Hi I am going to be getting a macbook for college and when I look to build my own there is an option for Iwork and Microsoft Office. I am probably going to get Office for sure just so I know everything is guaranteed compatible. Can anyone tell me if they have both or which they prefer?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Microsoft Office vs Iwork
- Thread starter cjenkins505
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Using MRoogle to search the forums will many times reveal threads related to your question that the standard forum search misses:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...ite:forums.macrumors.com&as_qdr=y&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...ite:forums.macrumors.com&as_qdr=y&btnG=Search
I have both. I prefer iWork for Keynote and for documents that I need to have a quick specialized format. I use numbers, but use Excel when I need some heavy number lifting.
Pages opens word documents for me, but I need Word for the times when there is specialized formatting or formatting that is poorly done by the author that does not translate well to other applications.
I've used both (though for the pretty basic features). I like both a lot, and think that if I had to choose one it'd be iWork09'. Keynote is too great to pass up, Pages and Numbers hold their own too. All these Apps are pretty compatible with MS Office so...as a college student I have to live economically 
. 49$ compared to the $69 for Office (as a student) I'd rather save $20.00 for like 20 top ramen lunches !
. 49$ compared to the $69 for Office (as a student) I'd rather save $20.00 for like 20 top ramen lunches !
I have both, and use both. Your IT store on campus should sell you Office for like 11 dollars. Which makes getting both even easier.
It depends - different campuses have different agreements with Microsoft. My undergraduate school had an agreement where we could pay a reduced student price for software - roughly 1/4 retail price on most things. My graduate school only charged a flat $5 per CD according to their agreement.
We're talking college here, so don't muck about with compatability stuff. Keynote is great, but you will use it a hell of a lot less than you will a good word processor. No prize to which is the better word processor out of Pages and Word. Yup, Word.
I love Apple stuff as much as the next guy but, having tried Pages, wouldn't switch from Microsoft Work for it.
Buy both iWork and Office. Office for Word and iWork for Keynote. That's the golden combination. Plus, you can try out pages for yourself then too. Trust though, you won't find yourself jumping for it. Too many times have I been collaborating on something only to open the .doc in pages and it be completely messed up. The compatibility is there, but only for very basic fonts/formatting.
As someone wrote in another thread, how many job advertisements ask for 'excellent iWork skills'? If you have to choose, Office is the better choice.
Word is way more powerful than Pages
I've tried both but admittedly I'm a long time Office user. Personally I think Word is just way more powerful than Pages. Those who trash Word on the Mac don't know how to use the program. The key is to use styles. Excel has Numbers on the rails. Numbers can't even enter the current time in a cell. For casual stuff it's ok, but not for serious spread sheets. Keynote is obviously brilliant, but if you're not doing any presentations using it then just get Office. iWork looks great, but I'm not sure it will ever give us a Word processor as powerful as Word.
I've tried both but admittedly I'm a long time Office user. Personally I think Word is just way more powerful than Pages. Those who trash Word on the Mac don't know how to use the program. The key is to use styles. Excel has Numbers on the rails. Numbers can't even enter the current time in a cell. For casual stuff it's ok, but not for serious spread sheets. Keynote is obviously brilliant, but if you're not doing any presentations using it then just get Office. iWork looks great, but I'm not sure it will ever give us a Word processor as powerful as Word.
Cough... Word is pretty far from the most powerful. I highly recommend (especially if you are a science/math major) learning LaTeX. It's free, the documentation is superb, and it will blow away Word. http://www.tug.org/mactex/
I have both and use both. I still prefer Office over iWork
I used Office for years and years and have just gotten used to it.
I still use iWork for some projects but the Office is still a great product for Mac's
I used Office for years and years and have just gotten used to it.
I still use iWork for some projects but the Office is still a great product for Mac's
