MSOffice for Mac V.S. iWork '08

[onilawliet]

Hey everyone

I'm going to be getting a Macbook of some kind soon (either MB or MBP) and I'm looking at the software I'll need. I'm going to be a college freshman, so I figure I need some kind of office program.

Throughout my HS career, I used a Mac occasionally for the work I did with my school's visual art department (designing flyers, editing photographs, etc.), but I otherwise used a Windows OS for everything else. However, I'm appealed to Mac because of its ease of use, simplicity, elegance, and I'm just willing to try something new to me that has impressed millions of people.

However, I will need some kind of word processing program in college, and I'm quite familiar with MSOffice. However, I've heard that Apple's equivalent (iWork 08) can do everything Office does, and can open and write Office documents. I'm attracted to iWork only because it is cheaper than Office.

But what does everyone think? Is Office or iWork better than the other? Are there any key differences?

Thanks
-oni

 

[budafied]

I haven't used iWork, but just to let you know there is a bit of a learning curve in Office for Mac as well, in transition from Windows Office. Things are set up a tad bit differently, so if I were you I'd expect a short transition period either way.

I'd probably go with Office just b/c its more familiar to you, but I really have no knowledge on iWork, so I can't say how good it is.

 

[rosserje]

Re: MSOffice vs. iWork

Hey everyone

I'm going to be getting a Macbook of some kind soon (either MB or MBP) and I'm looking at the software I'll need. I'm going to be a college freshman, so I figure I need some kind of office program.

Throughout my HS career, I used a Mac occasionally for the work I did with my school's visual art department (designing flyers, editing photographs, etc.), but I otherwise used a Windows OS for everything else. However, I'm appealed to Mac because of its ease of use, simplicity, elegance, and I'm just willing to try something new to me that has impressed millions of people.

However, I will need some kind of word processing program in college, and I'm quite familiar with MSOffice. However, I've heard that Apple's equivalent (iWork 08) can do everything Office does, and can open and write Office documents. I'm attracted to iWork only because it is cheaper than Office.

But what does everyone think? Is Office or iWork better than the other? Are there any key differences?

Thanks
-oni

I switched about three years ago. At that time I purchased Office 2004. It works fairly well. I'm able to accomplish work that previously required MSOffice.

I also own iWork 08. I love working in iWork. The UI is much easier to understand and seems more fluid; just as everything else is with Mac products.

I'm not a student, but I'm sure you will need Office for college work. I recommend using VMWare Fusion or Parallels for your Microsoft Office needs. In my opinion, Office is a Microsoft product, it runs much better on a Microsoft operating system. I have used Parallels and Fusion. I currently use Fusion on a Windows 2000 OS. I find that Office runs much smoother in this environment.

I tend to favor TextEdit for most of my word processing needs. It's surprisingly robust. I use Pages for anything that requires a more professional look.

I did install a trial version of MSOffice 2008. I do not recommend using Office 08. It took over my MBPro. I used it for about 10 minutes then got rid of it.

There are also open source products that may fulfill your needs.
http://www.openoffice.org/
http://www.neooffice.org/

Try these out prior to purchasing anything. The open source products might be enough to get you through college.

Good luck!

 

[rich6490]

For college I would stay stick with Office. iWork 08 I have heard has a much better interface, but lacks many "Excel" oriented features, and while simple documents from Office/Windows transfer seamlessly, more complicated documents have formatting issues when transferred.

 

[Simms]

I use both and in my opinion:

Pages and Word - fairly even playing field. They both offer similar features and do the same thing.
Keynote and PowerPoint - Keynote wins here with great templates and some really stunning presentations that, in my opinion, PowerPoint can't match.
Numbers and Excel - It depends on what you'll be using it for. Numbers can certainly take care of basic spreadsheeting and creates fantastic looking graphs which far outdo Excel in terms of style and aesthetics. But if you're doing mathematics or science based study at college, then Excel creates scientific charts, relational databases and data series that Numbers can't.
Entourage - Office has it, iWork doesn't. But if you're using a Mac, then you have the Mail app anyway

I personally prefer iWork - it's cheaper, has a better UI, looks nicer, and because nowadays I only use Numbers for basic graphing and spreadsheeting, Excel is rarely required.

Good luck!

 

[Chris_Mav]

I use ms office 2008 on my imac simply because i'm familar with it and my school uses windows and i have to transfer files across all the time, so i like ms office because files work between mac and pc.

