iWork '11

[applefan289]

Does Word have those shiny beautiful templates and easy to use UI Pages have?
Does Excel have that beautiful UI Numbers have?
Keynote is really beautiful, but it isn't the only thing beautiful in iWork.
Everything in iWork IS BETTER than Microsoft Office.

Agreed, and I'm not just saying it because I'm a blind Apple fanboy.

iWork has a much better presentation than Word, just like Apple's OS has a better presentation than Windows.

Although I have yet to delve deep into iWork (I've just used it for basic stuff), it immediately feels better than Office. I used to have Office '03 running on my now-dead HP desktop with Windows XP, and it really doesn't compare to Pages.

 

[roadbloc]

Does Word have those shiny beautiful templates and easy to use UI Pages have?
Does Excel have that beautiful UI Numbers have?
Keynote is really beautiful, but it isn't the only thing beautiful in iWork.
Everything in iWork IS BETTER than Microsoft Office.

Yeah, because beauty and shininess is all I look for in an App. I don't even think about functionality, compatibility or features. 🙄

 

[wordoflife]

Also, do you think it is a good idea to get iWork instead of Office?

Depends what you need. I bought iWork because it was only $30 on Amazon, but it still annoys me all the time. Just too cheap to pay for Office right now.

 

[Tmelon]

I use both. iWork is easier to use while Office can do more. Pick your poison.

 

[Mersailios]

It really depends on what you're looking to do and what sort of interoperability you need. If you work in an office that's running Windows with Microsoft Office then your best bet is going to be Microsoft Office as you're able to retain the formatting of documents that are sent between different users.

Otherwise, iWork is pretty good and I typically recommend it to new Mac users who do not require the full functionality of Microsoft Office. I use iWork on a daily basis (all three of the applications - Keynote, Numbers, and Pages) and really enjoy the ease of use that it provides.

 

[shyam09]

It really depends on what you're looking to do and what sort of interoperability you need. If you work in an office that's running Windows with Microsoft Office then your best bet is going to be Microsoft Office as you're able to retain the formatting of documents that are sent between different users.

Otherwise, iWork is pretty good and I typically recommend it to new Mac users who do not require the full functionality of Microsoft Office. I use iWork on a daily basis (all three of the applications - Keynote, Numbers, and Pages) and really enjoy the ease of use that it provides.

i second that. to add on, if you have used Office on windows chacnes are you will be most comfortable with Office for Mac.

 

[alarob]

The main thing keeping me in iWork '08 (not even '09) is the weak support in Pages (and in Apple's implementation of Rich Text Format, btw) for footnotes and endnotes. This is why I consider Pages to be worse than useless for college students who need to write academic papers. In my experience it is difficult to convert Pages documents to another format without a high risk of having the footnote markers stripped away. My research into Pages '09 provided no evidence that the issue has received the slightest attention.

MS Word has been unreliable in other respects, so I have resorted to OpenOffice versions for serious writing, including anything that involves citing sources. Despite the congested, committee-designed interface and occasional 20th-century sluggishness, the OpenOffice forks (NeoOffice and Libre Office) have been reliable workhorses. Sometimes they open and repair MS Word documents that colleagues with Word have not been able to open.

 

[kdum8]

The main thing keeping me in iWork '08 (not even '09) is the weak support in Pages (and in Apple's implementation of Rich Text Format, btw) for footnotes and endnotes. This is why I consider Pages to be worse than useless for college students who need to write academic papers. In my experience it is difficult to convert Pages documents to another format without a high risk of having the footnote markers stripped away. My research into Pages '09 provided no evidence that the issue has received the slightest attention.

MS Word has been unreliable in other respects, so I have resorted to OpenOffice versions for serious writing, including anything that involves citing sources. Despite the congested, committee-designed interface and occasional 20th-century sluggishness, the OpenOffice forks (NeoOffice and Libre Office) have been reliable workhorses. Sometimes they open and repair MS Word documents that colleagues with Word have not been able to open.

To be honest, for serious writing in which you want to keep track of references and have a professional outlook neither Pages nor Word is the tool you want to use. Latex is what you are looking for. Although there is a small learning curve at first, it is more than worth the effort. Latex not only looks very professional and writes chapter headings, references and bibliographies automatically it is not WYSIWYG so it really helps one to concentrate on the content. I wrote my undergrad thesis in Word, and it was amazing how much time I had to spend just on formatting, all wasted time frankly. For grad school I learnt to use Latex and it made a LOT of difference. It is now my main writing tool.

On mac you can install TextShop to use Latex. 😎

(I still occasionally use Word and Pages, but they are secondary for me now. I have them for when people send me files in that format, or I am group working on an MS Office document).

 

[jblagden]

Hi, I very recently switched to Mac (love it) and I had the intention of buying Microsoft Office for Mac. However, I have been using the iWork '09 trial for a few days now & I really like it's simplicity and ease of use.

I would like to know when you think the next iteration of iWork will be released as I don't want to buy '09, to find '11 is going to be released soon. Do you think it is likely that iWork '11 (or whatever it will be called) will be released sometime this year?

Also, do you think it is a good idea to get iWork instead of Office?

Thanks in advance 🙂

I love iWork '09, though the trouble with iWork is that most people use Office. Even though iWork can export to Microsoft Office formats, it often loses formatting in the process. For stuff which you won't need to submit electronically or collaborate on with a Windows user, iWork is fine. But for times when you need to submit your work electronically or collaborate with a Windows user, you should either buy Microsoft Office or get either OpenOffice or LibreOffice. By the way, iWork '09 is actually a lot better than iWork 11, at least from a utilitarian point of view.

 

[jblagden]

You must be insane. This is what it is really like.

Office is better than iWork 09.

Pages < Word
Keynote > Powerpoint
Numbers < Excel

How anyone can claim otherwise is beyond me. The only reason to get iWork is for Keynote.

Excel is definitely more functional than Numbers, most people just don't need that much functionality. Word is more functional than Pages, but again, most people don't need that much functionality. I prefer iWork because I prefer its User Interface. However, for either collaboration or electronic document submission, Microsoft Office is better, or at least OpenOffice. iWork can export documents to the corresponding Microsoft Office format, but it tends to lose formatting, and Keynote has effects and transitions that Powerpoint doesn't support. For purely text-based documents, I use TextEdit because it can work with Word documents natively. For documents with text and images, I use Write 2. For Keynote, if you're just presenting, a Quicktime file will be alright, but it loses a bit of quality, so it's better to plug your Mac or iOS device into either a T.V. or projector if you can.

The other reason I like TextEdit is it's a light application which can handle Word and RTF documents natively, without changing formats. With iWork, you have to go through this process: Office ->iWork->iWork. That's why it's good to either have Microsoft Office or OpenOffice. By the way, RTF is a useful format for purely text-based documents because it works on any platform, even if you don't have Microsoft Word or even a program that can work with Word documents. RTF can't handle images, but it's great just for text-based documents. Lastly, TextEdit may seem very basic and bare-bones, but that’s exactly what I like about it. It’s a lot less distracting than say, Microsoft Word or Apple’s Pages. This simplicity makes it a lot easier for me to focus on what I’m writing instead of how it looks, or being distracted by the program’s User Interface. Also, unlike Google Docs, I don’t have to worry about server failures. I use TextEdit whenever I can because it’s preferable specifically because it’s less distracting and I can save my work as RTF documents which work on all operating systems as well as Microsoft Word documents.

For more information, refer to: http://jbmachelp.besaba.com/mac/mac-index/documents/textedit---more-than-meets.html