iWorks or Office 2004?

As the title says, I can't decide which is best for word processing etc... Shall I get iWorks or Office?.

Thanks

word is good, but depending on how extensive your word processing is, I recommend you try text edit first, if you haven't, it's a very useful app. pages is better than text edit though, its got stronger type features, like kerning, leading, tracking, etc.

Weel why do you need it? Do you need to share with other Office users? If you do, I'd suggest springing for Office so you're sure of compatibility. Also if you need a full featured word processor, Word is the better choice.

If you're more using it for casual things, Pages will be fine.

Redbull said:

As the title says, I can't decide which is best for word processing etc... Shall I get iWorks or Office?.

Thanks

Click to expand...

Really depends on just what your requirments are. If you need to do heavy duty word docs and need exact match docs, then you would probably be happier with Word... However, if you do normal writing and just need general compatability with Word i would give iWorks, which includes Pages and Keynote a real look. Only $80 and i like Pages very much. Lots of templets and easy to make your own. More like a desktop publisher than a word processor.

Pages seems to be quite compatable so far with Word, and Apple just came out with updates for both programs which should increase that compatability even more.

Abiword. Very nice looking, powerful enough for most people, and free.

how bout both? when i got my ibook i really didn't have time to deal with a new program (keynote or pages) so i stuck with what i knew for the time being (word and powerpoint). I've got both loaded on the computer, I've been using office 2004 alot, and Im really liking entourage. I've been using pages for my personal journal writing and plan on using keynote when I have a little more time to learn.

If time is of the essence, I'd say go with what you know. If you have the cash get both. :yinyang: get the best of both worlds

same here. I really love keynote, way better than power point could ever be.
to original poster:
I did a review of iwork on this site, search for iwork review.

Thanks everybody!. I'm going to order iWorks now, and it's cheaper which is a bonus.

I've used both suites quite extensively. As I said, it really depends on what you need. As for Mac Office opening up your Mac to viruses, that's not true. Office could allow you to pass on a virus of an infected Office file to another Windows user of Office, but it will do nothing to you Mac. That's even if you get a virus in the first place which is next to impossible on the Mac.

Which suite you get depends on your need. If you need rock solid compatibility with an MS Office environment, there's no substitute for Office 2004. iWorks is nice if you need a simple word processor and presentation app that's mostly compatible with Office.

I was under the same quandry 2 weeks ago. The reviews for iWorks have not been good. It's a new product and could benefit from a few revisions. I picked up the Student and Teacher edition of Office 2004 for $99 at CompUSA. When the new version of iWorks comes out, I will take a 2nd look.

schweb said:

I've used both suites quite extensively. As I said, it really depends on what you need. As for Mac Office opening up your Mac to viruses, that's not true. Office could allow you to pass on a virus of an infected Office file to another Windows user of Office, but it will do nothing to you Mac. That's even if you get a virus in the first place which is next to impossible on the Mac.

Which suite you get depends on your need. If you need rock solid compatibility with an MS Office environment, there's no substitute for Office 2004. iWorks is nice if you need a simple word processor and presentation app that's mostly compatible with Office.

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I needed to be more specific. Microsoft apps cannot cause virus issues on a Mac because they are OS specific. But I read a post that they can cause performance issues and application reliability issues. Using iWorks would avoid all these issues is my point

witeshark said:

It seems some of the most noticed problems may be limited to such as 32 character file name limit, and a few niggles. Very upset that I was negatively attacked for my earlier post that merely passed on information I saw on a web site and clearly cannot confirm since my very post states that I don't us Microsoft apps and cannot confirm performance problems

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what's a niggle? I think you are right about performance problems though, I know the one time I installed office to help a friend, other apps started acting funny, when an office app was open, other apps were a little sluggish, like office was hogging the ram and processor, and I use suitcase for font management, since I have a lot more than the default font, but M$ office installed fonts in locations that I didn't know it would, installed and activated them through font book automatically, causing font conflicts left and right, it installed fonts that were already active as system or user fonts, a few system, and would cause problems, like in safari, some pages looked like weird symbols. I would say that it causes problems.

Macman, I tried to find your review on IWork just to see what you said but it did not show up in several searches here. Did you mean here on this forum or MacInTalk?

Want to read your review.

http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14084&highlight=iwork
thought it was called iwork review, but thats what its called at macin-talk.

Ok thanks. Found it. Very good review. Backs everything else I have heard also and the little I was able to use it.

witeshark said:

It seems some of the most noticed problems may be limited to such as 32 character file name limit, and a few niggles. Very upset that I was negatively attacked for my earlier post that merely passed on information I saw on a web site and clearly cannot confirm since my very post states that I don't us Microsoft apps and cannot confirm performance problems

Click to expand...

There is not 32 character limit in Office 2004, at least not one I've run into. As for other assumptions that Office is dangerous or will perform badly, that's all hearsay. I've been using it ever since I've had a Mac and I've not had any problems. Actually I think Office for Mac is better than it's Windows couterpart.

How were you negatively attacked? Are you talking about your post rating? If that's the case, someone disagreed with what you said obviously, that's not an attack.

schweb said:

Actually I think Office for Mac is better than it's Windows couterpart.

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Yeah, I'd agree with that. I've been running both. A lot of my documents from school come in word or ppt format, so I like that I can open them w/o a second thought. I think office does run a tad better on mac (at least I notice it running quicker on my ibook, than on my friends desktop pc's).

I don't like that the buttons are slightly different on the mac version...I know, I know, I'm complaining about buttons, but I have a cs class (easiest class ever: it's all office apps), and some questions are really tricky (like what does this button (with a picture of it) do?), such that the buttons don't match up. Then I either have to look it up in the book or on my friends computer....

ps. I've used macs all my life and am getting a better grade in that class than most my pc friends (they thought the tests would just be obvious).

Abiword