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Why do people buy Microsoft Office for Mac when there's a better, shinier iWork?
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Wrong. The ribbon-like feature in Office 2008 was actually called the Element Gallery. It was a waste of space and I gladly parted with my money when Office 2011 was released (with the Ribbon).
http://www.appleinsider.com/article...e_2008_installation_and_interface.html&page=2
Yes, it -is- on the clunky side.
Bring back the old AppleWorks. For the home, or even for the small business user, AWorks was one of the most elegant apps out there, fast, easy, clean and uncluttered.
Apple killed it to force iWork upon us (aside: seems like Apple is trying to force all kinds of things upon us, as of late).
Having said that, the old "Microsoft Works" was a pretty good integrated app, too. I used a copy of it dated 1993 until the beginning of this year, still running in Classic! I realize that MS only recently retired MS Works on the Windows side, but there currently is a "software gap" left by the loss of AppleWorks (and the unsuitability of both MS Office and iWork to fill it). The marketplace is ready for somebody to enter with a replacement....
BlueBook, the standard for legal writing, requires both in-line citations and footnotes, depending on the usage in a particular reference. In-line has never been a problem in Pages. Footnotes, on the other hand...
I personally feel like iWork is useless now-a-days. If I ever have basic, personal needs to make a spreadsheet or write something, I'm using GoogleDocs because I like having everything organized in a central place through Google.
Microsoft Office fills the need for more intensive work, especially regarding spreadsheets. Excel is a good piece of software. I also find Word easier to format and its track changes, footnote/endnote, and bibliography features are excellent.
I can't say much about presentations since I rarely make them. I usually find simplest is best so it doesn't matter which software you use.
But I will agree, iWork is prettier so once in a while I will use it.
Microsoft Office fills the need for more intensive work, especially regarding spreadsheets. Excel is a good piece of software. I also find Word easier to format and its track changes, footnote/endnote, and bibliography features are excellent.
I can't say much about presentations since I rarely make them. I usually find simplest is best so it doesn't matter which software you use.
But I will agree, iWork is prettier so once in a while I will use it.
iWork doesn't do automated Figure or Table Captions, no Cross-References between non-existent Figure Captions, no basic Fields functionality.
iWork is a light-weight word processor. It doesn't have the power or flexibility that 2011 Word does.
iWork is a light-weight word processor. It doesn't have the power or flexibility that 2011 Word does.
We all know Microsoft Office is crap, especially PowerPoint. I have never seen how ugly my presentations are until I switched to iWork. However, I noticed that my colleagues buys Microsoft Office and some of my friends and family members. 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?
Microsoft Office 2011 is a buggy and bloated piece of software. Apple iWork is simpler, but people still buy Office. Why is that? Well...
1. Full Microsoft Office compatibility. Everybody uses Microsoft Office and I must be able to open and write Microsoft Office files which will work seamlessly in the computers of everybody else. I can't just send a document in Pages format by e-mail, nor can I take with me a Keynote presentation to open in somebody else's computer in an event.
2. Microsoft Office has more features. Apple Pages may be great for designing beautiful pages, but it is a word processor first, and not a desktop publishing solution. For instance, it can't even handle cross-references, which is a very basic feature for a so-called advanced word processor.
The plain answer is: I just can't get the job done on iWork.
until i work doesn't catch up feature wise with office i am definitely staying with office... pages on my ipad being the exception but that too i feel has very basic features so there's quite a bit of room for improvement and don't even get me started on numbers...
Like it was said, it's all about compatibility. It has to be whatever the end-user of the document is using.
I have Keynote because at the time I couldn't get Office in time. I ran into huge formatting issues when I making, probably, the biggest presentation of my life. I stared the presentation on Powerpoint, brought it over to Keynote to work on it. Spent a couple hours just moving things around so it worked right in Keynote. Once I was finished, I sent it out as a Powerpoint and again, a lot of things had to be adjusted. Luckily I had co-worker helping me on the Office side and made the adjustments for me. Which was great because the client had Office, not iWork. Keynote would have been perfect if the client used it as well. Unfortunately he didn't, so we had to adapt.
Most, if not all, US Government agencies use Office.
I have Keynote because at the time I couldn't get Office in time. I ran into huge formatting issues when I making, probably, the biggest presentation of my life. I stared the presentation on Powerpoint, brought it over to Keynote to work on it. Spent a couple hours just moving things around so it worked right in Keynote. Once I was finished, I sent it out as a Powerpoint and again, a lot of things had to be adjusted. Luckily I had co-worker helping me on the Office side and made the adjustments for me. Which was great because the client had Office, not iWork. Keynote would have been perfect if the client used it as well. Unfortunately he didn't, so we had to adapt.
Most, if not all, US Government agencies use Office.
There's also the impression that Apple hasn't placed iWork high on their list of priorities. Since its release, there has been the expectation that Pages would catch up to Word, but that expectation has been left hanging for several years now. I'm looking forward to an upgrade, hopefully significant, once iWork.com goes offline and its icon needs to be removed.
