So does that mean you like Office better? Or that you'd get iWork to spite Office?
JK
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iWork or Office
- Thread starter chtrho51
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So does that mean you like Office better? Or that you'd get iWork to spite Office?
JK
Another vote for Office (both definite and defiant ). I've tried Pages and NeoOffice and they're both very good (still can't believe NeoOffice is free!) but I've used Word for so many years now I just don't want to change, I'm too set in my ways.
). I've tried Pages and NeoOffice and they're both very good (still can't believe NeoOffice is free!) but I've used Word for so many years now I just don't want to change, I'm too set in my ways.
Another vote for Office (both definite and defiant
Me too. I know there are good things about iWork, but I just can't bring myself to let go of Office, especially because it enjoys so much broad support in almost every other field out there.
I bought iWork 08 with my MacBook Black 2.2, I was excited to replace office for only $79, I am a switcher, so all my files are in MS Word format.
Then I realized the problem.
Every time I opened a .Doc file, Pages imported into a .pages file, so every .Doc had to be re-saved as a .pages file.
So, I would eventually have two copies of every file!
Also, Pages "exports" a document as a Word Doc, it wont natively save it as a Word Doc... What this means is everytme I share this document with someone else, I would have to export it as a Word Doc.
I figured it would be too much hassle so I bought Office 2004 with the option to upgrade for $10 to Office 2008.
I have both, but I will use Microsoft Word as my default document program.
Hope this helps.
Ron
Then I realized the problem.
Every time I opened a .Doc file, Pages imported into a .pages file, so every .Doc had to be re-saved as a .pages file.
So, I would eventually have two copies of every file!
Also, Pages "exports" a document as a Word Doc, it wont natively save it as a Word Doc... What this means is everytme I share this document with someone else, I would have to export it as a Word Doc.
I figured it would be too much hassle so I bought Office 2004 with the option to upgrade for $10 to Office 2008.
I have both, but I will use Microsoft Word as my default document program.
Hope this helps.
Ron
I'm surprised you thought it would have worked differently. Pages does a lot of graphical and layout stuff that is way too complex for the Word format.
I wish someone (Apple?) made a .pages reader on Windows so I could send my files around without exporting for others to view...
Word is wonderful if you do nothing else other than type papers and need the niche features that business people use. Powerpoint sucks as does Excel, so if you can live without Word then go with iWork. All of the apps blow the MS apps out of the water and all of them handle graphics and media in ways that Microsoft just hasn't been able to understand yet.
If you use photos and other media in presentations and documents then iWork is it. If you just write term papers and LOVE boring PowerPoint presentations then nothing is wrong with MS Office.
If you use photos and other media in presentations and documents then iWork is it. If you just write term papers and LOVE boring PowerPoint presentations then nothing is wrong with MS Office.
Word - for a generic (bland) letter quickie. Anything else involving layouts, columns, graphics, it's either Pages or Mellel. Keynote preferences are a slam dunk over PPT for presentations which have brought comments after the fact.
I use Excel and Word just so I can accommodate those who send me them, and do in fact use Excel for spreadsheet reports more often than I ever use Word. I don't care for Word, and the feeling's quite mutual. Most. Unintuitive. App. I. Have.
I use Excel and Word just so I can accommodate those who send me them, and do in fact use Excel for spreadsheet reports more often than I ever use Word. I don't care for Word, and the feeling's quite mutual. Most. Unintuitive. App. I. Have.
Boy oh Boy have you lost it No one has anything like excel it's unbeatable and no iWork certainly doesn't blow anything out of the water it's nothing amazing. It really isn't very good for general work like typing up projects or essays.
Yeah -- it's so good that it apparently made you forget how to proofread what you write. On second thought... no, not apparently -- definitely!
Man... I almost did lose it.
iWork is also good for the general stuff too, like typing papers and doing boring presentations with no pizazze too.
What was i thinking.
Get your head out of your...err...head, Digital Skunk! It's obvious you have not used Excel much. I spend 70% of my time at work in Excel and after trying Numbers out of curiosity I can tell you (and anyone else willing to listen) that Numbers could never (OK, never say never -- perhaps it will some day in a distant future) replace Excel for the type of tasks a professional user requires a spreadsheet program to perform.
WOW, so you do work sitting right next to me every single day. We should do lunch sometime.
Seriously though, I am a multimedia guy in every sense of the word. I used Excel and it was great up until I got the bright idea of putting pictures in my spreadsheets. Then stopped all together.
Now that Numbers can do that much more intelligently than Excel I have come back to using spreadsheets except this time I can actually make them look how I want them to.
It's okay if you prefer Excel and if your don't mind limiting yourself.
WOW, so you do work sitting right next to me every single day. We should do lunch sometime.
Seriously though, I am a multimedia guy in every sense of the word. I used Excel and it was great up until I got the bright idea of putting pictures in my spreadsheets. Then stopped all together.
Now that Numbers can do that much more intelligently than Excel I have come back to using spreadsheets except this time I can actually make them look how I want them to.
It's okay if you prefer Excel and if your don't mind limiting yourself.
Using Numbers is limiting yourself. Let's face it, a spreadsheet app needs to be good at the spreadsheet aspect, not inserting pictures.
This is true, but not all of us need pivot tables. I certainly don't. iWork 08 does everything I need and for 79$, you can't beat it imo.
I bypass the whole exporting to doc problem by simply printing to PDF when I am finished with a file and delete the original. If you do this, you will never have formatting issues.
