Do I have to uninstall neo office before installing iwork?

I use neo office for word processor. However, I want to try iwork 30 day trial. Do I have to uninstall neo office before installing iwork? May it cause any font problem?

No, not at all. I have Open Office, Neo Office and iWork all installed on the same machine. It will work just fine.

Thanks for quick reply dtravis7. Then, which one do you prefer? Which one is best?

m3rih said:

Thanks for quick reply dtravis7. Then, which one do you prefer? Which one is best?

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Too subjective. Each one has its pros and cons. Try all three and see which suits your specific needs the best.

I prefer NeoOffice or OpenOffice, simply because they are free and iWork is not. Also, NeoOffice has more Mac-like features than Open Office, but NeoOffice also messes up formatting sometimes (especially with formulas).

m3rih said:

I use neo office for word processor. However, I want to try iwork 30 day trial. Do I have to uninstall neo office before installing iwork? May it cause any font problem?

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I didn't. I use(d) both. I still have NeoOffice, but not iWork (the trial ended last weekend. Loved it, but for my ten year old Power Mac with only 500mHz PPC in it, things were irritatingly slow).

To the OP:

From your original post, it appears you only need a word processor application. Both Open Office and Neo Office are full suites and so is iWork. You can however, remove (uninstall) the other two applications included with iWork if all you need is "Pages".

Also, you might want to download the free "Bean" word processor and give it a try. It may be all you need. It's very similar to "Pages" without all the desktop publishing options. LINK

One thing about "Bean" which I like better than "Pages" is that Bean can be set to use the MS Word file format (98 - 2003) by default whereas Pages can not. (You have to select the MS Word format each time you save a file in Pages.)

Regards.

Chris H. said:

I didn't. I use(d) both. I still have NeoOffice, but not iWork (the trial ended last weekend. Loved it, but for my ten year old Power Mac with only 500mHz PPC in it, things were irritatingly slow).

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Might be time to upgrade that setup, Chris. Admirable that you've still got her running though. Right now my oldest running machine is a 1.25GHz eMac with 512MB of RAM, and it's running Leopard. Not very old, but still. Talked to some guy today who still had a working blue and white powermac G3 tower. Solid.

DarkestRitual said:

Might be time to upgrade that setup, Chris. Admirable that you've still got her running though. Right now my oldest running machine is a 1.25GHz eMac with 512MB of RAM, and it's running Leopard. Not very old, but still. Talked to some guy today who still had a working blue and white powermac G3 tower. Solid.

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I keep getting the occasional hints of a new Mac on my way sometime this holiday season. I love my Power Mac, and use it everyday. But, my Dad said it would be a bit cheaper to purchase a Mac (in this case a Mini) rather than upgrade the hard drives to SATA, take the old 500mHz PPC G4 out and put in an aftermarket unit that's faster, take the zip drive out and come up with some sort of modification in its place, and so on so forth. (I do have a text file that has all the upgrades I can possibly do to this machine). And until the power supply dies (which I've read frequently here at Mac-Forums happens to G3's and G4's) among other things, that ten year old beast will running as a weather camera set up once I find the proper software (after I get the new Mac), and my only Mac until I get the new Mac. Plus, I LOVE Tiger. It's just, IDK, amazing even at 500mHz. But I want more features (and a faster computer), so I can't wait to use Leopard/Snow Leopard!

In effect Neo Office/Open Office was the unix answer to Msoft office, while the programs iin iWork are very Apple specific - the best program in the iWork pack is the presentation package, Keynote. Both Pages and Numbers are inferior in a number of ways to Word and Excel - so, if you have been accustomed to Msoft Office, I'd go for Neo Office - you'll probably find it easier to convert to and it has sufficient file-types that saving to Word .doc if you share with others is not a problem.

I just installed iWork 09 on mine last week although better at saving files in doc and xls formats than iWork 08, it's still not there yet. There always seems to be something ...

I should be in a better position to compare when I start creating files using iWork 09 instead of always opening files done in Office.

The problem with any wannabe "office" program (iWork included) is that each lacks something when it comes to compatibility with MS Office.

Like it or not, MS Office is the standard in the business world and also for most state and US government agencies. It's even that way at most universities and other schools of higher learning.

I'm not exactly crazy about lining the pockets of MS by buying their Office Suites, but if I want 100% compatibility that's what I have to do.

Regards.

Unless my school is going to expel me for it, I plan to use OpenOffice/Neooffice for a word processor. Although I find iWork much easier to use. It's a matter of personal preference. Try all three and decide which one is best for you.