We all know Microsoft Office is crap, especially PowerPoint. I have never seen how ugly my presentations are until I switched to iWork. However, I noticed that my colleagues buys Microsoft Office and some of my friends and family members. 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?
This may have been true in the days of Office 2008/Office 2007 and older, but have you SEEN what PowerPoint 2010/2011 can do? It blows iWork out of the water.
I tried using Keynote. I really honestly tried. The only thing Keynote has is just some fancy animations. There is absolutely nothing special about it nor does it have any advantage over Microsoft Office.
Office is the #1 best program out there. There is no alternative that can be compared to the caliber that Office has.
Office is also an industry standard. What can open a .key or .page file other than iWork programs. It makes collaboration messy and confusing. Office files can be handled with EVERY program. It makes collaborations easy and simple.
Apple tried with iWork, but it's just not that good.
When it comes to comparing Office and iWork, there is no standard answer
It all depends as much on what the user's needs are as it does the products themselves
I use Office at work on Windows, not by choice, but because it is required and expected
I have Office on my Mac as well (and use Office in VMware Fusion also)
For ME and my needs, when given a choice..
Word <> Pages - I rarely, if ever, need any of Word's advanced functions
Excel > Numbers - Numbers can do simple things, but nothing really compares to Excel
Powerpoint < Keynote - I use Powerpoint extensively, and I am not a fan, but when I have the choice, I use Keynote to great advantage
If compatibility is an issue, there is no real substitute for using Office
I know others (Open Office, Pages, etc.) can read/write Office docs
And I know some have not experienced issues
But the more complex the document, the more risk you have with compatibility
I am happy there are choices
It all depends as much on what the user's needs are as it does the products themselves
I use Office at work on Windows, not by choice, but because it is required and expected
I have Office on my Mac as well (and use Office in VMware Fusion also)
For ME and my needs, when given a choice..
Word <> Pages - I rarely, if ever, need any of Word's advanced functions
Excel > Numbers - Numbers can do simple things, but nothing really compares to Excel
Powerpoint < Keynote - I use Powerpoint extensively, and I am not a fan, but when I have the choice, I use Keynote to great advantage
If compatibility is an issue, there is no real substitute for using Office
I know others (Open Office, Pages, etc.) can read/write Office docs
And I know some have not experienced issues
But the more complex the document, the more risk you have with compatibility
I am happy there are choices
SmartArt. 'Nuff said.
Enhanced Transitions which, in my opinion, are more fun than Keynote's.
Setting up shows is more in-depth and can be more detailed than ever, but also remain simplicity (You can even use the mouse as a laser pointer if you so choose to, as well as multi-monitor support for running different slide shows side by side).
Better compatibility and collaboration. You and your group mates or colleagues can work on a presentation together in real time. Everyone can open up a PowerPoint. Only a few can open up a Keynote presentation.
Going with what's above, PowerPoint can allow you to package your presentations to an external source, be it a CD or a flash drive that can auto-run on any computer. No external source needed like a PDF viewer or PowerPoint itself.
Really good photo manipulation. Precision cropping, smart borders and 3D manipulation, even the ability to remove the background from a photo.
Anything Keynote can do, PowerPoint can pretty much do too, most of the time better, but Keynote can't do a lot of the things that PowerPoint can do.
Microsoft Office is the world's best selling piece of software (apart from operating systems). Office 2010 has sold a reportedly 200 million copies as of January 2012. Microsoft Office userbase is estimated at more than 750 million users worldwide - that would account for more than 10% of the world population.
These numbers may be inflated, but they do crush the numbers of iWork anyhow. Apple sold about 125 million Macs since the platform was launched, in the 80s. Even if all Macs ever produced were in operation, and each of them run a copy of iWork, Microsoft Office numbers would be unreacheable.
That said, Microsoft Office is not better than iWork because it has far more users. It is better for other reasons. The huge userbase of Microsoft Office means that it represents a billion-dollar business and that it is really serious stuff.
This huge userbase means that everybody uses Microsoft Office, so the file types are "de facto" standards that can be shared among users. It also means that Microsoft will do everything at its reach to keep Office a viable billion-dollar business. The biggest competition for Microsoft Office comes from the previous versions of it; to keep selling well, Microsoft must improve the Office experience to levels not reached before. And, by the size of the market, we may be sure that a new version of Office will always be in development, as Microsoft will not give it up.
Microsoft spends almost a billion dollars per year in development of Microsoft Office. And more than 8 million users tested a beta version of Office 2010 before launch. Microsoft has the means to improve the product, and it will certainly do that to crush competition. That is why Microsoft Office 2010 is a great piece of software. And that's why even Microsoft Office 2011 being a bad piece of software, everybody must use it.
iWork pales in comparison to all of that. It's not big business for Apple. Apple may just decide that developing iWork is not worth it and cut expenses with it. Apple is not putting big money on it.
And sometimes I think Apple is not putting big money on anything. It has just accumulated almost US$ 100 billion in cash just to distribute US$ 45 billion in dividends. Should it had put half of that in development of software, it might crush Microsoft in all fronts. Including Microsoft Office. But Apple just won't do that.
