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iWorks, OpenOffice or M$ Office?
- Thread starter ericmjl
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I can't offer any real advice, having only used one of the above three packages. But if I were you, I'd wait till the next edition of iWorks which should be out soon as its rumoured to include "Charts" - Apple's Excel rip-off/competitor.
FleurDuMal said:
Soon being six months from now...
It partly depends on your needs. Office is the most full-featured and offers you the greatest compatibility with other users. It is a very solid program. OpenOffice (and its Cocoa cousin NeoOffice) are supposedly decent, but a bit clunky...I haven't used them. iWork is not as full-featured as Office and lacks an Excel-like program for the time being.
Personally, I'm an Office person, especially since I can get it at educational pricing. I'd definitely think twice if I had to pay full-price though.
That's most of it.ham_man said:
If you need MS Office, get MS Office. It's more widely used, and has more features, than anything else.
iWork has a decent word processor and a stunning presentation program that are pretty easy to use. It offers a basic ability to import Word and PowerPoint files, but formatting is not perfect.
OpenOffice is free. That's about all it has going for it.
Excel seals the deal for me, and makes MS Office the obvious choice. iWork is lacking a spreadsheet, and OpenOffice's spreadsheet application is pretty much inferior to Excel, especially when it comes to producing graphs and using equations.
Depends what you are using it for...but I'd recommend using one of the free options until the next iWork revision comes out. Then if you feel the feature set will improve your workflow/output quality go for it, if not just stick with the free one.
Try 'em all - you get a 30 day trial of iWork and MS Office with a new MacBook, and you can download OpenOffice and see which one works for you. NeoOffice (a native port of OpenOffice) is releasing an intel version soon, and that could be well worth a look. I use NeoOffice and am looking forward to the next version to some out as it will look much more like an OSX app.
Your MacBook comes with 30 days trials of both iWork and MS Office. Try them out and download NeoOffice and see if that isn't more than good enough, considering it's free and the two others aren't... 
I've been trying the NeoOffice 2.0 alpha 4 with my new MacBook, for a while and are thoroughly impressed of what they've achieved so far...
I've been trying the NeoOffice 2.0 alpha 4 with my new MacBook, for a while and are thoroughly impressed of what they've achieved so far...
I 2nd NeoOffice. Great Program.
I am going to give it a go for a while.
If I like it, it stays.
If not, I will get iWork on the next update with Charts.
I am going to give it a go for a while.
If I like it, it stays.
If not, I will get iWork on the next update with Charts.
Office is expensive to be honest.
iWork is just as accessible, and Keynote > Powerpoint.
NeoOffice can hold you over until you decide if you like Office, or iWork.
Remember that Office is still a non UB so prepare for it to use a lot of ram.
It's not so bad when it's all you're doing, but even with 2GB my MBP beachballs because of Office.
For example, now I have Adium, Mail, iTunes, iPhoto, Pages, iCal, MacIrssi, Neo Office, Transmission, Terminal, Activity Monitor, Dictionary, and Preview all open.
[Granted, MacIrssi is a non UB too, but it’s smaller compared to Office.]
If I launched Office, I would beachball switching applications, and it would feel chunky.
The more RAM the better with Office. Especially if you're going to be multitasking while typing, or doing whatever.
It's still usable, but very slugglish.
iWork is just as accessible, and Keynote > Powerpoint.
NeoOffice can hold you over until you decide if you like Office, or iWork.
Remember that Office is still a non UB so prepare for it to use a lot of ram.
It's not so bad when it's all you're doing, but even with 2GB my MBP beachballs because of Office.
For example, now I have Adium, Mail, iTunes, iPhoto, Pages, iCal, MacIrssi, Neo Office, Transmission, Terminal, Activity Monitor, Dictionary, and Preview all open.
[Granted, MacIrssi is a non UB too, but it’s smaller compared to Office.]
If I launched Office, I would beachball switching applications, and it would feel chunky.
The more RAM the better with Office. Especially if you're going to be multitasking while typing, or doing whatever.
It's still usable, but very slugglish.
NeoOffice is fantastic - I'm using the Intel port and it's been so good I've remove MS Office from my Mac. Only issue at moment is it doesn't look like a Mac App, but that should be sorted next month when the Aqua version comes out. Give it a go - you won't be disappointed!slackersonly said:
Neooffice has worked great for me, but i also use writely.com when writing certain papers since i can share the document and my girlfriend can edit it and make corrections in real time. I honestly never use the excel or any of the other programs, only word.
