Mac office SW choices. Need some advice!

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I'm a recent switcher to the Mac and so far no regrets. However I am really confused when it comes to replacing my MS Office apps on the OSX platform. I don't want to install Windows on my machine...(that's why I left!) I am resistant to install the Mac version of MS Word, Excel, and powerpoint if there are perfectly good alternatives available.

I'm an average user of all these apps, not a power user. I need to use my mac for my home business. I need to be able to share .doc, .xls, .ppt files with others, I want good performance (speed/stability), and prefer a low cost.

I'm currently playing with trial versions of MS Office 2004($150), iwork 06 only keynote/pages..upgrade to 08 is $79 and would include a spreadsheet app, Freethink Office 3 ($50) and NeoOffice (free). I also dabble with online doc and spread sheets with Google Apps, but prefer something local on my desktop.

All have versions of all 3 apps I need, all claim compatibility with MS....What would you suggest the average business user of these apps to do?

If anyone can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.
 
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update

Thanks for the info.

I'm a little surprised there are not more switchers out there that have or are contemplating going through the same decision process.

So I'm going to post what I have discovered so far... Just remember..I'm the average joe..not a sw guy..so if I say something inaccurate plse let me know.

Walt Mossberg of the WSJ just did a timely piece on my dilemma. The title pretty much says it all..

Apple's iWork Package
Is Elegant but Wimpy
Compared With Office
August 16, 2007; Page B1

From what I've tried so far, keynote and pages are "elegant". I obviously have a longing to be elegant too (I bought a mac)...Unfortunately, I need this stuff to get the job done first before making it look pretty.

Apparently once you get down to the nitty gritty of spread sheets, "elegant" doesn't cut the mustard according to Mossberg. I got iwork 06, so I have to take his word for it. He also says the other apps also are not as full featured as MS. Not surprising...it is MS's home turf. I tend to agree with Mossberg's point of view on the apps, but not yet his opinion that you should just shell out the $150 for MS Office.

So I've moved on to ThinkFree, NeoOffice, and Openoffice as suggested.

I'm not going out of my way to test these apps, just using them as I need them and seeing what happens.

OpenOffice didn't have any free trial version on their site.. So they are out.

NeoOffice has been fine in their Write and their Excel sw. The pwerpt choked bad on a presentation I was putting together and then when I restored the file, half my presentation went "poof". They also have a disclaimer on their site basically saying the sw is not guaranteed to work flawlessly so..I guess you get what you pay for.

So far no problems at all with ThinkFree. To be honest, I haven't done too much with it, so not making a decision yet. But at only $50 bucks... it might be a good compromise.
 
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The decision wasnt too hard for me. I am getting iWork '08 with my Macbook Pro. I use office every day on Windows in work, and its fine, but even in work i dont need the level of fuctionality it offers.

Pages in iWork '08 offers a straight word processing mode, so you can get the job done without any page layout stuff.

OpenOffice is free, however the Aqua version is not a stable release, to run the normal OSX version on a mac you need to install X11 (from the apple site)

I was going to go for NeoOffice originally as it is also free, but with the introduction of numbers, i have everything i need (i hope - havent used it yet :) )
 
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i honetly like MS Office Mac. Office is the only thing from MS that i like. being that i am in a windows intensive job, it just makes it easier to use the (kind of) same application.
 

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