These numbers may be inflated, but they do crush the numbers of iWork anyhow. Apple sold about 125 million Macs since the platform was launched, in the 80s. Even if all Macs ever produced were in operation, and each of them run a copy of iWork, Microsoft Office numbers would be unreacheable.
That said, Microsoft Office is not better than iWork because it has far more users. It is better for other reasons. The huge userbase of Microsoft Office means that it represents a billion-dollar business and that it is really serious stuff.
This huge userbase means that everybody uses Microsoft Office, so the file types are "de facto" standards that can be shared among users. It also means that Microsoft will do everything at its reach to keep Office a viable billion-dollar business. The biggest competition for Microsoft Office comes from the previous versions of it; to keep selling well, Microsoft must improve the Office experience to levels not reached before. And, by the size of the market, we may be sure that a new version of Office will always be in development, as Microsoft will not give it up.
Microsoft spends almost a billion dollars per year in development of Microsoft Office. And more than 8 million users tested a beta version of Office 2010 before launch. Microsoft has the means to improve the product, and it will certainly do that to crush competition. That is why Microsoft Office 2010 is a great piece of software. And that's why even Microsoft Office 2011 being a bad piece of software, everybody must use it.
iWork pales in comparison to all of that. It's not big business for Apple. Apple may just decide that developing iWork is not worth it and cut expenses with it. Apple is not putting big money on it.
And sometimes I think Apple is not putting big money on anything. It has just accumulated almost US$ 100 billion in cash just to distribute US$ 45 billion in dividends. Should it had put half of that in development of software, it might crush Microsoft in all fronts. Including Microsoft Office. But Apple just won't do that.
Microsoft Office is selling better because of compatibility.
Scenario 1 (Shared Documents):
Anna - Has a Mac with both MS Office and iWork
Gina - Has a Vista PC
Anna gives Gina a word document, Gina can open it.
Anna gives Gina a Pages document, Gina can't open it.
Scenario 2 (Group Project):
3 students in a school was assigned to a group project.
Ricky, the group leader, has a Mac with both office suites.
Miranda has Windows 7 PC
Freddy has windows XP
Ricky makes Word document for the project, shares with the 2 members, Both can open the file.
Ricky makes Pages document for the project, shares with the 2 members, Both cannot open the file.
Scenario 1 (Shared Documents):
Anna - Has a Mac with both MS Office and iWork
Gina - Has a Vista PC
Anna gives Gina a word document, Gina can open it.
Anna gives Gina a Pages document, Gina can't open it.
Scenario 2 (Group Project):
3 students in a school was assigned to a group project.
Ricky, the group leader, has a Mac with both office suites.
Miranda has Windows 7 PC
Freddy has windows XP
Ricky makes Word document for the project, shares with the 2 members, Both can open the file.
Ricky makes Pages document for the project, shares with the 2 members, Both cannot open the file.
I have to assume that they know what they're doing -- it's easy to second-guess from the sidelines -- but it does seem a bit strange not to plow a large part of that cash back into the business. It's not like it's a utility company, this is a growth industry.
This is an oversimplification from a scenario standpoint and it fails to mention that Pages can export to a Word format.
The real question to ask someone contemplating Office vs iWork is how many documents do they receive that they need to collaborate or edit.
If someone needs to send a file to someone who will just be reading the document I always recommend PDF. It will print properly and be easily readable across many platforms.
If someone needs to send a file that needs Track Changes or editing then I ask what type of files they routinely get and how many. That often will determine if they should spend more money for Office or if iWork will work.
The biggest issue right now is that iWork is in desperate need of a major update.
I prefer Excel over Numbers but I also prefer Keynote over Powerpoint. Word and Pages is a tossup. However, I think one reason you gave to prefer Office isn't a very good one. You're basically saying that since Microsoft makes absolutely no effort to support opening Keynote or Pages files, then it is better. Meanwhile Apple is making efforts to support opening even its biggest competitor's files and somehow this is a negative on iWork? I disagree.
I use Office because it works well. Excel is top-notch. Word is good (it has its issues) and Powerpoint works like it should (Keynote is better but I can't always use Keynote for presentations on random computers). Office also only cost me $11 (university discount) whereas iWork costs more.
No, because Apple is using a proprietary format that no other office program opens. Not Microsoft Office, not LibreOffice, not Google Docs, not Open Office. Notice how none of the systems that use complete proprietary files, or lack the ability to open the proprietary files, have either an extremely small amount of users or don't even exist anymore. Everyone can open a .docx or a .pptx. It's the standard Office Open format. Only one program can open a .key or a .page, and that's iWork.
It's also not that Microsoft chooses not to support the file, it's that Apple chooses not to let other people support the file natively. The only way to open an iWork document without having iWork and a Mac is to make it a zip file (.pages, .numbers, .keys, all just packages). That's how 3rd party extensions do it, and information can get lost.
Office just takes iWork full blast. It's the only Apple product, in my opinion, that serves no purpose.
Why do people buy Microsoft Office for Mac when there's a better, shinier and Open Source OpenOffice, LibreOffice?