iWork (09?) VS Office 2011 for Mac

[jlc1978]

This isn't even a contest. The world uses Microsoft Office for Windows, and the only thing that is fully compatible with Office is... Office.

True - most of the time. There are times when moving docs from Mac<->Windows version of Office will result in problems, for example, such as corrupted tables in Word or text font size changes in PP. Even going from one version of Office to another on the same platform can cause incompatibilities or problems.

It doesn't matter whether iWork is a nice suite of applications (it -is- nice). It also doesn't matter that OpenOffice.org does almost the same job as Microsoft Office FOR FREE.

What matters is that none of the alternatives work well enough in the real, networked business and academic world where people DO exchange documents with each other. And iWork and OpenOffice.org most of the time hopelessly screw up text formats and other settings of a document.

Here I disagree - OO can be used in an undergraduate environment quite successfully. Most documents are simple papers / presentations with very little complex text or layouts. OO works just fine, and exchanging Doc files as rtf works well, for example. If you need more complex capabilities then OO or iWorks is less useful in an Office-centric world; but to say "none of the alternatives work well enough ... most of the time hopelessly screw up ... a document" is not correct. All of the tools we mentioned can function well if they are aligned to the task and environment in which they are used.

You don't have to like this. I don't like it either. But life in the business world is easier when you use the same language and tools. And Microsoft owns the desktop tools market. End of discussion.

True. Office rules on the desktop; but that is no reason to end discussion, unless you live north of the Weißwurstgrenze.

 

[jmgregory1]

I've been using iWork exclusively for the past 4 years - prior to that was using Office (mac and pc versions) since they hit the market. I have to say, anyone that says it's a challenge to convert files from iWork to Office must not know how to use iWork. You can simply share/send file as word/excel/ppt - not do anything.

I've not had any compatibility issues and when importing, I recently proved out the value and performance of Keynote when a colleague tried to run a ppt presentation using Office for Mac on his MBP. He created the file, but couldn't get it to run. He sent the file to me, I opened it and ran it perfectly on Keynote.

The only thing I'll comment Apple should address is making Numbers a bit more robust. There are some limitations that I think they implemented to make it more consumer friendly, not pro friendly, but otherwise I see very little reason to go back to Office.

In cases where I've gotten Office files I couldn't open (with Word, maybe once or twice a year), the solution I've used is to upload the file to google docs. Seems to work great and then I just download the file from google as a word file and it's fine.

iWork really just seems much easier to use, more elegant and simple, which is perfect as I'm simply creating business spreadsheets, proposals and presentations.

 

[ombrenelcielo]

Unfortunately Office for Mac lacks of some features that are indeed included in the Windows version.
I am talking about some Excel advanced tools.
So for me is always a struggle between working with Office under parallels (I use other tools not Mac compatible for my workflow) / working with iWork straight from Mac..

I think that Numbers and Pages are quite good and comparable with their equivalents for Windows.

 

[kdum8]

Unfortunately Office for Mac lacks of some features that are indeed included in the Windows version.
I am talking about some Excel advanced tools.

Can you elaborate further as to which Excel features are missing in the OS X version?

 

[r0k]

Can you elaborate further as to which Excel features are missing in the OS X version?

I have found that a few times we would receive documents in Word or Powerpoint format that simply couldn't open properly on iWork or OOO. For this reason, I reluctantly put Office 2011 on my wife's Mac. It only cost me $10 but I still felt like it was $10 too much. Some months later, when her HDD got wiped, I "forgot" to put it back when I restored the rest of her stuff. I dislike it that much.

But in all honesty, while Keynote seems superior to Powerpoint in every way, there are a handful of features that are either missing or hard to find in Pages and Numbers. One example is the ability to sort a spreadsheet by the contents of a single column. Another example is the ability to embed files. This is something that bothers me to no end, but at work people insist on embedding dozens of files in their MS Office documents and I've not found that I can reliably deal with those embedded files without Office. I'm sorry I can't give examples of specific Excel features on Windows that are missing in Office 2011 but perhaps someone who has used it more will come along.

I found a review of Office 2011 on pcmag's web site but I think it is somewhat telling that the editors gave '2011 a glowing review of 4.5 / 5 stars but users gave it 2 / 5 stars.

I have found LOTS of articles and posts saying there are "few missing features" in Office 2011 but no specifics, unfortunately.

 

[snberk103]

... handful of features that are either missing or hard to find in Pages and Numbers. One example is the ability to sort a spreadsheet by the contents of a single column. ....

I don't use Office, and therefore have no basis to agree or disagree with the rest of the post... but Numbers does in fact have the ability to sort by a single column, using the "organize" function after selecting a column. I'm posting this, not to quibble with you - just to clarify for anyone else reading this about Numbers.

 

[James_C]

I've been using iWork exclusively for the past 4 years - prior to that was using Office (mac and pc versions) since they hit the market. I have to say, anyone that says it's a challenge to convert files from iWork to Office must not know how to use iWork. You can simply share/send file as word/excel/ppt - not do anything.

I've not had any compatibility issues and when importing, I recently proved out the value and performance of Keynote when a colleague tried to run a ppt presentation using Office for Mac on his MBP. He created the file, but couldn't get it to run. He sent the file to me, I opened it and ran it perfectly on Keynote.

The only thing I'll comment Apple should address is making Numbers a bit more robust. There are some limitations that I think they implemented to make it more consumer friendly, not pro friendly, but otherwise I see very little reason to go back to Office.

