Is iWork good enough for word processing?

Hey all,
when I purchased my macbook I was unsure wether to go ahead and purchase iWork or go with MS Office Suite for the Mac. Therefore I decided to see how the initial 30 day trial period will be. Now one of my friends has MS Office Suite and he told me he would install it for me. Now my question is, is it necessary to do so, or would iWork be sufficient for my needs, which is typing papers for college, and personal writings?
Thx

Why not just use OpenOffice? It's free. I think the OS X version is called NeoOffice.

For word-processing just use OpenOffice it will do the work or get office from Microsoft it will be only better.

AFAIK MS Office is a one computer license only. Therfore if your friend has office and he installs it on your computer then he is breaking the terms of the license agreement.

Say_Cheese said:

AFAIK MS Office is a one computer license only. Therfore if your friend has office and he installs it on your computer then he is breaking the terms of the license agreement.

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That is correct.
I would suggest just using NeoOffice

I like Microsoft Office if I need to make documents that I can exchange with n00b windows users. I otherwise use PDF.

Pages just creates beautiful documents, and I love t make stuff with pages that people are actually going to see. Pages does a proper job with spacing out paragraphs but it's crap when you jsut want to jot something down.

when I used the 30 day trial of iWorks, I liked it. Pages is GREAT for making flyers or any advertisments that the public will see. It's quick and esay for stuff like that. If you are using it for just papers for school, I have come to the conclusion its probably best to use Word.

Pages bothers too much with layout. I like that sometimes because I can impress the teachers. But it can be a hassle when your just making a list of things for someone, a booklist or so.

yogi said:

Pages bothers too much with layout. I like that sometimes because I can impress the teachers. But it can be a hassle when your just making a list of things for someone, a booklist or so.

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True.

For just jotting a few things down I just use Textedit. Simple and is fine for notes.

I really like Pages for work others are going to see like Yogi & Evolve already stated.

What about 'stickies' for a jot down? Unless you plan on sending the jotted down note via email, this is a good little program.

Say_Cheese said:

AFAIK MS Office is a one computer license only. Therfore if your friend has office and he installs it on your computer then he is breaking the terms of the license agreement.

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He has a version, according to him, where he is allowed to install it 3 times.

BlueBacchus said:

He has a version, according to him, where he is allowed to install it 3 times.

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The Student version allows two installs... iene installation on a Desktop and one on a Laptop. There is no version that I have ever seen or heard of that allows three or more.

BlueBacchus said:

He has a version, according to him, where he is allowed to install it 3 times.

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It allows 3 installs per household. You're not technically allowed to pass it around to your friends.

D3v1L80Y said:

The Student version allows two installs... iene installation on a Desktop and one on a Laptop. There is no version that I have ever seen or heard of that allows three or more.

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Nope, 3 installs. It's been like that as long as I've known about the Student and Teacher Edition.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APP...RSLID?mco=1F8DF60D&nclm=MSStudentTeacherOffer

dohidied said:

It allows 3 installs per household. You're not technically allowed to pass it around to your friends.



Nope, 3 installs. It's been like that as long as I've known about the Student and Teacher Edition.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APP...RSLID?mco=1F8DF60D&nclm=MSStudentTeacherOffer

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Oh I do apologize.
I honestly did not know that it can only be passed within the household.
I shall then purchase a version of my own, if I feel that it is worth a purchase compared to iWork.
Thank you for that clarification.

Yeah its 3 installs it comes with 3 different serial numbers...
I love the Microsoft Office Notes page that it comes with ! Your screen
has the lines like a notebook and it so easy to type notes..

My wife and I tried iWork and NeoOffice and ended up going back to MS Office. Many of her old files were un-formatted when opened in the other applications. She lost the use of clip art that MS provides and didn't have all the fonts she had previously used in MS Office.

She is a teacher and constantly creates worksheets, presentation and graphs for her class. She needed to be able to access and make minor edits to old files. After 30 days of trying we gave up and spent the $100 on MS Office, student and teacher version.

Macs are all about productivity and MS office gave her the greatest amount. So that was our choice for office.

i too noticed some things did not transfer well between iWork and Office in terms of formatting and layout. i tend to use Office more since that is what i am used too.