iWork or Microsoft Office Suite?

[bmxxx]

I'm going to be getting a macBook for school soon and I am trying to figure out if i should purchase the iWork software or the Microsoft Office Suite for Mac. Whatever files I create will most likely be run and possibly edited on PC's often and I am just wondering which will be better for me.

 

[Dysfunction]

I have both, use iWork more. It exports to doc, xls, and ppt without significant issue in my experience. I just find them generally easier to use.

 

[RNDdave]

I own and use iWork. I love that I can create files and easily export them as .PDFs for example - great for CVs!

BUT I don't need to worry about editing the files on PCs too often. iWork does indeed allow you to save .doc files and I've not had any trouble opening any MS Office files that I own* on my Mac - that said the formatting will always be different when moving from Word to Pages and vice-versa.

If you are in education AND need to regularly use PCs for editing or creating files - get MS Office as you'll get a good discount for being a student and you will not have the formatting issues.

If you really want iWork then I'd suggest you get NeoOffice or OpenOffice as well (both free) as they will give you a more Word/Excel like interface to work with and you should find the formatting will translate a little better (still probably not perfect).


* Numbers is unable to open password protected spreadsheets

 

[Meyvn]

Honestly, both are just fantastic pieces of software. I'm personally still using Office for two reasons: I still have one more license left of my 3, and a wonderful feature Pages doesn't have called Notebook Layout. It's just perfect for taking notes in either a semester-long class or any other long serious of lectures. It allows you to easily organize pages and pages of notes on one subject within the same file, complete with tabs for each day (or each week, or whatever you prefer) so you won't have to scroll through miles of pages. If I didn't need that, I'd almost definitely get iWork next time around.

 

[05GT]

I really like iWork. I tried the trial decided there was really no reason to pay for Office. I also have the Windows equivalent on my XP partition so...

 

[mac57]

I would also note that MS Office 2008 is the single slowest piece of software on my Mac. I recently got this new Mac Pro, and as you can see from the specs, it is a powerhouse. HOWEVER, Microsoft Office 2008 brings it to its knees when it starts up. Nothing, with the possible exception of Adobe Bridge, is slower on this machine. Leave it to Microsoft to create software that will bring a 3.2 GHz 8 core machine screaming to a halt. Only Microsoft...

...wait, I tell a lie. I just remembered. NeoOffice is equally slow. Sigh...

I have been investigating alternates. So far, I have a pretty good (and very fast) spreadsheet called Tables. So far so good. It has opened all the Excel spreadsheets I have thrown at it with formatting perfectly intact and with dizzying speed. If only I could find a good equivalent to Word. I may yet have to look at iWork.

 

[shahvikram123]

Both iWork and MS Office 2008 have their good and bad points. For me iWork was a lot easier to use, everything was more simple and much more faster then MS Office. However the Pages application is good for making posters fliers etc but not the best for Word Processing. Additionaly numbers isn't a very good spreadsheet application for the 'power users', but OK for general use.

On the other hand MS Office is a lot slower, but is a lot more powerful in a lot of ways, especially with Word and Excel. Additionaly if you want 100% compatibility with windows users then your better of getting MS Office.

 

[Dysfunction]

What compatibility issues have you seen? So far, I create something in iWork, export it and there's no significant compatibility issues. Even doing animations in keynote. The one exception would be excel, but I'm not a spreadsheet fan anyway, so I'll go for ease of use over 'power'.

 

[MacFanBoy]

Would Love to be able to do pivot tables in anything other than Excel.
I mean power pivot tables and not the lean offerings in neooffice etc.

 

[mac57]

In the end, the problem is that MS Office has become the "gold standard" and we are all stuck with it. No matter how good or easy anything else is, if it isn't really compatible with MS Office, it won't cut it except for purely personal use. The moment you need to share your work, you need MS Office compatibility. Sigh...

 

[Dysfunction]

I work in an almost 100% 'pc' environment. I have yet to have encountered a serious compatibility issue.

Anyone got a real example?

 

[KiwiJenn]

I use iwork after using MS Office 2003 on my Windows PC. I think iWork is great and for my needs. I did get a trial of MS Office 2004 and it was good, but didn't need it as I had already brought iWork and it's a lot cheaper even under Education price. If you really need the extra email program, MSN then get MS Office 2008.

 

[al3x_j]

i want to get iWork, i was comparing iWork '08 to Office '08 via trials and i seem to like iWork more, but i am unsure if there are compatibility issues between iWork and office on PCs