iWork or Office

[sublicon]

Office, sorry. If there's one area where Apple has failed miserably time and time again, and this is just my humble uneducated opinion, it's on office suite applications.

Anyone remember when they appropriate ClarisWorks back in the day? AppleWorks? Haha, forget it. I know they've taken better care this time around with iWork, but I'm still not convinced.

If you're producing documents that you wish to share with friends, co-workers, the world - get Office. You can't go wrong.

 

[Kashchei]

I'm sorry I don't have specifics here (perhaps someone can help me here) but Office 2008 Mac is going to leave out a small but crucial technology that will make it impossible for people to share spreadsheets from one platform to another. If Pages were to fill this gap seamlessly, I could see why iWork could become an office staple for Mac users rather than the standard MS Office Suite.

 

[dpaanlka]

Office, sorry. If there's one area where Apple has failed miserably time and time again, and this is just my humble uneducated opinion, it's on office suite applications.

Anyone remember when they appropriate ClarisWorks back in the day? AppleWorks? Haha, forget it. I know they've taken better care this time around with iWork, but I'm still not convinced.

If you're producing documents that you wish to share with friends, co-workers, the world - get Office. You can't go wrong.

Obviously somebody has never used iWork.

 

[xsedrinam]

Obviously somebody has never used iWork.

I thought the same thing.

 

[savanahrose]

I went to an apple store in Jacksonville and I was looking at Office. The salesperson said that Iwork is just as good and half the price of the student edition of Office. I bought work and I don't regret it. Save some money and buy the Work.

 

[CalBoy]

I went to an apple store in Jacksonville and I was looking at Office. The salesperson said that Iwork is just as good and half the price of the student edition of Office. I bought work and I don't regret it. Save some money and buy the Work.

Not to rain on your parade, but don't you think that that sales person was a little biased? After all, you did walk into an Apple Store. 😉

 

[IJ Reilly]

Obviously somebody has never used iWork.

In a way, they are also missing the point of the Mac, which is really sad. I teach Mac classes. The thing that amazes my students the most consistently is when I show them the Mac's ability to save virtually any document to a PDF. Nearly 100% of them had never seen this! The point is, hardly anyone really needs Word compatibility, they just think they do. Unless you actually collaborate on documents (the rare case in my experience), or you really want the receiver of your document to be able to edit it (more often than not, a bad idea), then you should be sending them as PDF files. This is a huge Mac advantage -- use it or lose it!

 

[dpaanlka]

The point is, hardly anyone really needs Word compatibility, they just think they do. Unless you actually collaborate on documents (the rare case in my experience), or you really want the receiver of your document to be able to edit it (more often than not, a bad idea), then you should be sending them as PDF files. This is a huge Mac advantage -- use it or lose it!

Thank you for putting what I've thought about the whole iWork vs. the rest of the world situation for the past year into words.

 

[Digital Skunk]

In a way, they are also missing the point of the Mac, which is really sad. I teach Mac classes. The thing that amazes my students the most consistently is when I show them the Mac's ability to save virtually any document to a PDF. Nearly 100% of them had never seen this! The point is, hardly anyone really needs Word compatibility, they just think they do. Unless you actually collaborate on documents (the rare case in my experience), or you really want the receiver of your document to be able to edit it (more often than not, a bad idea), then you should be sending them as PDF files. This is a huge Mac advantage -- use it or lose it!

Once I learned to do that with my Pages documents I fell in love with the app and deleted my copy of MS Office. And like the sales person in the Apple store, I would recommend iWork to any Mac user that is just looking for word processing and presentation software.

I'm sorry I don't have specifics here (perhaps someone can help me here) but Office 2008 Mac is going to leave out a small but crucial technology that will make it impossible for people to share spreadsheets from one platform to another. If Pages were to fill this gap seamlessly, I could see why iWork could become an office staple for Mac users rather than the standard MS Office Suite.

My thoughts exactly, when it comes to the gapping holes that MS Office doesn't fill that is. For many users the way Word handles graphics was just wrong, and PPT compresses anything that you stick in a slide, so your good looking images and video went kaput once you dropped them in. iWork filled that gap as best Apple could, and in some ways made a very powerful layout application. They did the same thing with Numbers, made a spreadsheet application into a layout application. I will admit that it's in a version one format right now like Pages was 2 years ago when I adopted it.