Yeah but Pages is a rather narrow market. Even a great deal of Mac users (and most Windows users) use Word, so there isn't a strong need to have a pages reader built into most document apps. There are times when being a minority isn't such a great thing I suppose.
I daresay you've broken the window!
i've tried office 2004 and iwork 08, and iwork 08 is the best of the best of the best
Perhaps some quantification as to what you like "best" about it would help the OP.
I hope I can plead guilty as charged.
I'm afraid all I can offer you is a rather pane-full sentence involving endless defragmentations and virus scans.
Back on topic:
Is there a guide for iWork/Office? If there isn't, perhaps I'll get started on one...
it depends
I bought iWork 08 and I really like it. I have stopped using Office 2004 on my Macbook Pro. Mainly because it isn't universal and it installs every time a start-up item for Entourage which causes Rosetta to start at start-up and slows down the machine. I used NeoOffice as well and I did write a homework about 30 pages with it. I think it partly works better then iWork e.g. TOC which I never really understood in Pages.
The only REAL concern I have with iWork is the future proof or safety of my documents that I create with it. Apple is well known for abandoning technology. The same happened with AppleWorks. If you created a lot of AppleWorks documents you still need to have it around and working. I guess it does at the moment using Rosetta but you must be able to install it. For most people it came with the old install disks and it is possible to install it on a new machine it might not be easy.
The biggest advantage of Office is that you are able to use and work with your documents on both Windows and Mac systems and that you will be able to use them even in 20 years. Who knows if I will foreever use a Mac - maybe I am forced to a Win machine at work for example.
I have not decided yet whether I will get Office 2008 or not but most probably not. Even with the disadvantages I listed above I am quite happy with the iWork and NeoOffice packet.
Regarding exporting and importing - I had poor results regarding Word <--> Pages
And about the comment regarding Excel - it has much more professional features then Numbers does. External datasources e.g. ODBC or others is just one example. Having said that - only real professionals need them - in a home or student environment you should not need them.
I bought iWork 08 and I really like it. I have stopped using Office 2004 on my Macbook Pro. Mainly because it isn't universal and it installs every time a start-up item for Entourage which causes Rosetta to start at start-up and slows down the machine. I used NeoOffice as well and I did write a homework about 30 pages with it. I think it partly works better then iWork e.g. TOC which I never really understood in Pages.
The only REAL concern I have with iWork is the future proof or safety of my documents that I create with it. Apple is well known for abandoning technology. The same happened with AppleWorks. If you created a lot of AppleWorks documents you still need to have it around and working. I guess it does at the moment using Rosetta but you must be able to install it. For most people it came with the old install disks and it is possible to install it on a new machine it might not be easy.
The biggest advantage of Office is that you are able to use and work with your documents on both Windows and Mac systems and that you will be able to use them even in 20 years. Who knows if I will foreever use a Mac - maybe I am forced to a Win machine at work for example.
I have not decided yet whether I will get Office 2008 or not but most probably not. Even with the disadvantages I listed above I am quite happy with the iWork and NeoOffice packet.
Regarding exporting and importing - I had poor results regarding Word <--> Pages
And about the comment regarding Excel - it has much more professional features then Numbers does. External datasources e.g. ODBC or others is just one example. Having said that - only real professionals need them - in a home or student environment you should not need them.
Ok, Put it this for the user who doesn't like to mess around and wants a cheap office program and just get simple things done while making them look nice iWork is for You!!
But for people who use these tools for a living office is indispensable Take my father for example if he didn't have excel he would be screwed he needs it to make a living. iWork just doesn't have the functions office does and i doesn't have all the resources either.
But for people who use these tools for a living office is indispensable Take my father for example if he didn't have excel he would be screwed he needs it to make a living. iWork just doesn't have the functions office does and i doesn't have all the resources either.
Like I said before, to each their own. I needed spreadsheets to have media in them, different sources and types of media and Excel couldn't handle it. That's my niche feature for my spreadsheets app just like the only thing keeping MS Office afloat is the niche features it has. Numbers blows excel away for me because of that and because it's much easier for others to grasp so I can pass off project to another employee.
Excel is it's niche features like
that I could care less for and that my company never uses to begin with. For some other company that thrives on that it may be a deal breaker, but I am sure the average user won't even know what a database in computer terms is. When you really look at it from a user perspective, most people only use MS Office for Word and PowerPoint. There is no way you can say that PPT is better than Keynote, and the most use Word is going to get is typing a paper in MLA format, and you can do that in Textedit, NotePad on Windows, and via the many Open Source options out there.
Office is expensive, and for most users overkill. If you handle media or need the presentation piece kicked up a notch then Office is a nightmare, the reason for this.
I had serious trouble with that as well, then I remembered that Word sucks at handling anything graphical, even it's own crappy clipart. I had to export all of my documents as PDF (which worked out better than I thought) to print them on my former job's printers.
Yes indeed. At my college's school of business the students lived on Excel, so I can see students using the professional features there as well, but you hit the nail on the head with the home/student environment. I am not really attacking Excel that much, it's a very powerful application, but when you aren't going to be accessing the full potential of the app, or using one of the features that it has and no other app has then you aren't really getting the most out of that $150 - $400 you spend on the box set. The biggest deal breakers for my current job were the graphics handling of iWork and the price tag of $80 USD for what we needed and could actually use.
I am sure that somewhere some reader is claiming that even the house wife NEEDS external data-sources.