As much as I hate to, I just might have to...

buy Microsoft Office for Mac.

I've been a switcher for well over a year. When I switched, I really SWITCHED. I wanted nothing to do with anything windowz at all.

Therefore I went all in with Apple. I have used iWorks apps since I first switched and absolutely love them.

The problem is that hardly any of the people I correspond with have Mac's. They would all love them, but can't afford them. So this leaves me with a problem.

Now I know that I can save Pages documents as a .doc or Numbers docs as .xls and can also drag their Word and Excel docs into Pages to open them, but you all know the limitations of doing that. You lose some formatting, as well as fonts and other things.

So I'm seriously looking into Microsoft Office for Mac. This would NOT be my main source of doing my own documents as I am too much in love with iWorks, but if I needed to put something together for a group of folks, I would likely go to use Word or Excel.


I have always valued the opinions of this forum so I'm looking for some honest and realistic (read, non-fanboy) comments from each of you.

I know I'm a fanboy (hard to admit, but dang it, Apple makes some sweet stuff), but in regards to this I really want to make an informed decision. Especially considering the price of the package.


So, here are a few questions:

1) Is the Office for Mac suite solid? (no crashing, bugs, etc)
2) Has it caused any problems with your Mac at all (like all windows pc's seem to?)
3) Are you happy with your purchase?
4) Anything else you would like to add?

Thank you all for your time and sharing of information and opinions. I really do appreciate it!

Steve

I use Office for Mac all the time. Outlook is my main email program as I connect to an Exchange server.

99% of the people I communicate with on a business level use Windows and Office 2007/2010. I got Office 2011 for Mac in order for our communication and document sharing to be seamless. And we share large spreadsheets with multiple pivot tables and even some with a front end to a database sitting on a server. The Mac version brought back all Macro support with 2011.

Office 20011 is solid - I think even more so than the Windows version - and recommend it above any and all other office products.

And the price is a steal compared to the Windows version - at least when I got it when I bought my MBP.

In your situation I would probably go the MS Office for Mac route, but you might give LibreOffice a try first. It's free and may serve your purpose adequately.

http://www.libreoffice.org/

I've been satisfied with the MS Office suite for the Mac for years. It's always been a better product than the Windows version.

MacPastor said:

buy Microsoft Office for Mac.

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Why? I don't quite understand the reticence - it doesn't make sense to be so obstinate. If you need it, put aside your fanboy apprehensions and use the best tool to get the job done.

MacPastor said:

I've been a switcher for well over a year. When I switched, I really SWITCHED. I wanted nothing to do with anything windowz at all.

Click to expand...

My advice would be to move past this viewpoint. Nothing is more counter-productive than locking oneself into a view that precludes one from using particular tools (because, at the end of the day, computers are nothing more than tools). From the sounds of it, you recognize this which is a good thing. On a more technical note, Windows is not Office. It's possible to avoid one while using the other.

Office for the Mac is pretty solid. I've used 2008 and 2011 (I practically live in it most days) and it works really well, especially since I do a lot of work with others who use Office. If you want to make a flyer or something that requires an aesthetic touch, Pages is probably better. If you need a word processor that works for just about everyone and, in many ways, is magnitudes more powerful, use Word.

Actually, I'm quite surprised pastor that you even use iWork rather than MS Office. I'm not sure I know anyone in ministry that uses iWork whether or not they have a Mac. You may be a first. ;D (Just kidding you....)

I have both iWork and MS Office 2011 plus MS Office 2010 which we use on our PC. I find that if you communicate with other users whether it be in ministry, education, business, you're usually better off sticking with the de facto standard in the industry which is MS Office. There's a reason why other office suites including iWork provide an option to save to the MS Office format.

MacPastor said:

1) Is the Office for Mac suite solid? (no crashing, bugs, etc)
2) Has it caused any problems with your Mac at all (like all windows pc's seem to?)
3) Are you happy with your purchase?
4) Anything else you would like to add?

Click to expand...

It's one of the best programs available for the Mac. I have few complaints about it (although I REALLY wish it didn't open a blank document every time you launch it).

Office 2011 works great on my Mac. As others have stated it is a program I use on a daily basis. When I switched I had to get used to things such as the differences in keyboard shortcuts. Those only took a day or so to get used to. Office has been a very reliable program for me. Regardless of the supposed polar opposition between PCs and Macs, and by extension their users, I recommend using whatever gets the job done, and Office gets the job done.

Office 2011 is the go. Best suite and far exceeds the 'freebies' and Office, when kept up to date, current version is 14.2.3, is rock solid.

Bah. I'll be curmudgeonly and suggest you stick to using Pages (saved as .doc etc).

If they don't like it, send em a PDF!

chas_m said:

Bah. I'll be curmudgeonly and suggest you stick to using Pages (saved as .doc etc).

Click to expand...

MacPastor said:

Now I know that I can save Pages documents as a .doc or Numbers docs as .xls and can also drag their Word and Excel docs into Pages to open them, but you all know the limitations of doing that. You lose some formatting, as well as fonts and other things.

Click to expand...

Therein lies the problem with using Pages exclusively in a group of Office users.

chas_m said:

If they don't like it, send em a PDF!

Click to expand...

That works unless of course you want to be able to do anything with a document beyond read it.

If they don't like it, send em a PDF!

Click to expand...

Who was it that said "Let them eat cake!"? Remember what happened to her?

Just joshing you chas. I'm surprised it took you this long to jump into the thread. ;D

chas_m said:

Bah. I'll be curmudgeonly and suggest you stick to using Pages (saved as .doc etc).

If they don't like it, send em a PDF!

Click to expand...

Ahhhh but Numbers still sucks for the statistical analysis.. in comparison to excel

Credit where credit's due, Microsoft actually has some good engineers working for it; its main problem is that the bean-counters force them to rush everything out, and design it to be too compatible for its own good.

Office is actually a well-designed productivity suite; it's just always released unpolished, and has to be made to work on literally thousands of different configurations of PC. It's the same problem as with Windows itself; run it on a Mac (via Bootcamp) and it's actually a very stable OS as it's suddenly got custom-made drivers for specific hardware, rather than the generic ones it usually relies on.

Office:mac has the same sort of advantage; it only has to work on a few dozen (at most) configurations of Macs, and so - between that, and the extra year the Mac Division get for development due to the Microsoft big-wigs' desire to keep their newest stuff Windows-only for a while - Office for the Mac is actually far better than Office for Windows.

Just because it's made by Microsoft, doesn't automatically mean it's bad. Bear in mind - if you really want to indulge in such "them versus us" prejudices - that it's made on Macs, by Mac users, for Mac users. I've used both Office 2010 and Office:mac 2011 on the computers at my university, and the Mac version is just... friendlier (and more stable). While it may not be Apple software, it most definitely is Mac software.

Always heard the Mac version of Office is better than the Windows version. But if you don't want to give Microsoft any of your money, have you tried or considered Open Office-- it's a free download open source office suite that is supposed to be compatible to Office, I have used both the Windows and Mac versions, but mainly only for word processing. You could always see if that would fit your needs before you have to spend any money.

Just a recent switcher...but I can only say, I bought Office right away...figured there was no sense getting more frustrated with having to learn a new office environment while at the same time learning to use a new OS! ..But am happy to read Office 2011 is solid.

I had no intention to swap out or god forbid re-enter 3 months of expenses and other stuff...nah.

stk