If Apple keeps filling the gaps then iWork will continue to be a better choice for the average user or the professional that needs to insert media and graphics into their various documents. I can see the need for MS Office for those that do more than what iWork gives them, or for those that have to use it as per their job's request, but all in all iWork is a very worthy competitor to MS Office and in many ways trumps it.

 

[soms]

Office, sorry. If there's one area where Apple has failed miserably time and time again, and this is just my humble uneducated opinion, it's on office suite applications.

Anyone remember when they appropriate ClarisWorks back in the day? AppleWorks? Haha, forget it. I know they've taken better care this time around with iWork, but I'm still not convinced.

If you're producing documents that you wish to share with friends, co-workers, the world - get Office. You can't go wrong.

Hahha I remember trying to use ClarisWorks way back in the day. Man that program was terrible.

 

[dukebound85]

i dont quite understand why people dislike office to be frank.

i prefer the seamless compatibility with pc's than dealing with iwork in a work setting. not to mention, i know office so much more well that i dont want to relearn a "lesser substitute" in my eyes

iwork is nice for home use though but will not completely take over for me.

 

[Quillz]

iWork '08 is really nice, and would probably be fine for most, if not all, people. Office 2008 is shaping up really well, though, so it may be more appealing to the so-called "power users."

 

[dpaanlka]

Hahha I remember trying to use ClarisWorks way back in the day. Man that program was terrible.

What about it was terrible?

 

[sellitman]

My three kids love Neo Office for school work. I find it lacking for nothing and the price cannot be beat. I bought iWork when I got my iMac back in Feb. and looked at the updated version and passed.

 

[sublicon]

In a way, they are also missing the point of the Mac, which is really sad. I teach Mac classes. The thing that amazes my students the most consistently is when I show them the Mac's ability to save virtually any document to a PDF.

Nope, I'm not missing the point. It's not about what Mac's ability is, it's about the ability of the computers owned by the people I'm sending documents to.

In my opinion, if I have to export to a format just to share a document, then that's one step too many for what I need to do in my business. I want to save and send. If I can't just do that, then I have no interest in it.

And for everyone's information, I have used iWork. I simply would rather use what the rest of the world is using. I can't afford to live in my Apple microcosm in every aspect of what I do on my computer.

And above all, I enjoy using Office. So there.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Nope, I'm not missing the point. It's not about what Mac's ability is, it's about the ability of the computers owned by the people I'm sending documents to.

In my opinion, if I have to export to a format just to share a document, then that's one step too many for what I need to do in my business. I want to save and send. If I can't just do that, then I have no interest in it.

And for everyone's information, I have used iWork. I simply would rather use what the rest of the world is using. I can't afford to live in my Apple microcosm in every aspect of what I do on my computer.

And above all, I enjoy using Office. So there.

So where? Unless you define "sharing" in some useful way, then I can't evaluate your statement. My point is that for most purposes, printing to a PDF is actually a better way of sharing documents. I think more people ought to know about and use this powerful feature of OSX.

If you really like Office, then more power to you, but if the argument is that printing to a PDF is just too much trouble and a barrier to using the word processor of your choice, then I think you're not only in a small minority, but you may also be misleading people into thinking this a major hurdle. Printing to a PDF could hardly be simpler or more useful.

 

[dpaanlka]

Nope, I'm not missing the point. It's not about what Mac's ability is, it's about the ability of the computers owned by the people I'm sending documents to.

In my opinion, if I have to export to a format just to share a document, then that's one step too many for what I need to do in my business. I want to save and send. If I can't just do that, then I have no interest in it.

And for everyone's information, I have used iWork. I simply would rather use what the rest of the world is using. I can't afford to live in my Apple microcosm in every aspect of what I do on my computer..

I'm not sure I'm understanding what you're saying. We're all trying to explain to you that it is perfectly possible to share documents from iWork to people using Windows or any other operating system. The key is the PDF. What is so difficult and microcosm-like about that? I've been doing it for well over a year and seem to have no troubles at all. Fellow students, professors, everyone I send a PDF to can open it and see exactly what I want them to see. That portability combined with the gorgeous appearance of anything that comes out of Pages makes me never want to use anything else.

Besides, sending people PDFs instead of word documents ensures that your recipients can open it, no matter what software they own. I still run into people that don't have office, but rather MS Works, which comes pre-installed on a lot of cheap PCs. As an Office user, what would you do in that situation?

 

[Digital Skunk]

I do understand Sublicon's position, even though I don't find any hassle in exporting or printing to PDF myself. Not every app is for every person, hence the reason we switched from Word to iWork.

