iWork 09 and MS Office 2003

timme

Hello,



I have seen some posts regarding iWork and MS compatibility but they got a little diffuse so I'd like to try another one and I beg your indulgence.



I'm switching from PC to MBP. For several reasons I want to go with iWork but I can't get a firm handle on whether or not iWork will read my MS Office 2003 files, and the same regarding the extent of compatibility between iWork '09 and later versions of MS Office.



I have years of MS Office files, and if it's going to be a big hassle, I'll just go with MS for Mac '11.



Will iWork '09 read my



1. Word files

2. Excel files

3. PowerPoint files



Will the MBP mail application read by MS Outlook 2003 files?



If not, is there a third-party software that works with all of them, or do some apps work better with some of them?



I don't have a lot of patience to waste hours on this. How much of a hassle is third party software if I have to go that route?



Thanks



TimMe

robm

Well, to get the ball rolling -

There may be the odd thing that doesn't translate but by and large and in general all your MS stuff will be able to be opened no problem.



Instead of dealing with that tabbed GUI with stuff hidden everywhere and nowhere you work mainly with an Inspector to get stuff done in all the apps in IWork and with other commands logically placed in the menu bar.

This really does simplify things a great deal.



MS Office for Mac is actually not too bad - there I said it, and I hate MS apps in general. The Mac team at MS have done a really good job with this.

If you're an Office kind of person and are au fait with the shortcuts then you may want to buy that as well. There are people I know who are that entrenched with it they can't operate without it and have severe aversion to learn anything else.



Recently I had to learn a little of Power Point to help my 9 year old son get his Keynotes to play at school (because they only have Billatrons) I can tell you that Keynote imnsho is just way superior to PP. Keynote will play PP's fine (haven't seen any issues yet) but not so going from Keynote to PP - mostly ok but text boxes can get moved, transitions are generally a mess, gif's with transparency are ng and .psd files well PP ain't heard of them. There are work arounds tho' like using .pngs with transparency and so on.



My wife uses Pages all the time and she also has to use Word dished up by a Citrix server for her work - she loathes Word - she loves Pages. Your Word docs will be read by Pages no problems err, in general ... I said that before, right ? I mean you have to expect some font issues here and there - eg like Algerian on the PC, every PC seems to Algerian on it but on a Mac nah - who uses fugly Algerian anyway ? And there are others that will cause a hiccup - no biggie tho' - font issues are forever in page layout.

Excel stuff can open up straight into Pages but Numbers is the more correct app for the job if you have issues with some files.



Your MS Outlook stuff has to be exported into a different format in order to be read - sry I can't remember what the export options are. Hopefully someone will clue you into that.



I don't know if you need Office for Mac but it is an option - hope that helps a little. You should get plenty of replies to help you - this has been an often bandied around topic in the past.



cheers

timme

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobM


Well, to get the ball rolling -

There may be the odd thing that doesn't translate but by and large and in general all your MS stuff will be able to be opened no problem.



Instead of dealing with that tabbed GUI with stuff hidden everywhere and nowhere you work mainly with an Inspector to get stuff done in all the apps in IWork and with other commands logically placed in the menu bar.

This really does simplify things a great deal.



MS Office for Mac is actually not too bad - there I said it, and I hate MS apps in general. The Mac team at MS have done a really good job with this.

If you're an Office kind of person and are au fait with the shortcuts then you may want to buy that as well. There are people I know who are that entrenched with it they can't operate without it and have severe aversion to learn anything else.



Recently I had to learn a little of Power Point to help my 9 year old son get his Keynotes to play at school (because they only have Billatrons) I can tell you that Keynote imnsho is just way superior to PP. Keynote will play PP's fine (haven't seen any issues yet) but not so going from Keynote to PP - mostly ok but text boxes can get moved, transitions are generally a mess, gif's with transparency are ng and .psd files well PP ain't heard of them. There are work arounds tho' like using .pngs with transparency and so on.



My wife uses Pages all the time and she also has to use Word dished up by a Citrix server for her work - she loathes Word - she loves Pages. Your Word docs will be read by Pages no problems err, in general ... I said that before, right ? I mean you have to expect some font issues here and there - eg like Algerian on the PC, every PC seems to Algerian on it but on a Mac nah - who uses fugly Algerian anyway ? And there are others that will cause a hiccup - no biggie tho' - font issues are forever in page layout.

Excel stuff can open up straight into Pages but Numbers is the more correct app for the job if you have issues with some files.



Your MS Outlook stuff has to be exported into a different format in order to be read - sry I can't remember what the export options are. Hopefully someone will clue you into that.



I don't know if you need Office for Mac but it is an option - hope that helps a little. You should get plenty of replies to help you - this has been an often bandied around topic in the past.



cheers

Thanks, RobM



Very encouraging



TimMe