 

[soccerphysio]

I use both and in my opinion:

Pages and Word - fairly even playing field. They both offer similar features and do the same thing.
Keynote and PowerPoint - Keynote wins here with great templates and some really stunning presentations that, in my opinion, PowerPoint can't match.
Numbers and Excel - It depends on what you'll be using it for. Numbers can certainly take care of basic spreadsheeting and creates fantastic looking graphs which far outdo Excel in terms of style and aesthetics. But if you're doing mathematics or science based study at college, then Excel creates scientific charts, relational databases and data series that Numbers can't.
Entourage - Office has it, iWork doesn't. But if you're using a Mac, then you have the Mail app anyway

I personally prefer iWork - it's cheaper, has a better UI, looks nicer, and because nowadays I only use Numbers for basic graphing and spreadsheeting, Excel is rarely required.

Good luck!

Are keynote presentations compatible with PC's? I have used PowerPoint in the past for seminars I teach, and thought about using Keynote because I have heard the templates are much more appealing. My concern is whether or not a Keynote presentation would run on a PC connected to an LCD projector. If I teach at a major conference, usually a standard PC is attached to the projector, and the presentors simply put their presentations on a Flash drive to run through the computer.

 

[harryb2448]

Use iWork by all means however at college you will find some lecturers will not accept/be unable to read your notes etc. You will need Office for sure.

 

[rosserje]

Are keynote presentations compatible with PC's? I have used PowerPoint in the past for seminars I teach, and thought about using Keynote because I have heard the templates are much more appealing. My concern is whether or not a Keynote presentation would run on a PC connected to an LCD projector. If I teach at a major conference, usually a standard PC is attached to the projector, and the presentors simply put their presentations on a Flash drive to run through the computer.

Yes, you can create a slideshow in Keynote, then export into PowerPoint format. I do quite a bit of training and I use this feature frequently. People get quite a thrill out of seeing the Keynote presentations in PowerPoint.

 

[shahvikram123]

Pages and Word - fairly even playing field. They both offer similar features and do the same thing.
Keynote and PowerPoint - Keynote wins here with great templates and some really stunning presentations that, in my opinion, PowerPoint can't match.
Numbers and Excel - It depends on what you'll be using it for. Numbers can certainly take care of basic spreadsheeting and creates fantastic looking graphs which far outdo Excel in terms of style and aesthetics. But if you're doing mathematics or science based study at college, then Excel creates scientific charts, relational databases and data series that Numbers can't.
Entourage - Office has it, iWork doesn't. But if you're using a Mac, then you have the Mail app anyway

Word in terms of actual word processing is much better than pages. pages is more of a publisher replacment, the word processing features in pages are pretty basic.

 

[Tauron]

There is no comparison between Word and Pages. Pages wins hands down.

Pages: fluid, attractive and polished user interface
Word: polished but too busy, not as intuitive

Pages: fast execution on everything: figure placement, text formatting, everything happens fast and in real time
Word: everything is slow as molasses, many bugs with text formatting to the point of driving you crazy, turning off these "features" is often a pain too

Pages: good for desktop publishing and word processing
Word: good only for word processing, and not very good, large documents tend to grind to a halt or crash and become damaged

Pages: a pleasure to work with
Word: aggravating to say the least

Pages: style sheets are a snap, everything works the way you expect, very zippy
Word: seems to try and guess what you want to do and gets it wrong 50% of the time, need to constantly fight with formatting, style sheets often cluttered because, again, it tries to get smart but gets everything wrong

Pages: instant alpha tool is very nice to create professional-looking flyers, brochures, adds
Word: can't do it

Pages: new and polished software with minimum footprint and efficient code
Word: old and recycled garbage (can I say *garbage* in the forums?)

Don't be like the rest of people who just use Word because most people use Word. Think for yourself and try it. It took me a grand total of 5 minutes to realize that Pages and Keynote were LIGHT YEARS ahead of Microsoft's Office. Numbers have a little bit more to go but I have no doubt it will blow Excel out of the water pretty soon.

 

[onilawliet]

Everyone has mentioned that I should get Office simply because the majority of college professors will be operating Windows and will only be able to open Winsows files. But the iWork 08 claims that the files it creates can be read on a Windows system and vice versa...So what's the right answer here?