The real issue most people are having now-a-days is realizing that Word has lost its usefulness amongst the general population. With Google Apps, Open Office, Neo Office, inexpensive solutions like iWork and even Note Pad, Stickies, Textedit, and just about anything that can save a RTF format Word is basically overkill on it's niche features, and not essential on everything else.

If people knew they had other options besides Word and Office they would drop it in a heart beat. Saving $150 is worth exporting to a Word format. And for the most part you can save 80% of the documents you type in RTF or Plain Text and send it to anyone who can open it anywhere. And if you have images in your document you should be exporting it as PDF anyway, because Word destroys graphics.

 

[sublicon]

So where? Unless you define "sharing" in some useful way, then I can't evaluate your statement.

It's funny, you evaluated and evaluated even after admitting that since you don't know what the hell you're talking about or what my personal need is, that you can't evaluate.

Here's one example: I work in sales, and am constantly producing proposals and drafting letters to send out to clients. I may run something by my boss so he can approve pricing, wording, added value and such - something I do often enough if it involves a big client, or a client that my boss and I are handling jointly. Fair enough?

If you really like Office, then more power to you, but if the argument is that printing to a PDF is just too much trouble and a barrier to using the word processor of your choice, then I think you're not only in a small minority, but you may also be misleading people into thinking this a major hurdle. Printing to a PDF could hardly be simpler or more useful.

I was wondering how far we'd go before words were going to be put into my mouth. I never mentioned PDF creation as a barrier to using iWork. As you should well know, PDF creation isn't an iWork or Word specific function, and I can do it anywhere with any document that can be printed. If I'm going to send out a document that I want to be universal and not be modified by the recipient, I will export to PDF.

However, I'm talking about exporting iWork documents to Word format, so that someone on Word can read it and modify it if need be. One step too many, sorry - not worth me using iWork just because Apple created it and it looks pretty, which I know is why you are using it. 😎

 

[dukebound85]

It's funny, you evaluated and evaluated even after admitting that since you don't know what the hell you're talking about or what my personal need is, that you can't evaluate.

Here's one example: I work in sales, and am constantly producing proposals and drafting letters to send out to clients. I may run something by my boss so he can approve pricing, wording, added value and such - something I do often enough if it involves a big client, or a client that my boss and I are handling jointly. Fair enough?



I was wondering how far we'd go before words were going to be put into my mouth. I never mentioned PDF creation as a barrier to using iWork. As you should well know, PDF creation isn't an iWork or Word specific function, and I can do it anywhere with any document that can be printed. If I'm going to send out a document that I want to be universal and not be modified by the recipient, I will export to PDF.

However, I'm talking about exporting iWork documents to Word format, so that someone on Word can read it and modify it if need be. One step too many, sorry - not worth me using iWork just because Apple created it and it looks pretty, which I know is why you are using it. 😎

exactly. people forget here that office too can export to pdf

i need people to be able to access my files and modify them. iwork doesnt pass for my needs. end of story and try not to convince others otherwise.

not all of us are able to get by with just Apple's offerings. Office is a great suite. I still dont understand the hostility towards it. If it's because it's from MS, well that's just silly. The fact that there is office for the mac platform in my opinion is one of the reasons for apple's success. Doesn't anyone else see this as a good thing?

You can NEVER go wrong using the industry standard. Some people who are supporting iwork like it's the best thing, would you support the use of Gimp over PS? I don't think so. You might say well Gimp doesn't have the features of PS but you know what, neither does iwork to office. But the argument that iwork is ok for home user is just as good as Gimp is for home user. Just saying life is a hell of a lot easier if you go with the standard that the industry uses. No point in arguing that.

 

[dukebound85]

Besides, sending people PDFs instead of word documents ensures that your recipients can open it, no matter what software they own. I still run into people that don't have office, but rather MS Works, which comes pre-installed on a lot of cheap PCs. As an Office user, what would you do in that situation?

Office can export to pdf remember? As an office user, any company who uses works is not worth their weight in salt.

to the individual using works, ill merely save as a pdf or heck rtf if need be.

tell me how iwork will perform better for the situation....oh wait it can't

 

[Digital Skunk]

exactly. people forget here that office too can export to pdf

i need people to be able to access my files and modify them. iwork doesnt pass for my needs. end of story and try not to convince others otherwise.

not all of us are able to get by with just Apple's offerings. Office is a great suite. I still dont understand the hostility towards it. If it's because it's from MS, well that's just silly. The fact that there is office for the mac platform in my opinion is one of the reasons for apple's success. Doesn't anyone else see this as a good thing?

