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Word Processing App on new iMac

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Coastie3202

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 8, 2010
3
0
My daughter just bought a new iMac with the Snow Leopard OS. She is now frustrated because she cannot find any word processing app on the factory software bundle.

Is there anything there for word processing/publishing? If so, what is it called?

If now, what would be recommended? I know that that will be a personal preference issue, but am interested in what others are using.

I also bought an iMac but I also have a PC in my home office so I have no time crunch on getting it all figured out. My daughter on the other hand has college classes and her PC crapped out on her, so iMac is what she has.
 
There are 3 that I know of.

OpenOffice - It's free and compatible with Microsoft Office to an extent. http://www.openoffice.org/

Office:Mac 2008 - Microsoft Office for Mac 2008. A bit of a slow and complicated port in my opinion, but it works. http://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/Office2008/default.mspx

iWork '09 - Apple's office suite. Costs less than Office:Mac, is compatible with Microsoft Office like OpenOffice, and is often seen as the best for Mac. http://www.apple.com/iwork/

I use Office:Mac for compatibility's sake.
 
Coastie3202 said:
My daughter just bought a new iMac with the Snow Leopard OS. ...
Is there anything there for word processing/publishing? If so, what is it called?
Click to expand...
Seriously? You're asking if Macs can run word processing software??

Did the new iMac come with a 30-day trial of iWork? If so, that includes Pages, which is Apple's own word processing application. I don't know if iWork is always bundled with the OS in a new Mac, it was with mine. iWork also includes Numbers (think Excel) and Keynote (PowerPoint).
 
There is a 30 day free trial for iWork, which should be on one of the installation disks if it is not already installed or can be downloaded from Apple's site.

http://www.apple.com/iwork/download-trial/

I should mention that there is a student version of Microsoft office for Mac that your daughter might be eligible which is listed for about $110 on Amazon.
 
Gregg2 said:
Seriously? You're asking if Macs can run word processing software??

Did the new iMac come with a 30-day trial of iWork? If so, that includes Pages, which is Apple's own word processing application. I don't know if iWork is always bundled with the OS in a new Mac, it was with mine. iWork also includes Numbers (think Excel) and Keynote (PowerPoint).
Click to expand...

Maybe the trial version of iWork is on the applications CD that was in the box. Have to check that out.
 
if she's a student she needs Microsoft Office. It's the standard, and will save her hassle trying to convert formats from other programs.
 
James Craner said:
I should mention that there is a student version of Microsoft office for Mac that your daughter might be eligible which is listed for about $110 on Amazon.
Click to expand...
And if I'm not mistaken, it gives you three licenses. Maybe that's the Student and Teacher Edition, if there's a difference.
 
How long ago did she buy the computer, and from where? If shes within the Apple Store 14 day period, tell her to go back and get her $30 discount on iwork.
 
CrzyCanuck72 said:
if she's a student she needs Microsoft Office. It's the standard, and will save her hassle trying to convert formats from other programs.
Click to expand...

Many of the free Microsoft Office alternatives can open and save files in Microsoft Office format, iWork can as well.

+1 for Bean if she doesn't need to share the files with others. It's a very clean, simple program that's getting better all of the time. (It's free, so if she doesn't like it there's no loss.)

Otherwise I prefer iWork, but it's all a matter of personal preference in the end.
 
old-wiz said:
While all of the Microsoft office alternatives can save in Microsoft formats, it doesn't always work perfectly - format issues can show up and somethings don't work well.
Click to expand...

I agree after having purchased Iworks and used Neooffice. I'm retired, but still do a bit of consulting for my previous employer. They unfortunately use formatted excel and word files which do not display well in Iworks and Neooffice. What I did was re-formatted them in Neooffice and sent as PDF files, which was a bit of work.
 
sonnyh said:
I agree after having purchased Iworks and used Neooffice. I'm retired, but still do a bit of consulting for my previous employer. They unfortunately use formatted excel and word files which do not display well in Iworks and Neooffice. What I did was re-formatted them in Neooffice and sent as PDF files, which was a bit of work.
Click to expand...

Yes. There's a good discussion going on in this thread. Basically if you expect to do a lot of sharing files with other people, you'd better get Microsoft Office to save everyone a lot of hassle. But if you mostly write documents for your own use, or share only printed or PDF versions with others, then feel free to use whatever you like.

I have both MS Office and iWork, and I use both.

But to answer the OP's specific question of "what comes included", TextEdit is Apple's equivalent to WordPad.
 
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