instead of Keynote - I'm not so sure. Of course very simple, visually arresting results are Keynote's fortes... but in terms of incorporating information from other sources and also in terms of ultimate presentation flexibility, I'm having to give considerable props to Powerpoint.

It's an interesting result, because I started putting together a lot more presentations myself when I started using Keynote, whereas before I used to sit in front of a Powerpoint window and think 'WTF do I do now?' far, far more often. However once I'd attained a certain degree of presentation-fu as it were with Keynote, I found that Powerpoint ultimately does a better job.

I give myself the option by being able to use both iWork and Office (Mac & PC), but if I had to choose one suite it would definitely be Office under Windows.

Like I see much of Apple software, it's turned out to be a bit like a set of training wheels. Somewhat basic but gets the job done in a very pretty way by putting more power into the hands of the relatively clueless starter - and ends up, if you are a learner, preparing you for less easy to get into stuff which delivers superior results. Whether people make that switch, having donned the training wheels is... well, your call. Even mine was kind of forced, as if it weren't for machine logistics problems I would have stuck with Keynote.

As for the other components, well I have Word-fu and Excel-fu aplenty. For that reason, Pages is just a useful jotter / infosheet maker for quick and nice results(once again the Keynote / Powerpoint comparison), and Numbers - never used.

 

[IJ Reilly]

So, it's $450 for what you can get in Office 2008 for $110 from Amazon.

That's for the Home/Student edition of Office. If you're going to be honest (but why bother?), then the price of an academic package for iWork, EndNote, and MathType, is closer to $200.

And it seems to me from all of the iWork discussions we've had here in the past, that the main complaint from academics about Pages was the lack of EndNote support, which evidently is the method they prefer to use with Word to construct bibliographies. Feel free to check my work on this, but it seems to me that the cost of using EndNote with Word or with Pages will be almost exactly the same.

 

[Brammy]

That's for the Home/Student edition of Office. If you're going to be honest (but why bother?), then the price of an academic package for iWork, EndNote, and MathType, is closer to $200.

And it seems to me from all of the iWork discussions we've had here in the past, that the main complaint from academics about Pages was the lack of EndNote support, which evidently is the method they prefer to use with Word to construct bibliographies. Feel free to check my work on this, but it seems to me that the cost of using EndNote with Word or with Pages will be almost exactly the same.

My uni gives out Endnote free. Unfortunately, they are still offering X1 which doesn't work with Pages. I'm not sure how many schools have a license agreement where they can offer it free for their students.

 

[Diaresi]

That's for the Home/Student edition of Office. If you're going to be honest (but why bother?), then the price of an academic package for iWork, EndNote, and MathType, is closer to $200.

Ya what? Home/Student = Either for home or for a student... You don't have to be an academic to buy that.

To get academic prices on iWork, EndNote & MathType, guess what, you do.

Make a better, non-failing argument. Or how about $50-$60 for Office 2008 academic pricing (I don't know the exact price, but it's around £40 here if you can find a way to get).

Either way, it still cost LOTS to go with a sub-par Apple product...

 

[macrem]

I have not tried iWork and ditched MS Office a LONG time ago in favor of OpenOffice. It's free, it works, and it keeps getting better. It opens .doc(x), .xls(x), .ppt(x) etc., etc. You cannot save yet as Office 2007/8 (e.g., .docx) but who cares, .doc is the de facto standard in the office world.

 

[nanoboy]

To get equations and bibliographies, you have to spend $350.

So, it's $450 for what you can get in Office 2008 for $110 from Amazon.

Way To Go Apple! *

*If you have a sarcasm detector, it should've blown up by now...

Equations from the equation editor in OpenOffice is very good, personally it's better to use (as you can just type syntax) than MS equation editor. Then what I do is to export the equation from OpenOffice as an image, paste into Pages. Image format is good so that the equations will be guaranteed to look the same in different machines or printings.