You can NEVER go wrong using the industry standard. Some people who are supporting iwork like it's the best thing, would you support the use of Gimp over PS? I don't think so. You might say well Gimp doesn't have the features of PS but you know what, neither does iwork to office. But the argument that iwork is ok for home user is just as good as Gimp is for home user. Just saying life is a hell of a lot easier if you go with the standard that the industry uses. No point in arguing that.

I won't try to convince anyone that iWork is better than Office hands down. It is better when it comes to graphics and compatibility with Mac OS X.

The biggest thing for most people is the price of Office, even for the student version, and the fact that Office apps don't handle graphics at all. Keynote is the only hands down winner IMHO when it comes to presentations. And if you're not in an environment that is Office only then iWork becomes a true contender as said before.

The last paragraph is taking the discussion somewhere else. I agree with you and I understand what you are saying there, but you're using the wrong examples. If you were to compare Photoshop with another competitor that had guidance and vision it would be a better comparison. Or you could take Lightroom and Aperture, or Final Cut Pro and Avid Express, or Adobe Premier.

Not that Gimp isn't a decent app, but it is on par with Neo Office in terms of free Open Source software. Then, if you look at it price wise like many are doing with Office and iWork, Gimp may win more people's hearts after looking at the $600 price tag for Photoshop.

You're right, using the industry standard is easy, but it's not always the best choice.

Office can export to pdf remember? As an office user, any company who uses works is not worth their weight in salt.

to the individual using works, ill merely save as a pdf or heck rtf if need be.

tell me how iwork will perform better for the situation....oh wait it can't

Actually it can, because you can export as Word, PDF, HTML, RTF, and PlainText just like Word and Works, and many other apps. The added benefit comes when you are going from Pages to Pages, and you can import the audio and graphics into the file for the other user.

Word still can't handle images.

Powerpoint still compresses graphics down to an unusable size

And the entire package still costs $250+ for everything besides the student version.

 

[dukebound85]

i agree with all you wrote. unfortunately most of us work in a buisiness that uses only one suite. to say iwork will work in this scenario is not true.

i use iwork at home and it is really nice dont get me wrong. however, it is only nice when i dont have to collaborate with others where these "others" use windows

as far as my analogy, gimp is not like neooffice. neooffice tries to capture every aspect of office. gimp does not try to be exactly like photoshop. however i do see what you are saying

 

[gauchogolfer]

I was wondering how far we'd go before words were going to be put into my mouth.
<snip>

which I know is why you are using it.

Pot, meet kettle.


Honestly, unless you are doing the type of collaboration you mentioned, Word is going to be overkill for most users. Considering the benefits that I get out of using Pages when I can, having to use Word at work is a real pain in the neck.

 

[IJ Reilly]

It's funny, you evaluated and evaluated even after admitting that since you don't know what the hell you're talking about or what my personal need is, that you can't evaluate.

No need to get an attitude about it. As I said above, if you are actually collaborating on documents, your needs might be different. In my experience, most people who send Word documents have no real reason to send Word documents, and in a great many cases, they probably should not be sending an editable document at all. This was my entire point -- which had nothing to do with your needs.

Here's one example: I work in sales, and am constantly producing proposals and drafting letters to send out to clients. I may run something by my boss so he can approve pricing, wording, added value and such - something I do often enough if it involves a big client, or a client that my boss and I are handling jointly. Fair enough?

Yes, it is. Now you've said how you use your Word documents. Before you didn't. See how that works?

I was wondering how far we'd go before words were going to be put into my mouth. I never mentioned PDF creation as a barrier to using iWork. As you should well know, PDF creation isn't an iWork or Word specific function, and I can do it anywhere with any document that can be printed. If I'm going to send out a document that I want to be universal and not be modified by the recipient, I will export to PDF.

However, I'm talking about exporting iWork documents to Word format, so that someone on Word can read it and modify it if need be. One step too many, sorry - not worth me using iWork just because Apple created it and it looks pretty, which I know is why you are using it. 😎

See above re: unnecessary attitude. You also might want to check your own work before you accuse others of "putting words into your mouth."

exactly. people forget here that office too can export to pdf

Who forgot? The discussion was about the compatibility of Pages documents. The point was, far fewer people need complete compatibility with Word than know it.

You can NEVER go wrong using the industry standard.

Really? What if you don't like the so-called "industry standard?" While you're at being fully standardized, why not use Windows too?