Is iWork enough to do what Word,, Excel and PP does?

iWork'08 is only $89 while Office 2004 is $249...I am sorry but I will not pay that mcuh money for a stupid Office. I would rather use Openoffice...which I think it is one of my options but is iWork also doing word processing and powerpoint stuff? If so, would I be able to convert the documents I created in iWork to work on other Windows based PCs?

I would highly recommend switching to iWork. Exporting to word documents from within Pages is just a Command+E away! And what's more, you can directly export to PDF/HTML/RTF. You can open even .docx files from word 2007.

And as for Keynote opening powerpoint files, it opens them just as they were. But not the other way round. Keynote uses some amazing effects which powerpoint can only dream of opening. They will look just as bad as other powerpoint presentations though...so you lose nothing actually. And you can also export as a quicktime movie so you retain all effects.

Numbers i haven't used yet, but it looks promising.

give iwork a try and see what you think, if you don't like it then you have a few options

1. Buy MS Office 2004
2. Download Neooffice or Openoffice for free (because its opensource)
3. Wait for MS Office 2008 when it comes out in a few months.

I'm currently using Neooffice and Word (windows version on crossover) until Office for mac 2008 comes out which should be pretty cool

I would consider that for at least my own personal needs, i.e. writing up my resumé or misc. documents that it was sufficient enough that I bought the family pack. It'll output to PDF, and that's how I'm going to be sending documents to people rather than word format. In fact the only things I use Word for at work is to read the stupid Word documents that people pass around. Excel is only used for a couple of spreadsheets that track things like server issues and our expense reports. Overkill, and iWork should be able to handle such things.

If I'm sent to our yearly company conference, any presenters get issued a powerpoint template, and it's a pain to work up presentations, so I have no choice there, but that's using the company issued equipment. Were I to end up doing presentations I'd probably have no problems with Keynote. Steve doesn't.

Thanks for the advice! iWorks looks too good to be missed. I don't use most of the mambo-jambo that comes with Office anyway. For me Word processing, occasional spreadsheeting and presentations are important thus making iWork as much better option. Also knowing that they are compatible with the stuff written and saved in Office just eases my heart! thanks! And thanks Apple for having such cheap option...yay!

I've been using nothing but Pages for my word processing lately, it's lovely. Key note is simply the best presentation software available at the moment.

I've just finished building my 'Taxes' spreadsheet in numbers. I'm absolutely blown away. Numbers is most definitely the new paradigm for spreadsheet creation and management. Don't be surprised if the next version of Excel follows suit. Numbers is AMAZING!!

iWork '08 is highly recommended. Apple finally has a viable alternative for MS Office.

For my resumes, I use MS Word. Sometimes employers want a .doc file and I just want to make sure, so I use MS Word.

Anyway, I don't like iWork that much. I prefer to use MS Suite in Windows. I really, really hate the individual windows/task bars in the Mac version. I prefer it to be all in one window.

You can export a pages document and save it as a .doc as if it was typed in word.

bittenapple said:

iWork'08 is only $89 while Office 2004 is $249...I am sorry but I will not pay that mcuh money for a stupid Office. I would rather use Openoffice...which I think it is one of my options but is iWork also doing word processing and powerpoint stuff? If so, would I be able to convert the documents I created in iWork to work on other Windows based PCs?

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Just to balance this thread, I am gonna say this.

iWork is not Office. It lacks some fundamental features and certainly a lot of advanced features of Word and Excel. 99% of people would not notice, but if you use Word daily to create documents for work, you'd start to notice. Numbered headings for a start in Pages just does not work as easily as it does in Word (either Office 2003, XP or Mac Office). Additionally you can export Office documents to PDF on the Mac. The PDF conversion is not an iWork feature, it's an OS X feature.

OpenOffice is close, very close, but not 100%.

I love Keynote, but it WILL mess with your fonts and bullets if you open a Powerpoint, and yep I tested it. It also likes to mess with any auto-sizing done in Office XP, yep I've tested it. The lovely animations you get on Keynote are great, but you would not use them for your average Wall Street presentation.

Numbers is pretty good, easily enough for home users. If you built a 60,000 line Excel Macro for processing algorithmic Futures Trading though, stick with Excel.

With my little rant over, IMO iWork is suitable for 95% of users, with OpenOffice probably suitable for 99%. But can people refrain from dissing Office; many people's lives depend on it - and yeah I am 75% of the way through a huge document for work this evening I am doing on Mac Word. I could never do this as easily on Pages...

Zoolook said:

iWork is not Office. It lacks some fundamental features and certainly a lot of advanced features of Word and Excel. 99% of people would not notice, but if you use Word daily to create documents for work, you'd start to notice.

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Completely agree. Looks like it's me and you ;D

prpandey said:

Completely agree. Looks like it's me and you ;D

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I'm with you Bro...