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Why do people buy Microsoft Office for Mac when there's a better, shinier iWork?
- Thread starter iAppleseed
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- Outlook gives you a lot more customization and organization for managing contacts.
- Word handles more formatting.
- Excel handles more formulas.
- MS Office files are more the norm.
iWorks is just too basic for me.
1. I've used Office before it existed. Been using Excel over 20 years.
2. My company uses Office - most of my work is in Office for Windows, so my Mac use is mainly viewing and editing. Don't want to learn new apps for 10% of my use.
3. My company has a deal with MS that let me buy Office for Mac for $10 for home use.
4. Apple Mail and iCal are just unbelievably bad.
2. My company uses Office - most of my work is in Office for Windows, so my Mac use is mainly viewing and editing. Don't want to learn new apps for 10% of my use.
3. My company has a deal with MS that let me buy Office for Mac for $10 for home use.
4. Apple Mail and iCal are just unbelievably bad.
...and Pages lacks certain grammar checking features that make it a complete no go for much of my writing work.
Do you have a time machine?
If so, may I borrow it?I actaully don't use Office or iWork. For the rare things I need to do at home, I use Open Office.
Yup. When I'm making documents myself, I use iWork, and, if needed, export to Office. When I'm having to open/edit documents from others, I tend to use Office. I have a lot of Excel spreadsheets I deal with that just don't import into Numbers nicely. Yes, I could re-write them from scratch, but some are very large, so re-writing is not feasable.
And others are spreadsheets that draw data from other files/databases, so I can't change them to a Numbers document.
What format you guys in the legal field use? Psychology uses the APA format and I have never had a problem. We use in-text citations and did away with endnotes and footnotes long ago. If you guys are still using endnotes/footnotes, I could certainly see where Pages would be a problem.
Do you have a time machine?
I actaully don't use Office or iWork. For the rare things I need to do at home, I use Open Office.
What I meant by "before it existed" is that Word and Excel were available as standalone apps for a few years before they were bundled as Office.
Well, I use Papers for that, which is a great app for managing literature. It inserts references in a all major formats. It's much more friendly than endnote and works great.
After being a slave to Office for about 15 years, I deleted all of it and went cold turkey in 2009...
The iWork suite have been fine for me, I work in both K-12 education and College and have been able to survive just fine.
I own Scrivner and OpenOffice, but never use them...
If people perceive that Apple has iWork on the back burner because of no "major" updates, just continuous quiet updates, their missing the forest for the tree's. Wasn't there a forum a few years ago where one of our little cult received an email from Steve about this? Steve's response was basically, there's no need for "Major" updates that cost money, because Apple's already making the changes regularly...
Is the current version of Pages more powerful and capable than when it first was released? No doubt.
Use what works for you. It's not "Oh, this is better than that!" It's what works now and allows me to do my work.
Coachingguy
The iWork suite have been fine for me, I work in both K-12 education and College and have been able to survive just fine.
I own Scrivner and OpenOffice, but never use them...
If people perceive that Apple has iWork on the back burner because of no "major" updates, just continuous quiet updates, their missing the forest for the tree's. Wasn't there a forum a few years ago where one of our little cult received an email from Steve about this? Steve's response was basically, there's no need for "Major" updates that cost money, because Apple's already making the changes regularly...
Is the current version of Pages more powerful and capable than when it first was released? No doubt.
Use what works for you. It's not "Oh, this is better than that!" It's what works now and allows me to do my work.
Coachingguy
Who says iWork is better the Office. Take Excel for instance, it offers more features, functions that Apple's spreadsheet - numbers has. Interactions with excel is much easier and editing cells imo is better with excel.. For some reason, I believe that Microsoft Office for Mac is selling better than iWork even if iWork is so much better. Now, why is that?
