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MS Office for Mac 2011 vs iWork
- Thread starter saintforlife
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MS Office
I write technical specifications at work so prefer MS Office. I'm sure iWork is nice (and very user friendly, as you'd expect) but if you're writing documents using customised styles, it has to be MS Office. I did try to cut costs by running Open Office at home. It's a superb package for free but but made a mess of the formatting of documents I'd written at work. I've also tried Google Docs and found it wanting.
That said, if you don't require things like automated heading numbering and styles (and a lot of common writing tasks don't), I'm sure any of the lower end packages, including iWork are absolutely fine.
I write technical specifications at work so prefer MS Office. I'm sure iWork is nice (and very user friendly, as you'd expect) but if you're writing documents using customised styles, it has to be MS Office. I did try to cut costs by running Open Office at home. It's a superb package for free but but made a mess of the formatting of documents I'd written at work. I've also tried Google Docs and found it wanting.
That said, if you don't require things like automated heading numbering and styles (and a lot of common writing tasks don't), I'm sure any of the lower end packages, including iWork are absolutely fine.
That should be coming soon with MS Office, based on their announcement right after Lion came out. They said it would be updated in a few months.
I have both iWork and MS Office 2011, and I have not really give iWork a serious look because I don't live in a vacuum and have to exchange documents collaboratively with coworkers who all use Office. When you are pushing things back and forth with markup and such... its not worth the hassle to use something different. Whenever I retire and don't have to deal with coworkers, I expect I'd be quite happy with iWork.
I use both. Office is for when I'm working with other people or I have to submit an electronic copy of an essay, and iWork for my own stuff or essays that need physical copies (damn these professors for still wanting printed out essays).
I try to use iwork as much as i can, pages and keynote do great, but no pivots in numbers is a vey big letdown.
By the way, your comment cemented my decision for me a while back after weeks of research. I'm an accounting major so I already knew it, but due to my love of other Apple products I was considering trying to master both, but you are right. Why waste time when you can become am excel wizard.
Pivot tables, lookup, function comprehension...it is an incredibly useful skillset.
I use Office for Mac; most of my work world uses Windows and they need to be able to access what I produce without any difficulty, hence Word is an absolute must for me.
I have both on my machines but I use MS Office.
I've tried to like iWork numerous times and keep getting each new release in hopes I can rid myself of the last piece of MS software I use. While I'm not generally a fan of MS software, I find Office much more feature rich, capable, and easier to use. Not to mention the MS interoperability benefits.
Many years ago, Microsoft offered something called Works. It was cheap and did not interoperate well with Office, came bundled with many machines, and was ok for basic Word processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations etc but was fairly limited. Thats how I'd class iWork. Ok for small casual use but just doesn't cut it for larger more complex projects, particularly in business.
I keep hoping though!
The only reason to use iWork is if you are the only person who is going to look at documents you create. The stuff I make in Pages either never leaves my computer, or gets sent directly to the printer, so no one else every sees the editable files. If you're not like that, just get Office.
I use Office for work and iWork for private/home related stuff.
Office is much better in terms of functionality, but iWork is friendlier and integrates great with iCloud. Why not use both?
Office is much better in terms of functionality, but iWork is friendlier and integrates great with iCloud. Why not use both?
I agree, though I think iWork is more capable/advanced than was MS Works.
For all its flaws, Office is still too widely used for iWork to be a viable general alternative, unless your work never leaves your computer.
I use office more than iWork, but still not a whole lot. My resume was created in Word, and while the text remains in Pages, it's not perfect. All of the household finances (budget, allocated spending plan and cash flow plan) are all done in excel.
If I have a presentation, you can be sure that's going to be done in Keynote.
However, most of the time for writing, I'm just going to use Text Edit.
If I have a presentation, you can be sure that's going to be done in Keynote.
However, most of the time for writing, I'm just going to use Text Edit.
iWork
Office may be more feature laden, but iWork has all I need, and I find it easier to use. I have both installed for when I did use Office, but these days it is seldom anything but iWork
No problem opening Work documents with Pages. Interestingly, if I get Word documents with any Thai script it does not display with the version of Word i have on my computer. Open them in pages, and it is all there.
Exporting Pages documents in Word (or another) format, is easily done.
Compatibility between Numbers and Excel is not so good in my experience. For my own work I favour Numbers, which I find easier to use. If something comes to me as an Excel file that's how I do battle with it.
Office may be more feature laden, but iWork has all I need, and I find it easier to use. I have both installed for when I did use Office, but these days it is seldom anything but iWork
No problem opening Work documents with Pages. Interestingly, if I get Word documents with any Thai script it does not display with the version of Word i have on my computer. Open them in pages, and it is all there.
Exporting Pages documents in Word (or another) format, is easily done.
Compatibility between Numbers and Excel is not so good in my experience. For my own work I favour Numbers, which I find easier to use. If something comes to me as an Excel file that's how I do battle with it.
I only use iWork for work, school and personal. I will admit that Office would probably be easier because iWork still has some compatibility issues, especially when macros are involved, that make it hard to share documents. However, I'm stubborn and wanted to rebel against everything Microsoft after my last experience so I put up with the incompatibilities. 
iWorks is a glorified Notepad program. Office is a business platform. If you can "get by" with TextEdit in a pinch, iWorks is probably good enough. Otherwise Office is the de-facto standard for a reason.
Ya, I was thinking the same thing. I've been using iWork in an enterprise setting for the last 4 years. The only thing I use Excel for is one spreadsheet that has a password on it, and Numbers doesn't like it. Beyond that, all documents are created in Pages, Numbers, or Keynote. The latter is far superior [IMO] to PP. I've made some great presentations using Keynote.
It's not for everyone, but to say it's a glorified text editor is a tad askew.
Granted the original question was posed in this thread before the downgraded iWork '13 was released (or escaped, more like) -- but I agree with you, comments that amount to "if you don't use Office you're not in a real business" are pure chauvinism. They have nothing to do with reality.
I'm not saying "If you don't use Office you're not in a real business" but what part of "MS Office is the de-facto standard for a reason" is total baloney?
Calling Office "the standard" is itself a meaningless statement, unless it is meant to imply that if you're in a business, Office is the only thing you could or should use.
Which is total baloney.