Just in the process of going to be getting a new macbook pro and was wondering what you guys think of either Office or iWorks. Which one would you recommend?
cheers
If you don't want to pay and/or have minimalistic needs: Open Office
If you like Apple's way of doing things: iWorks
If you need to reinforce your Office experience for employment: OfficeMac
Formatting gets lost a bit between all these programs if you exchange files, even to the same program on different platforms.
It's good to learn different programs as you can adjust your needs and use whatever best suits you and your budget.
iWork is very easy to use and is more than powerful enough for all but some specific corporate customers. However, working with office files is a pain. Not only does it not have an option to automatically re-save your document as a work document (you have to go into save as every time you save), it doesn't even open the save dialog at the location of your original file. You have to find it every time. So, basically if you're willing to go with files you will likely be unable to share with anyone, I would highly recommend it. If they every institute seamless office integration, it would be a no-brainer.
Personally, I like Pages/iWorks better. It may be less powerful than Office, but it is more than enough for me (and presumable most consumers). Compatibility is not a problem as it will read Office docs, as well as saving your own creations to Office format (if you must).
Bottom line... Price.
I love Pages but you encounter some formatting issues if you open some Word documents in Pages. As an examples pages with distorn the formatting of some resumes formatted in Word. A workaround I discovered was to save the Word document as a PDF file then use the Solid PDF to Word program to convert it to a Pages file. All of the original formatting remains intact.
iWork is very easy to use and is more than powerful enough for all but some specific corporate customers. However, working with office files is a pain. Not only does it not have an option to automatically re-save your document as a work document (you have to go into save as every time you save), it doesn't even open the save dialog at the location of your original file. You have to find it every time. So, basically if you're willing to go with files you will likely be unable to share with anyone, I would highly recommend it. If they every institute seamless office integration, it would be a no-brainer.
The first time you try to format an envelope in Pages is not easy like it is in Word. Apple should add a simple envelope menu option like word instead of burying it in confusing settings in the Inspector. Inserting an name an address should also be improved in Pages. The are basic word processing functions that Pages handles poorly even though I like Pages overall better than Word., It does not have Word's bloated code and handles mixed formatted documents with less problems.
The first time you try to format an envelope in Pages is not easy like it is in Word. Apple should add a simple envelope menu option like word instead of burying it in confusing settings in the Inspector. Inserting an name an address should also be improved in Pages. The are basic word processing functions that Pages handles poorly even though I like Pages overall better than Word., It does not have Word's bloated code and handles mixed formatted documents with less problems.
I would give OpenOffice.org a try, and if that doesn't do the trick, use a trial version of Office:mac.
OpenOffice is free, high quality software. Not the fastest, or most Mac-like, but it is a heavyweight and makes real efforts to clone MS Office, cruft and all.
Comments
Hi All,
Just in the process of going to be getting a new macbook pro and was wondering what you guys think of either Office or iWorks. Which one would you recommend?
cheers
If you don't want to pay and/or have minimalistic needs: Open Office
If you like Apple's way of doing things: iWorks
If you need to reinforce your Office experience for employment: OfficeMac
Formatting gets lost a bit between all these programs if you exchange files, even to the same program on different platforms.
It's good to learn different programs as you can adjust your needs and use whatever best suits you and your budget.
If you don't want to pay and/or have minimalistic needs: Open Office
...
There is nothing minimal about the functionality of OpenOffice.org.
Personally, I like Pages/iWorks better. It may be less powerful than Office, but it is more than enough for me (and presumable most consumers). Compatibility is not a problem as it will read Office docs, as well as saving your own creations to Office format (if you must).
Bottom line... Price.
I love Pages but you encounter some formatting issues if you open some Word documents in Pages. As an examples pages with distorn the formatting of some resumes formatted in Word. A workaround I discovered was to save the Word document as a PDF file then use the Solid PDF to Word program to convert it to a Pages file. All of the original formatting remains intact.
iWork is very easy to use and is more than powerful enough for all but some specific corporate customers. However, working with office files is a pain. Not only does it not have an option to automatically re-save your document as a work document (you have to go into save as every time you save), it doesn't even open the save dialog at the location of your original file. You have to find it every time. So, basically if you're willing to go with files you will likely be unable to share with anyone, I would highly recommend it. If they every institute seamless office integration, it would be a no-brainer.
The first time you try to format an envelope in Pages is not easy like it is in Word. Apple should add a simple envelope menu option like word instead of burying it in confusing settings in the Inspector. Inserting an name an address should also be improved in Pages. The are basic word processing functions that Pages handles poorly even though I like Pages overall better than Word., It does not have Word's bloated code and handles mixed formatted documents with less problems.
The first time you try to format an envelope in Pages is not easy like it is in Word. Apple should add a simple envelope menu option like word instead of burying it in confusing settings in the Inspector. Inserting an name an address should also be improved in Pages. The are basic word processing functions that Pages handles poorly even though I like Pages overall better than Word., It does not have Word's bloated code and handles mixed formatted documents with less problems.
The envelope templates don't work for you?
OpenOffice is free, high quality software. Not the fastest, or most Mac-like, but it is a heavyweight and makes real efforts to clone MS Office, cruft and all.