iWork vs Office

[artistinnature]

Numbers and Pages have a very similar function. Under the format menu, there's "Copy Style" and "Paste Style." To kick things up a notch, you can right click on the toolbar, which calls up a menu that includes "Customize Toolbar ..." A window appears which include icons for "Copy Style" and "Paste Style." mt

Thank you!!! worth the price of admission.

Although it's not in the toolbar, each row and column header has its own drop down menu which will let you add or delete rows and columns. It doesn't appear that there's a way to add it to the toolbar and I'd strongly suggest you or someone (or possibly lots of someones) use the Numbers feedback command to suggest it to Apple for the next revision.

mt

I've been using the dropdowns. Incredibly awkward when one is used to simply clicking the toolbar icons to add/delete rows/columns - very fast and intuitive.

I just don't think Pages/Numbers are the equal in ease-of-productive-use to their MS Office counterparts, sadly.

 

[Matthew9559]

I love iWork but I use Office a lot more because there are some inconsistencies opening up Word/Excel files from teachers every once in awhile.

If I wasn't in school I would use iWork exclusively. It's much nicer to use and documents/presentations are easier to make nicer, imo.

 

[gødspeed]

I am devout born-again Apple fan, but iWork really can't compete with Office. It's just a much more streamlined and complete suite. I'd say Office and Lightroom are the only two major pro-level apps where a 3rd party outperforms Apple's software -- iWork and Aperture, respectively.

 

[graemeh88]

i have and use both, just depending on what im working on. anything that can remain on a mac, ill use iwork, cause i think it looks better, but anything that may have to be transferred over to pc, or vice versa, i use office just to ensure taht no formatting gets switched

 

[z987680]

iWORK

I have never met anybody that has spent serious amounts of time with each program (100s of hours or more) and preferred office. All three programs in iWork are vastly superior in terms of usability, and as far as Pages and Keynote are concerned, they destroy Word and (no)Power-point. The only nod I'd give to Office is that Excel is a more powerful program than numbers. Numbers is a million times better as far as layout, graphs, charts, and the ability to create presentations. What Excel lacks in beauty, though, it makes up for in power. 95% of the time for 95% of people, though, iWork's Numbers has way more functionality than you will ever need. for the other 5% that actually USE Excel's full potential, its better. I have parallels, and every now and then I do use Excel, but I haven't used Word or Powerpoint since I got iWork, and I've probably spent thousands of hours on those two programs before I had a Mac.

 

[PurpleMarmalade]

I have never met anybody that has spent serious amounts of time with each program (100s of hours or more) and preferred office. All three programs in iWork are vastly superior in terms of usability, and as far as Pages and Keynote are concerned, they destroy Word and (no)Power-point. The only nod I'd give to Office is that Excel is a more powerful program than numbers. Numbers is a million times better as far as layout, graphs, charts, and the ability to create presentations. What Excel lacks in beauty, though, it makes up for in power. 95% of the time for 95% of people, though, iWork's Numbers has way more functionality than you will ever need. for the other 5% that actually USE Excel's full potential, its better. I have parallels, and every now and then I do use Excel, but I haven't used Word or Powerpoint since I got iWork, and I've probably spent thousands of hours on those two programs before I had a Mac.

Well, now you've met someone: me. Pages simply is not good enough for serious academic work, IMHO. As always, YMMV.

 

[CW Jones]

I am just starting to get use to Pages... and so far I am liking it a bit more than Office. Granted I have not been using Pages for very long but still. Just seems easier and also seems to run a lot smoother.