Software Questions?

1) I need a decent writing program for school. Would I be better off getting Office 2007, or waiting for iWork07?

2) If I get Office 2007, does Power Point work with the apple remote?

3) Would it be worth the wait til late 2007 to purchase 2007?


As I am completely switching to Apple products, I would prefer to go with iWork07, but if it can't give me the quality I need for reports, writing assignments, and whatever writing task that may come up, I will have to go with Office 2007.

Thanks in advance for any input / advice.

1. Word. There are free options available (NeoOffice, OpenOffice, etc), but Word is the most commonly used by professors, teachers, lawyers, the like.

2. Good question, probably not.

3. That's completely up to you. If you need it now, get it now. If you can wait and for some reason want to, go for it.

iWork is awesome, but don't expect your teacher to be able to open your "Thesis.pages" file.

surfwax95 said:

iWork is awesome, but don't expect your teacher to be able to open your "Thesis.pages" file.

Click to expand...

Just save it in PDF format.

Amen-Moses

PDF is, IMO a very good format for submitting stuff. It's final, it will look the same on any computer, and it's not easy to edit (as there is virtually no free software that can edit PDF files).

PDF is somehow just more professional. My 0.05 Swiss francs.

Now, Office 2007 is currently Windows only. I would go with Office 2004 for MAc, as it's a great package for school use, much better than Office for Windows. Office 2008 will come out for the Mac around Christmas this year, so there's time.

Pages is great for making stuff that will be handed in. Office is good for doing research, making notes and collaborating with others.

And as for your presentations, PLEASE please make them with iWork, i.e. Keynote. They are so much better, and since your not handing them in you can use them beautifully off your laptop (if you have a Mac laptop). It supports the remote, as well.

I also have to add that iWork and Office are not competing products. You can't "choose" among them, because they accomplish different tasks. I like iWork for the beauty, it's style and the PDF. I like it for Keynote, which is awesome.

I like Office because it has a notebook feature, and you can record audio notes. I like it for Excel, and for Word's good writing tools. I like it for drafting text and putting comments and sending it around. It's just more collaborative.

So you have to weigh out whether you wouldn't want both. Office is a minimum, iWork will give your work a punch of style to WOW the teachers.

An EXCELLENT open source freeware writing program is Abiword (www.abisource.com). This is a mature, feature filled offering originally from the Linux world, but now with a full Mac OS X port. It reads and writes Microsoft Word format as well as its own much more compact .abw format.

A key differentiation from Word or OpenOffice Writer is the fact that it was created with size, speed and performance in mind. It loads very, very quickly and runs extremely well. I cannot recommend it enough.

Have you checked out your bookstore at school to see what kind of deals they offer? I know at a local university every student gets copies of the latest Office software for either PC or Mac for nothing, something like 5.00 so that they have it.

Odin_aa said:

Have you checked out your bookstore at school to see what kind of deals they offer? I know at a local university every student gets copies of the latest Office software for either PC or Mac for nothing, something like 5.00 so that they have it.

Click to expand...

I am an adult student; therefore, money isn't that big of an issue. I work 40 hours a week for AT&T and have 3 classes this semester, which means no social life, which in turn means I am able to save a bit of money..lol.

mac57 said:

An EXCELLENT open source freeware ....

Click to expand...

I was looking at Open Office 2.1, and it seems like a project just to get it working... although that is right up my alley as I love to experiment with things on a computer.

yogi said:

.....

Click to expand...

Thanks for the great post. I understand completely and have been persuaded to more than likely get both.

NeoOffice was mentioned earlier and I'd suggest that you give it a try. First of all, it's free. It also seems to do an excellent job of interacting with the MSOffice apps and can read and write most of the Office document types.

Unlike Open Office, you don't need X11 to run it and I think it's based on the same original source.

papercut said:

NeoOffice was mentioned earlier and I'd suggest that you give it a try. First of all, it's free. It also seems to do an excellent job of interacting with the MSOffice apps and can read and write most of the Office document types.

Unlike Open Office, you don't need X11 to run it and I think it's based on the same original source.

Click to expand...

Now that sounds like a winner!

can you even get 2007 office for mac?

NeoOffice can't, in my experience, handle a lot of Word's formatting. I think you should save yourself a lot of hassle and just get Office. It is the standard for students.

Martin. said:

can you even get 2007 office for mac?

Click to expand...

no.. not yet...