Phil A. said:
Apple version? Sweet.
I have been testing windows office xp and office 2003 compatibility with NeoOffice. Every document that I creat in NeoOffice, I also save it as word or excel file, email to my pc, and open. I have yet to have any problems with format, font, imbedded equations, etc. Long story short: this is great for Mac users who need to work with PC users.
I think MS Office for Mac is pretty damn good. NeoOffice is just a clunky, slow, PITA. I used it for about 4 months, and then got MS Office and was wondering why I hadn't done so from the git-go. As for Pages 2.0, I don't now never used it. But why bother when MS Office is already so good.
I use MS office:mac and I have to say I'm very happy with it. I only bought it as I was able to get it extremely cheap through my employers. One word of warning though - it's obviously not universal and you'd need to ramp up your RAM to get it working acceptably.
GimmeSlack12 said:
Come now, you're must be deliberately baiting. You know perfectly well that lots of people around here prefer Pages to Word and Keynote to PowerPoint (those who have actually used them, of course). You also know perfectly well that Office cost five times as much iWork. So there are some perfectly good reasons to "bother," and no good reasons to antagonize those of us who have bothered.
No I would rather say that more people here use Word, than Pages. Just from the fact of how long Pages has been out, and in a workable version (I had read that Pages 1.0 was a bit thin on features). Yes Office is more expensive, but sometimes you have to pay to get what works best. Example: We all have Macs.IJ Reilly said:
Baiting? No. But then again I don't keep stats on who uses what. And I have never tried Pages or Keynote.
GimmeSlack12 said:
If the numbers of users was a meaningful argument for quality, then we'd all have ditched our Macs long ago. I'm not trying to reopen the Pages v. Word debate, which will occur here weekly anyway. I am simply attempting to tell you that you're not adding much of value to this discussion by dismissing out of hand a product that you admit you've haven't used, especially given that you must know that a growing number of people are very happy with it.
I use my Mac to run my business from home and invested in M$ Office. Up until a few months ago, I would have recommended it without hesitation for all business users.
Now, however, comes along NeoOffice 2 based upon OpenOffice 2. I have used NeoOffice before but this new v2 application is GREAT! I have been testing with it since it was made available and have not had any problems at all. None of my colleagues whom I share documents with, have even noticed that I've used a different application.
If you are thinking about buying M$ Office, seriously consider NeoOffice especially once it coms out of beta testing (sometime in the Autumn/Fall).
Now, however, comes along NeoOffice 2 based upon OpenOffice 2. I have used NeoOffice before but this new v2 application is GREAT!
I have been testing with it since it was made available and have not had any problems at all. None of my colleagues whom I share documents with, have even noticed that I've used a different application. If you are thinking about buying M$ Office, seriously consider NeoOffice especially once it coms out of beta testing (sometime in the Autumn/Fall).
I hope I don't sound like a broken record saying this.. I would, if possible, use both M$ office and iWork. I'm not sure about OpenOffice. I have used it but I'm not to keen on the colors . The thing is, if you write papers etc. that have graphics, pages is fantastic. I tend to write in Word and then insert pictures with pages. Pages has a way to go on catching grammar/spelling errors...Also, Keynote is, IMHO, a much better program than Powerpoint - easy to use with much better results!
yt
. The thing is, if you write papers etc. that have graphics, pages is fantastic. I tend to write in Word and then insert pictures with pages. Pages has a way to go on catching grammar/spelling errors...Also, Keynote is, IMHO, a much better program than Powerpoint - easy to use with much better results!yt
I've been using MS Office since Office 2001 and nothing beats it, with exceptional international support (that is, most people use it and can help solve problems).
As far as RAM is concerned, I only have 768mb on my 2005 iBook g4 and haven't had any problems with that relatively small amount.
As far as RAM is concerned, I only have 768mb on my 2005 iBook g4 and haven't had any problems with that relatively small amount.
I was hoping not to buy MS Office for Mac, but today that changed. One of our clients sent an excel file, I tried NeoOffice (lastest release), some message popup says can't open password protected file. The file is NOT password protected. I had to open it on a PC running Office 2000. Even a PC running MS Works couldn't open it. So to make a long story short bite the bullet and buy MS if you deal with corporate America.
A personal note about NeoOffice, this program is NOT Mac like at all. So if you are used to Mac interface and look don't expect it here. I personally don't like the program, but have it to open .doc files to re-save as text for importing into Quark, Illustrator and GoLive.