In cases where I've gotten Office files I couldn't open (with Word, maybe once or twice a year), the solution I've used is to upload the file to google docs. Seems to work great and then I just download the file from google as a word file and it's fine.

iWork really just seems much easier to use, more elegant and simple, which is perfect as I'm simply creating business spreadsheets, proposals and presentations.

There are occasions when you are doing simple documents that they convert fine. Simple Pages > Word Documents are often ok, but having used a Mac in work for a number of years I know that I am asking for trouble if I try to convert some Keynote documents to Powerpoint. Below is an an example of a reasonably simple Keynote file I tried to convert to Powerpoint

First the Keynote File



Then the converted Powerpoint



The conversion has changed the justification in the table and changed the colour of the conditionally formatted negative numbers, not good.

Don't get me started on Numbers to Excel, if you have a multi-table in one sheet spreadsheet the conversion destroys your nice looking report into a one table per tab Excel spreadsheet.

This is Numbers standard 'Budget' template



And in Excel all of the great looking Numbers layout design is lost



As the conversion has to put a different Numbers table on a separate tab.

Yes I know if you are careful you can create numbers spreadsheets so that they just have one table per sheet so they convert better, but why waste the time, it is just easier to work with Office in the first place.

If you want to make sure your iWork documents look the same when you convert them, and provided the recipient does not need to edit them, then the best option is to export to .pdf.

 

[r0k]

I don't use Office, and therefore have no basis to agree or disagree with the rest of the post... but Numbers does in fact have the ability to sort by a single column, using the "organize" function after selecting a column. I'm posting this, not to quibble with you - just to clarify for anyone else reading this about Numbers.

Right you are! I never used organize as most of my spreadsheet work takes place when I'm chained to my oars, ahem I mean Windows. Another feature I considered "missing" from Numbers was "categorize". I think I like the categorize better in Excel than in Numbers. Numbers wants to add an extra column on the left of everything and nest all the categories. When you work with spreadsheets like I use at work, with tens of thousands of rows and 50 or 100 or more columns, having to scroll left to see the categories seems impractical. I suppose I could bring one of my big spreadsheets from the office and open it in numbers to see how bad (or good) it is.

 

[JustDom89]

My favs: Pages, Keynote, and Excel.

 

[ombrenelcielo]

I don't use Office, and therefore have no basis to agree or disagree with the rest of the post... but Numbers does in fact have the ability to sort by a single column, using the "organize" function after selecting a column. I'm posting this, not to quibble with you - just to clarify for anyone else reading this about Numbers.

In my enterprise working environment we need to have ppt and xlsx documents with consistent l&f, we can't spend time fixing ppt presentations for project reviews just because "somebody used keynote" to prepare those.

It doesn't matter if it's superior if it is not capable of exporting editable ppt files there is just no use for such a tool. Or you can use it to make pdf documents.

I prefer far better to have microsoft suite on my mac, I am sure everything works as it should at least. I leave iWork apps for my own stuff, because the team has only macs there.

 

[snberk103]

In my enterprise working environment we need to have ppt and xlsx documents with consistent l&f, we can't spend time fixing ppt presentations for project reviews just because "somebody used keynote" to prepare those.

It doesn't matter if it's superior if it is not capable of exporting editable ppt files there is just no use for such a tool. Or you can use it to make pdf documents.

I prefer far better to have microsoft suite on my mac, I am sure everything works as it should at least. I leave iWork apps for my own stuff, because the team has only macs there.

Not sure why I'm being quoted here... I just merely pointed out that Numbers could "organize" and made no claim as to which is "better". Like most things in life, it depends on your needs.

 

[bmustaf]

iWork ≠ Office

Yes, your two door flashy coupe could theoretically transport 6 people to their destination, but is going to be safe, comfortable, or even wise? Doubtful. Unless you like being uncomfortable.

That's why they make passenger vans. They're not nearly as glorious, fast, or even useful for a lot of people (and usually slow, clunky, ugly, and drive poorly , but they have a purpose/place.

Same thing here. iWork (IMHO) wasn't designed to replace Office in many use cases, because in many use cases it *can't*.

For most home / school (at least non-technical high end scientific uses where even Office won't work - think TeX typesetting, specialized math/stats apps, etc) users it will and it will do their work *better*, but it's woefully inadequate for most enterprise work beyond letter-writing. The document review, annotation, etc workflow in Pages isn't nearly as robust/useful. Don't even get me started on Numbers in terms of larger data sets, calculations, Pivots, connection to SQL data sources, scripting, etc, etc .

Keynote is where it comes closest to competing (again, totally wins in most consumer / educational use, IMHO), both feature-for-feature and performance wise.

Not trashing iWork, promoting Office, or the other way around - but they're similar tools, sometimes can be used interchangeably, but I really don't think they're nearly as "substitutable" as people make them off to be or they appear.

There is no silver bullet - the things that make Excel wonderful for ridiculous Pivots + esoteric statistical work probably make it stupid + scary for a soccer mom to track her kids' games in.

Some things you can hide behind neato interfaces for advanced users to access when/how they need to, but sometimes these decisions are mutually exclusive, too. They certainly make a difference in how the package is positioned in the market and what features make it into a release. Office is decades old as a product (perhaps even in some places as a code base , iWork, despite heritage in AppleWorks, etc, etc packages, is nearly a clean-sheet design from a few years ago. That has its advantages, but also probably means the product marketing team has a "wish list" a mile long, too...

 

[snberk103]

Yes, your two door flashy coupe could theoretically transport 6 people to their destination .... also probably means the product marketing team has a "wish list" a mile long, too...

So, in other words, it depends what you need?