Office is a more feature rich, robust application suite then iWork and that's one reason why people chose office over iWork. When was the last time apple updated iWork? When was the last time MS updated Office. No contest, at least Microsoft provides enhancements to iWork
Wirelessly posted
IWorks is OK for some, the elderly and mentally challenged people but MSFT all the way for more customizations. Have used sun open office as well on ubuntu, would definitely not get rid of office.
IWorks is OK for some, the elderly and mentally challenged people but MSFT all the way for more customizations. Have used sun open office as well on ubuntu, would definitely not get rid of office.
I don't know about Word and Pages- To me Pages is more elegant and easier to use than Word. However, it really depends what you're doing, I agree.
I wish Apple would release a new update to its iWork suite. It needs to raise the bar further with Numbers and make some extra improvements to Pages.
I wish they'd partner with Filemaker/Bento to offer it in a bundle for databases.
About bundles, I find it a shame they don't offer bundle apps (such as iWork suite) on the Mac App store with a discount.
Why? Office 2009 came with MBP I bought few months ago. and I hate office 2007 new ribbon feature on my windows 7 desktop pc
and I hate office 2007 new ribbon feature on my windows 7 desktop pcInteresting thread.
I'm happy with iWork, with the exception of Numbers. But then I don't like MS Excel for Mac either.
Call me old fashioned, but when it comes to number crunching/analysis, it's gotta be Excel on Windows. I have a Windows 7 VM (via Parallels) with nothing else but Excel installed. I got a nice discount from work for Win7 and Office. I know, still more expensive in comparison to simply buying Office for Mac. But I did try Excel for Mac and wasn't impressed.
Pages & Keynote however, are more than sufficient for my word processing, basic DTP and presentation needs.
Believe me, I can't stand Windows. I loathe having it on my lovely iMac. But Apple simply have a LOOONG way to go when it comes to being on par/better than Excel on Windows.
I'm happy with iWork, with the exception of Numbers. But then I don't like MS Excel for Mac either.
Call me old fashioned, but when it comes to number crunching/analysis, it's gotta be Excel on Windows. I have a Windows 7 VM (via Parallels) with nothing else but Excel installed. I got a nice discount from work for Win7 and Office. I know, still more expensive in comparison to simply buying Office for Mac. But I did try Excel for Mac and wasn't impressed.
Pages & Keynote however, are more than sufficient for my word processing, basic DTP and presentation needs.
Believe me, I can't stand Windows. I loathe having it on my lovely iMac. But Apple simply have a LOOONG way to go when it comes to being on par/better than Excel on Windows.
Office 2008 in Mac, actually, although people like to forget for good reason that Office 2008 ever existed. However, the ribbon in the Windows version is a totally different beast from its Mac counterpart.
iWork is better compared to the former Microsoft Works than its full blown Office suite. For one thing, iWork lacks a proper macro language to automate frequent tasks. Automator is no substitute.
As mentioned, that is an issue with your Mac. Not seeing that on mine.
My daughter does use Keynote for presentations since the rest of her class is using PP and they all look the same. Her's blow the others out of the water. But she has to keep a copy of Quicktime for Windows on her Thumb drive in case the school computer doesn't have it loaded.
iWork
I have both, but have been using iWork more/more. There's one spreadsheet in our department that is password protected, and Numbers doesn't like it. So I use Excel solely for that one file. Everything else I can easily export out, and share.
My only gripe with iWork is the comment/tracking; or lack thereof. I'd like to hope that Apple will add that sometime soon, or in a new release...
Overall, iWork just feels lighter. Office 2011 seems clunky, and busy.
I have both, but have been using iWork more/more. There's one spreadsheet in our department that is password protected, and Numbers doesn't like it. So I use Excel solely for that one file. Everything else I can easily export out, and share.
My only gripe with iWork is the comment/tracking; or lack thereof. I'd like to hope that Apple will add that sometime soon, or in a new release...
Overall, iWork just feels lighter. Office 2011 seems clunky, and busy.
I use Office 2008 daily and refuse to update, partially to avoid the ridiculous ribbon toolbar. Office 2008 works quite well.