iwork vs Office

[Quagmire1088]

I am about to purchase a Unibody MPB and was wondering wether to buy iwork 08 or office 08,

is it worth paying the extra dosh to get office or go for the cheaper apple solution?

at the moment i am using office 2008 on my windows machine

cheers

 

[vandozza]

it really depends on your needs.

do you have to share .doc or .xls with other users? do you need powerpoint for presentations?

does work only use MS Office?

iWork is a pretty good solution for home users, but some people require MS Office for their workflow, and/or compatibility with other users (ie PC users.)

 

[guklein]

I had the same doubt (Office or iWork). After searching a lot my decision was purchase the Office due the compatibility with other users (most of my friends use PC/Office).

 

[Quagmire1088]

yes unfourtunately i have to share documents with other pc users is there not a way to save it to office format?

 

[ETID]

In Pages it is possible to save in an MS Word compatible format however some things like certain fonts and formats just do not work and vice versa.

I have now moved on to MS Office 08 and couldn't be happier with its performance. But thats just my opinion.

 

[aristobrat]

yes unfourtunately i have to share documents with other pc users is there not a way to save it to office format?

There is. You click File > Export > (Select Office Type) and then check for compatibility problems.

IMO, if you don't mind the extra steps every time you save an Office document, iWork does good in an Office world.

The only other problem I've run into is that iWork has some cool features that don't directly translate into Office. When you export it, the data will all be there, but not always the style/layout.

 

[Quagmire1088]

thanks alot everyone for your help and opinions i think ill go for office for now and maybe pick up iwork at a later date

 

[Dave00]

You may also want to seriously consider Google Docs. It's free; can't do absolutely everything you'd do with an application like pages/iwork, but can do most everyday things. And, it's on the 'net so accessible from wherever you can login. Has replaced most of my word processing/spreadsheet needs.

Dave

 

[lamadude]

And of course openoffice 3.0 works great in mac now and is free as well. (and is compatible with most office formats, at least as good as iWork)
If you need more compatibility with office I would definitely go for office 2008 instead of iWork

 

[vandozza]

And of course openoffice 3.0 works great in mac now and is free as well.
If you need more compatibility with office I would definitely go for office 2008 instead of iWork

can't believe that we missed the obvious suggestion here. nice call!

 

[IJ Reilly]

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http://guides.macrumors.com/Comparison_of_iWork_and_Microsoft_Office