As for bibliographies, cheaper alternative is Bookends (already mentioned in earlier post), it costed me only £35, and it works with Pages. Bookend is easy to use, and for me it does exactly the same job as Endnotes.

The built in reference manager in MS Office 2008 is not useable IMO, and don't know of anyone in my work environment who uses them (everyone uses Endnote).

So, iWork '09 + Bookends, is cheaper than MS Office 2008. And arguably, nicer to use.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Ya what? Home/Student = Either for home or for a student... You don't have to be an academic to buy that.

To get academic prices on iWork, EndNote & MathType, guess what, you do.

Make a better, non-failing argument. Or how about $50-$60 for Office 2008 academic pricing (I don't know the exact price, but it's around £40 here if you can find a way to get).

Either way, it still cost LOTS to go with a sub-par Apple product...

Trolling as suspected.

It costs exactly the same to use EndNote with Word or Pages. If you are buying Office neither for home nor academic purposes, you aren't entitled to the home/student price.

 

[BWhaler]

The only reason I have Office on my computer anymore is Excel. I love Keynote, and I really like Pages. With the 09 version, I hope that I come to love Pages too.

For me, the issue was Numbers. The original version was not powerful or fast enough.

I have purchased iWork 09, and have it installed, but have not used it yet.

I suspect Numbers 09 is a huge step in the right direction, but will still need one more major update. I think speed and ability to link between spreadsheets will be required in Numbers 2010, in addition to a few other features to make it a true Excel replacement.

With all that said, I am hopeful for Numbers and the entire iWork suite. I love iWork, so I am so happy to see Apple doing so much innovation in this area. I expect to dump MSOffice with iWork 2010, and keep buying those iWork updates every year like I do iLife....

 

[dukebound85]

if only open office supported iwork documents in their native formats

 

[SnowLeopard2008]

For Mac users, iWork '09 means no more Office '08. For Windows users, iWork '09 means nothing except that they should have more incentive to buy a Mac.

 

[dukebound85]

For Mac users, iWork '09 means no more Office '08. For Windows users, iWork '09 means nothing except that they should have more incentive to buy a Mac.

unless of course you need office

 

[Ghil]

I think Open Office 3 (version Goo no less ) is the clear winner for me. It does everything, is light on resources, keeps getting better... and it's free!

 

[IJ Reilly]

unless of course you need office

Most people who think they need Office only think they need Office.

 

[Michael CM1]

Until iWorks offers to "save as" PDF, .doc, .docx, ect It isn't much use to me.

There's a special place in hell for people who use that blasted .docx format. Also, you can save as .doc in iWork and at the very least print to PDF.

On the overall issue of iWork, I love it based on the trial version. It doesn't look like some ported POS and have a ton of junk at the top to waste screen space. The resume template I used worked very well and made my resume look so much nicer as it sits on my hard drive and gains eDust.

Apple should really make an ad pitch on iWork to home users who really just need to type documents. There is NO reason to spend $150 on even the Student/Teacher version of Office when you can get iWork for about half that. I get the more "professional" users needing the Microsoft flavor for extra features, but so far it seems good enough for me.

 

[Gray-Wolf]

There's a special place in hell for people who use that blasted .docx format. Also, you can save as .doc in iWork and at the very least print to PDF.

Eventually, everyone will be using a newer version of Word, which will include .docx As to print to PDF, not everyone can edit a PDF, a .doc, .docx, .rtf can be edited.

 

[dukebound85]

There is NO reason to spend $150 on even the Student/Teacher version of Office when you can get iWork for about half that. I get the more "professional" users needing the Microsoft flavor for extra features, but so far it seems good enough for me.

There is no reason for iwork when theres open office either eh. may as well save that 80 from iworks right

 

[eldervovichka]

Not quite yet. Pages just pales in comparison, but it does have a hell of a lot of potential! Though, Keynote walks all over powerpoint.

Microsoft Word + Keynote = Great team.
Dan x

Add Excel in to this equation and this is the best. Word + Keynote + Excel = all you need!!!

Jeff