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iWorks v.s. Office for Mac

R

Racktacular

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 13, 2006
124
0
Ok so I am buying a MB tomorrow. Will be my first mac. 2 dumb questions:

1) I want to be able to convert and run excel and word documents on the mac. So do I need both iWorks and Office 2004 for Mac or can I get by with just Office 2004 for Mac? I don't know much about iWorks. What are the benefits of it and is it worth it to have it pre-installed?

2) I want to be able to run both windows and OSX just in case, so do I need both Bootcamp and Parallel? I think I just need Bootcamp right, because Parallel just lets you run them both at the same time, no?

3) Where are the best/cheapest places to buy bootcamp and parallel?

TIA!

Rack
 
Racktacular said:
Ok so I am buying a MB tomorrow. Will be my first mac. 2 dumb questions:

1) I want to be able to convert and run excel and word documents on the mac. So do I need both iWorks and Office 2004 for Mac or can I get by with just Office 2004 for Mac? I don't know much about iWorks. What are the benefits of it and is it worth it to have it pre-installed?
Click to expand...

iWork is a competitor (an alternative) to Office with it's own apps, it's own document formats, etc. iWork is not compatible with Excel documents. iWork and Office have nothing to do with each other. Since you want to open Excel documents, you'll want to buy Office instead of iWork.

2) I want to be able to run both windows and OSX just in case, so do I need both Bootcamp and Parallel? I think I just need Bootcamp right, because Parallel just lets you run them both at the same time, no?
Click to expand...

No, you need either BootCamp or Parallels. BootCamp must install windows on a separate hard drive partition and allows for Windows to have full access to your hardware. Parallels creates a "virtual machine" into which you install Windows (on a hard drive image file, not a separate partition) and it will run Windows inside a window within Mac OS X.

3) Where are the best/cheapest places to buy bootcamp and parallel?
Click to expand...

BootCamp is free. Parallels can be bought at Apple, or on eBay.
 
Racktacular said:
Ok so I am buying a MB tomorrow. Will be my first mac. 2 dumb questions:

1) I want to be able to convert and run excel and word documents on the mac. So do I need both iWorks and Office 2004 for Mac or can I get by with just Office 2004 for Mac? I don't know much about iWorks. What are the benefits of it and is it worth it to have it pre-installed?
Click to expand...
Many people prefer iWork, though you will need Office for Excel (as iWork has no spreadsheet), if you do lots of presentations get iWork, as Keynote is much better than Powerpoint, Pages has less features than Word, though I prefer it (and have both)
Racktacular said:
2) I want to be able to run both windows and OSX just in case, so do I need both Bootcamp and Parallel? I think I just need Bootcamp right, because Parallel just lets you run them both at the same time, no?
Click to expand...
bootcamp forces a restart and is the best option for gaming.
Racktacular said:
3) Where are the best/cheapest places to buy bootcamp and parallel?
Click to expand...
Bootcamp is free, i dunno about parallels.

EDIT
Damn, dpaanlka beat me to it, (and his advice is better)
 
Thanks for the replies guys! Look slike Office is a better choice for me.

As far as bootcamp and parallel: I do not gaming whatsoever, so it would make sense to get parallel and not bootcamp? I don't see the advantage of having to reset the Mac for bootcamp when parallel can run it right away. I guess that is why parallel charges money and bootcamp is free.

Hopefully I have that right. Correct me if I misunderstand.

Thanks!
 
If you are in an environment where sharing documents and/or powerpoint slides (between Mac and PC) is necessary, in spite of our reservations about MS , Office 2004 is probably your best bet. However, be advised that once you install Office 2004, get and install all of the updates from the MS website. Unpatched version (ie the version on the CD) of Office 2004 are dog slow due to Rosetta emulation and highly unstable with the C2D processor.

Your MB will also come with a trial version of iWork that you can try, for 30 days I think, to see if you like it. :)

EDIT: Yes even the patched versions are slow, but it seems that MS made some optimizations for Rosetta. When I first installed Office 2004 on my MBP it was unusablly slow especially powerpoint. Getting the patches helped tremendously. The unpatched version was constantly crashing on my collegues brand new C2D imac.
 
garfield2002 said:
If you are in an environment where sharing documents and/or powerpoint slides (between Mac and PC) is necessary, in spite of our reservations about M$ , Office 2004 is probably your best bet. However, be advised that once you install Office 2004, get and install all of the updates from the M$ website. Unpatched version (ie the version on the CD) of Office 2004 are dog slow due to Rosetta emulation and highly unstable with the C2D processor.

Your MB will also come with a trial version of iWork that you can try, for 30 days I think, to see if you like it. :)

EDIT: Yes even the patched versions are slow, but it seems that M$ made some optimizations for Rosetta. When I first installed Office 2004 on my MBP it was unusablly slow especially powerpoint. Getting the patches helped tremendously.
Click to expand...

The Macbook also comes with an office trial so you can compare them. The problem with powerpoint for Mac is that slides (even quite simple ones) don't always look the same on the Mac and PC. Oh and the M$'s really aren't funny anymore.
 
Sorry, it was not meant to be funny, just an unfortunate habit. :( Thanks for pointing it out, I will use MS instead.
 
