iWork, MS Office 2008, or NeoOffice?

So, which one should I get? I'm a casual user and just type essays and stuff... I really don't need the complicated visual basic stuff like that... I've heard that iWork integrates well with mac. Also, can you list the pros and cons of each software? That would be a big help.

MS Office is expensive. I use MS Office 2003 on my Windows partition.

.doc is the most common used file type. Most businesses and users use it today.

If you don't need to use MS Office, then iWork is pretty good. It's cheaper than Office, can save into .doc format, and is fairly powerful. I used it here and there during my trial, and thought it was pretty good. Keynote is easy to use, imo, I like it over PowerPoint.

NeoOffice is free. I haven't used it. I haven't used OpenOffice for a couple years or so now. Back then, it couldn't open/save .doc files properly. It had issues with formatting.

There could be compatibility issues if you share files with an MS Office 2007 user. MS Office 2008 for Mac should open these files fine, but MS Office 2003 may not even properly convert MS Office 2007 files.

hope this helps some.

The reviews in Macworld and the like say that iWork is great for users like you. I have used Office for many years and am now trying iWork. Part of it is to get away cleanly from using Microsoft products. I have used Pages, and it works really well, though there is a learning curve.

http://www.macworld.com/2007/08/reviews/pages08/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/2007/08/reviews/numbers08/index.php
http://www.macworld.com/2007/08/reviews/keynote08/index.php

thnksfrthmmrs said:

So, which one should I get? I'm a casual user and just type essays and stuff... I really don't need the complicated visual basic stuff like that... I've heard that iWork integrates well with mac. Also, can you list the pros and cons of each software? That would be a big help.

Click to expand...

I did find that Pages couldn't 100% convert the formatting of Word documents properly. Content would be there, but not all special formatting would in some cases.

I share documents with others a lot, so being able to seemlessly convert documents is important to me.

Do take that into account. But if this doesn't apply to you, I'd recommend iWork.

Try using open office. It is 100% compatible with MS Office. I use this on my Linux and Windows boxes with no problem. At work we use MS Office and I have yet to run into a compatability problem. Currently its written for Windows, Linux and MAC and it's 100% free. You can find it at www.openoffice.org

OpenOffice is becoming very popular, and IBM are adding some muscle to it. They dontated the code to the (think a while back...) Lotus SmartSuite.

The best office app for Windows.

I would use Openoffice, but I got MS Office from a friend. But iWork looks good, I am waiting for iWork 09.

I won't buy Office 08, mainly because I want to get away from M$.

Now I may be wrong but isn't OpenOffice Mac a little behind when compared to the Windows version?

I've found that iWork didn't meet my needs. I especially had problems with Numbers not being able to convert some formulas from Excel. I couldn't even go in and manually fix the formulas, Numbers just wasn't capable of handling them. I was going to wait for Office 2008 to come out in January, but I think I'll give Open Office a try.

I forced myself to use iWork '08 for a week instead of Office 2004 for Mac. My use of "Office Suites" is casual outside of work anyway. iWork '08 was able to do everything I needed as far as simple spreadsheets for my household budget, manage some lists of home-inventory type stuff and open edit Word and Excel documents downloaded from the internet or sent to me by friends. Nothing hardcore mind you. I found the iWork '08 interface easier to use and get running after a few day learning curve (only spent a half hour a day tops messing with this stuff after work). After a week I bought the suite upgrade from trial and have used it exclusively since then. No problems with the simple things I do. I have an WinXP Parallels installation with Office 2003, 2007, Project, Visio, etc should I need anything hardcore work-related done in a pinch. I liked NeoOffice, but found there were way to many features to pick up with my limited use outside of work.
Dave

i use NeoOffice. It has basically everything MS Office does.

I vote for NeoOffice. For one thing, my democratic socialist heart loves open source software. ^_^ It's a great project and a great product. I love it. It works well with most MS Office documents and does everything I need it to. It even recovered some AppleWorks files for me from a REALLY OLD version of AppleWorks I used back in the day. ^_^ I was very happy to have those files in usable format again.

if I didnt go to college, I would get Neo Office
but I do goto college so I use office 04 and i preordered office 08

Yeah, I would have to agree with what Illusionist said. I also downloaded the iWork 08 trial and it seems to work well for me. It can read and save out .doc files if that's an issue for you. It also has that streamlined interface feel that apple puts into their apps that I appreciate. I hate it when an app will throw a bunch of things at you that you don't even need at the moment. Office 07 has a really weird new layout that I find annoying and disorganized. It also costs a lot more. NeoOffice is free and I was using it for a while and it seemed to work out fine. So take the cost into account.

If you create a presentation using iWork, is there a way that you can send a CD to a client and he can view it properly on a PC running PowerPoint as almost no office people use macs, just the art departments.

Thanks for all your replies. I might just get iWork now since I've come to like the iLife products.

I use the old Appleworks still. It's not as fancy as iwork. But I like it and it gets the job done.

i have all three of them but openoffice is the best i think...it has no problems with compatibility..i create projects in both mso and iWork 08..after i do so i open them in openoffice and save them in pdf format..it is the best solution i could discover..cuz mso for mac does a good job but u cant get it's doc files open properly on every version mso for windows...i dont even mention iWork..but if u save your work in pdf u will have no problems on any machine...

shadyboi said:

i have all three of them but openoffice is the best i think...it has no problems with compatibility..i create projects in both mso and iWork 08..after i do so i open them in openoffice and save them in pdf format..it is the best solution i could discover..cuz mso for mac does a good job but u cant get it's doc files open properly on every version mso for windows...i dont even mention iWork..but if u save your work in pdf u will have no problems on any machine...

Click to expand...

that's a good option if you are making a document as read only. now, if you are sharing documents with windows users, most windows users use .doc. if the formatting doesn't convert properly, this could make the document look bad.

especially true if you are sending a resume to a company and they ask for the file to be in .doc; for example.

iwork is the best option for 90% compatibility at a low price
if you want 100% compatibility then go for MS Office

I just tried NeoOffice and it works great! Handled all of the formatting and formulas for Excel spreadsheets that Numbers couldn't handle in iWork. And NeoOffice is free/donation. Going back now to make my donation.