Gah, I'm getting a lot of mixed opinions! People say I should get Work because of its elegance and intuitive use, while others say I should get Office because college professors and college machines will, for the most part, be Windows based. But can't get Work files be opened and worked on in a Windows system?

And, for the record, I will NOT be doing heavy math and science study in college. I'm going to be an International Affairs major, and will be studying things like political science, foreign languages, and linguistics. I'll also take some psych courses. Just the humanities and social sciences in general.

 

[Tauron]

Everyone has mentioned that I should get Office simply because the majority of college professors will be operating Windows and will only be able to open Winsows files. But the iWork 08 claims that the files it creates can be read on a Windows system and vice versa...So what's the right answer here?

Gah, I'm getting a lot of mixed opinions! People say I should get Work because of its elegance and intuitive use, while others say I should get Office because college professors and college machines will, for the most part, be Windows based. But can't get Work files be opened and worked on in a Windows system?

And, for the record, I will NOT be doing heavy math and science study in college. I'm going to be an International Affairs major, and will be studying things like political science, foreign languages, and linguistics. I'll also take some psych courses. Just the humanities and social sciences in general.

Get Pages, open Word docs in Pages because it has a good import filter, then save copies back in Word. You will have work done waaay faster and it will look better.

 

[Zoolook]

There is no comparison between Word and Pages. Pages wins hands down.

[snip]

Don't be like the rest of people who just use Word because most people use Word. Think for yourself and try it. It took me a grand total of 5 minutes to realize that Pages and Keynote were LIGHT YEARS ahead of Microsoft's Office. Numbers have a little bit more to go but I have no doubt it will blow Excel out of the water pretty soon.

And you use these products in which professional envrionment?

Sorry, but most of what you posted is subjective at best, and the ravings of a fanboy at worst.

Word 2008 does take a little while to load, agreed. It's annoying. However it has many functions that iWork simply doesn't have. 2 notable ones are an interactive citation/reference/bibilography system (word has this and it's very useful) and the other is automated numbered headings (critical in any corporate environment).

If you're only writing letters to your granny, or doing high-school level essays, then iWork is fine, but beyond that, a little more power is needed. As for your comment about DTP capability, well it is there. You can use the publishing layout feature. To be honest, it's a little rough around the edges (but then so is Pages), and if you really need DTP for professional use, you'd get InDesign or something similar.

On Excel, Numbers is simply no-where close. Not even Apple would claim it is. Again, if you're doing grocery lists or adding up the number of fanboy posts you're making on the forums daily, it might be fine. If you're tracking your company's balance sheet, or providing MIS to senior executives, it may not cut it - suggesting otherwise is dishonest.

Keynote is different. Keynote is a truly amazing bit of software, I agree and it's tempting to have iWork just for this. However, if you import a PowerPoint, fiddle with it in keynote and then export it as a .ppt, usually it gets messed up. I know, I have tried it.

If you really made your decision in 5 mins, I would suggest you're only using a tiny fraction of Pages'/Word's capbility, and so iWork may just be fine for you. However, this is the second post I have seen of yours with this kind of distorted rant, written as though it is fact, just today. The point of this forum is to give balanced, informed information, not to rant off randomly like you might in some Nintendo vs Sony forum. People come here for genuine advice to help make purchasing decisions, usually with their own money. So I think a little more maturity is called for, don't you?

 

[Discerptor]

And you use these products in which professional envrionment?

Sorry, but most of what you posted is subjective at best, and the ravings of a fanboy at worst.

Word 2008 does take a little while to load, agreed. It's annoying. However it has many functions that iWork simply doesn't have. 2 notable ones are an interactive citation/reference/bibilography system (word has this and it's very useful) and the other is automated numbered headings (critical in any corporate environment).

If you're only writing letters to your granny, or doing high-school level essays, then iWork is fine, but beyond that, a little more power is needed. As for your comment about DTP capability, well it is there. You can use the publishing layout feature. To be honest, it's a little rough around the edges (but then so is Pages), and if you really need DTP for professional use, you'd get InDesign or something similar.

On Excel, Numbers is simply no-where close. Not even Apple would claim it is. Again, if you're doing grocery lists or adding up the number of fanboy posts you're making on the forums daily, it might be fine. If you're tracking your company's balance sheet, or providing MIS to senior executives, it may not cut it - suggesting otherwise is dishonest.

Keynote is different. Keynote is a truly amazing bit of software, I agree and it's tempting to have iWork just for this. However, if you import a PowerPoint, fiddle with it in keynote and then export it as a .ppt, usually it gets messed up. I know, I have tried it.