IJ Reilly said:
Not a real Mac application though. Requires X11 emulation.
Click to expand...

And is really trashy compared to iWork and even MS Office itself. OpenOffice is usually the example I point to as why free open-source software is not always *awesome* as some people pretend open-source is the solution to all problems.
 
I haven't noticed any speed issues with office, although I have a Mac Pro. If you are switching from Windows and are used to office, and need excel stick with that. I've been using Macs for 6 years now, and I still havent got into Apples solution for it. If your going to boot windows on your mac, you might want to use office on that rather than buying a Mac copy.
 
greenmac said:
I've been using Macs for 6 years now, and I still havent got into Apples solution for it. If your going to boot windows on your mac, you might want to use office on that rather than buying a Mac copy.
Click to expand...

iWork hasn't been around for six years. AppleWorks and iWork are totally different, and iWork '06 is the first version of iWork that is truly stellar and iWork '07 will likely be even more so.
 
Microsoft Office for Mac is your better choice at the moment if you are primarily doing spreadsheet work.

iWork would benefit you if you plan to do above average presentations or have
desktop publishing needs.

iWork '07 will add a spreadsheet with import export capabilties to and from excel, but it hasn't been released yet.

You can run your Windows version of Microsoft Office, but you'll need a full retail CD of Windows XP or Windows XP Pro INCLUDING SP2, if you plan to run native Windows applications via Bootcamp.

You'll also want at least 100 GB of hard drive space to provide enough room
for both OS partitions.

If you run Windows on line at all, you'll still need all the regular A/V protection
for that partition.
Your Mac OSX partition will not be affected by any Windows malware.
 
Don't buy MS Office!

Download NeoOffice, the OpenOffice port for the Mac. It works wonders for what you need. Unless there is a specific function you definitely need, go for this route. And wait to buy iWork '07. It'll be much better than NeoOffice and MS Office, most likely.
 
Another vote for Office 2004. If you're not into gaming Parallels should work fine for your Windows needs. Grats on your decision to switch. :)
 
bobert1985 said:
Download NeoOffice, the OpenOffice port for the Mac. It works wonders for what you need. Unless there is a specific function you definitely need, go for this route. And wait to buy iWork '07. It'll be much better than NeoOffice and MS Office, most likely.
Click to expand...

Yes... download NeoOffice if you want the trashiest office suite and worst example of open-source software ever written full of lots of great ways to make amateurish documents.
 
dpaanlka said:
Yes... download NeoOffice if you want the trashiest office suite and worst example of open-source software ever written full of lots of great ways to make amateurish documents.
Click to expand...

Um, what? I've been using NeoOffice since 2004 as my primary office suite in a business setting, and the only problem is that a few of my 4+ MB Excel spreadsheets have some goofy odd formulas that it doesn't like. It has never had any issue with Word documents, and works with 90% of Excel documents flawlessly. (100% of those not written by me. I tend to use some of the more esoteric Excel functions.)
 
dpaanlka said:
Yes... download NeoOffice if you want the trashiest office suite and worst example of open-source software ever written full of lots of great ways to make amateurish documents.
Click to expand...

Just like Latex. It is so confusing and has like no features, although many people seem to like it:confused:
 
If you need a spreadsheet application, you'll have to get office:mad: I find office the most annoying office suite ever. It also crashes a lot on intel macs and is slow.

I LOVE iWork, and if you can wait until January, then iWork '07 will probably have a spreadsheet application;)
 
dextertangocci said:
I LOVE iWork, and if you can wait until January, then iWork '07 will probably have a spreadsheet application;)
Click to expand...

Of course we thought this was a lead-pipe cinch a year ago, too. Instead we got calculations within tables. I'd like to think that a full-fledged spreadsheet is coming to iWork but I am beginning to wonder whether Apple hasn't back-burnered this project to mollify Microsoft.
 
Only feature with Mac's Office version is you don't get Access. That would be the only application that if it's a must have then I would recommend going the Windows route.

I tried Open Office before and wans't impressed with the Mac version. If they could make one that didn't require X11, then that would be the minimum for me to even recommend it.
 
jessep28 said:
Only feature with Mac's Office version is you don't get Access. That would be the only application that if it's a must have then I would recommend going the Windows route.
Click to expand...
You also don't get MS Publisher. Which, unfortunately, I have need to open MS .pub files every now and again. There appears to be no OS X application that can open MS .pub files at all; and Publisher won't run in CrossOver, so I'm stuck with Parallels primarily to run Publisher.

jessep28 said:
I tried Open Office before and wans't impressed with the Mac version. If they could make one that didn't require X11, then that would be the minimum for me to even recommend it.
Click to expand...

Again, try NeoOffice, an Aqua-fied, no-X11-needed version of OpenOffice.org. It still has a few bugs, but I've been using it as my primary office suite for about two years now. It is significantly better than it used to be, and is even noticeably better than OpenOffice. Just remember to save often. (Although I haven't had a crash in months.) Again, the only way it isn't perfect to me are lack of .pub support, and the fact that I have a few really old, huge Excel spreadsheets that have odd esoteric formulas in them that nothing but Excel will open correctly.
 
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