Office. Cheap as chips for the student/teacher edition. Worth it not to have to even think about compatability or export/import considerations.
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Office or iWork for students?
- Thread starter -Josh-
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iWork is still cheaper. And not having to ever think about compatibility issues between Office for the two platforms is false for reasons I've already mentioned.
$79 for everybody, which would have been more expensive for you, but not everyone can shop at your school library, nor does everyone want to buy 3-4 year old software
*For the Record, i have iWork 08 and Office 04 installed on my system
My bookstore sells it at full retail unfortunately. But maybe other schools offer it at a deeper discount.
When I bought iWork 06 I remember it was about $39 at our bookstore, not sure what iWork 08 is going for now.
I suggest you stick with Office overall. The pricing difference is quite minimal because many schools offer pricing that's really close to iWork's student price (some schools have Office for only $10). If you ever have to deal with group or collaborative work, you'll just find it a heck of a lot easier to use Office.
I assume you're a student right now (at the college level; this is the only way you're going to get iWork or Office at a low price), so I suggest you wait until January, when Office 08 should be out (or so Microsoft claims, as it has already been delayed once). However, no matter what program you get, I still suggest downloading NeoOffice. It's free, it's pretty well put together, and it offers some good features. I find it a bit slow at times, but for it's price (FREE), it can't be beat
100% agree. When working in a group or with a partner for a research paper, having Word just makes life ten times easier. Sure it can be done via iWork, but it will cause problems as the report grows longer and longer.
You don't have to use Office. If you are in a major that doesn't require too much collaborative work, then it doesn't make any difference. When you send others your work, it should be in PDF form anyways, so this makes no difference.
Always send via PDF. If the professor has a problem, kindly remind them that you want to protect your intellectual property. If they still have a problem with this, challenge them some more. They can't require you to turn in final work that's in an editable format. Even if they are just reviewing your work to help you, PDF makes the most sense because they wouldn't want to edit the document (as this would be against the academic honesty policy at almost any school).
No, it wouldn't, as I wrote above.
Agreed. It really comes down to personal preference and taste.
$79 retail. $71 EDU Apple Store. However, most college bookstore seem to offer it for $39 still (I believe Apple's higher pricing is meant to deter liars).
They do. Multimedia has indicated that schools around your school (community colleges perhaps) will honor other schools' student IDs. Call around and give it the ol' college try if you're looking to save some money.
Answered through other posts
no matter what major you are, there will always be *some* sort of collaborative work, even if it's just sending your roommate something for them to edit (in which case they'll use the Track Changes function - I don't know how well that converts to iWork). When you start getting into multiple edits (you send something to your TA, they send it back to you, you send it back to them, them to you, etc.) you're just asking for trouble by not using the program that everyone else is using.
If you want a copy of Pages for the time when you go type->save->print, by all means, but I really don't think you can survive as a student with a copy of Office.
iWork works fine for me, but I have office installed too.
If you're serious about writing (essays etc), get mellel+bookends. Killer combination.
In fact, after I switched all my writing projects to mellel, I realized iWork is fine for everything else, so I'm using it rather than office. I'm very happy my academic routine is msoffice free now.
Some people complain about numbers, but I'm sure it will get better with the next update, and for the things it cannot do, you probably shouldn't be using excel anyway.
If you're serious about writing (essays etc), get mellel+bookends. Killer combination.
In fact, after I switched all my writing projects to mellel, I realized iWork is fine for everything else, so I'm using it rather than office. I'm very happy my academic routine is msoffice free now.
Some people complain about numbers, but I'm sure it will get better with the next update, and for the things it cannot do, you probably shouldn't be using excel anyway.
I got Office 2004 for $9 at my university's computer store and I plan to pick up iWork for $40 sometime soon. Word has been perfect for me, except for the occasional slowdowns due to Rosetta.
True most majors involve some kind of collaborative work, which is why I recommended that the OP buy Office
However, there are plenty of students who are surviving without Office too, so it isn't an absolute necessity.