If you really made your decision in 5 mins, I would suggest you're only using a tiny fraction of Pages'/Word's capbility, and so iWork may just be fine for you. However, this is the second post I have seen of yours with this kind of distorted rant, written as though it is fact, just today. The point of this forum is to give balanced, informed information, not to rant off randomly like you might in some Nintendo vs Sony forum. People come here for genuine advice to help make purchasing decisions, usually with their own money. So I think a little more maturity is called for, don't you?

This post is spot-on. iWork can't match Office in any area except the presentations if you're doing actual work, and only Office can guarantee compatibility with Windows. Importing/exporting features often mess up, no matter what the program. That said, the newest version of Office on Mac is rather crippled since the compatibility of macros has been ripped out and the Data Analysis tools are supposedly gone.

Now, my piece of advice... if you know for a fact you won't be needing any part of Office other than Word and just want a word processor, I'd go with OpenOffice/NeoOffice. My friend is an English major using Windows and he actually prefers OpenOffice's word processor to Microsoft Word. It has more useful (relevant to word processing) features, is easier about placing figures, fusses less about auto-formatting, and has (in his opinion) a better user interface. Being an English major, he obviously uses the program to create large documents he needs to submit to a Windows-using professor quite frequently, and he's been perfectly fine with it. So I'd recommend giving that a go. Unlike both iWork and Office, it's free, and there are decent arguments for its superiority.

 

[schweb]

I prefer Office 2008 over iWork.

 

[onilawliet]

I think I've decided I'll get Office. It is pricier, but it sounds to be the more professional of the two. And the internal citation and bibliography stuff people are mentioning will no doubt be important in a college literature class.

Thanks for all the advice!

 

[Tauron]

I think I've decided I'll get Office. It is pricier, but it sounds to be the more professional of the two. And the internal citation and bibliography stuff people are mentioning will no doubt be important in a college literature class.

Thanks for all the advice!

I am sorry for ya.

 

[Tauron]

I hate MS Word with a passion. I was just trying to reformat a document in Word (still have to use it at work). All I did was change the font from Arial to Times... everything got messed up. All the figures, tables, captions, EVERYTHING. Its like somebody just shuffled it at random places. Some figures even landed OUTSIDE the page, if you believe that is possible. It is just mind boggling that anyone can work with Word.

 

[soccerphysio]

And you use these products in which professional envrionment?

Sorry, but most of what you posted is subjective at best, and the ravings of a fanboy at worst.

Word 2008 does take a little while to load, agreed. It's annoying. However it has many functions that iWork simply doesn't have. 2 notable ones are an interactive citation/reference/bibilography system (word has this and it's very useful) and the other is automated numbered headings (critical in any corporate environment).

If you're only writing letters to your granny, or doing high-school level essays, then iWork is fine, but beyond that, a little more power is needed. As for your comment about DTP capability, well it is there. You can use the publishing layout feature. To be honest, it's a little rough around the edges (but then so is Pages), and if you really need DTP for professional use, you'd get InDesign or something similar.

On Excel, Numbers is simply no-where close. Not even Apple would claim it is. Again, if you're doing grocery lists or adding up the number of fanboy posts you're making on the forums daily, it might be fine. If you're tracking your company's balance sheet, or providing MIS to senior executives, it may not cut it - suggesting otherwise is dishonest.

Keynote is different. Keynote is a truly amazing bit of software, I agree and it's tempting to have iWork just for this. However, if you import a PowerPoint, fiddle with it in keynote and then export it as a .ppt, usually it gets messed up. I know, I have tried it.

If you really made your decision in 5 mins, I would suggest you're only using a tiny fraction of Pages'/Word's capbility, and so iWork may just be fine for you. However, this is the second post I have seen of yours with this kind of distorted rant, written as though it is fact, just today. The point of this forum is to give balanced, informed information, not to rant off randomly like you might in some Nintendo vs Sony forum. People come here for genuine advice to help make purchasing decisions, usually with their own money. So I think a little more maturity is called for, don't you?

So do you primarily use Powerpoint? Is there any way to use Keynote in a professional setting using PC's without the concern of the file being messed up during the conversion to PPT? It would seem to me the only way to make it your primary program would be to simply bring a Mac computer and hook it up to the LCD (unfortunately I do not own one!).