From a purely data processing perspective it's not that bad and is nearly everyone (I know) first choice for data storage/processing. Only when you run into limitations in Excel do you tend to go for more powerful data processing/graphing or statistical packages. I think the limitations in Excel are more due to the Spreadsheet model itself as a method of data storage when compared to a proper database. Access has and always will be a nightmare and is not that intuitive or user friendly. If Microsoft had any sense they should merge/redevelop Excel and Access into a database/spreadsheet hybrid offering the entire feature set of both in a user-friendly fashion.
Of course where Excel and Word both fall down is in their formatting, presentation and organisation and I see this is where Apple is targeting its efforts! I've always kept formating to a bare minimum in Word cause it only ends up making things screwy and inconsistent. Writing a thesis in Word can be a nightmare.
Quote:
Originally Posted by meelash
Widely used, I'll grant you. Well regarded???!!! I have not met anyone who does not complain about Excel usability, no matter how much they enjoy its feature-set.
From a purely data processing perspective it's not that bad and is nearly everyone (I know) first choice for data storage/processing.
Usually because:
1) it's on their machines
2) it's dictated by their employer
3) well, golly, everyone else is using it, so it must be good
\
Quote:
Only when you run into limitations in Excel do you tend to go for more powerful data processing/graphing or statistical packages.
Or you realize you can make a buttload of money as an 'expert' and secretly thank Redmond for making it hard to use.
Quote:
I think the limitations in Excel are more due to the Spreadsheet model itself as a method of data storage when compared to a proper database. Access has and always will be a nightmare and is not that intuitive or user friendly. If Microsoft had any sense they should merge/redevelop Excel and Access into a database/spreadsheet hybrid offering the entire feature set of both in a user-friendly fashion.
Or make a reasonable database app at *all*, and strip out the DB features from Excel - mashing together grid and DB features into one app has *never* made sense to me. While they superficially look the same, their implementations are utterly different. Tables and spreadsheet grids have much more in common, to be honest.
Now, that's not to say that you couldn't map tabular data to a DB - that's pretty easy to do. What might be truly interesting is to see cells/rows/columns in Intelligent Tables be able to be imbued with DB query/store features that can access backend DBs. Provide a third app to work with the DB elements of the ITs. Copy/paste the ITs from Pages, Numbers, or Datum () depending on how you want to work with it. Of course, better would be something like LinkBack, letting you operate on the *same* IT instance from three different controller UIs, and giving us true linking/embedding, but I'd settle for the copy/paste approach.
ie, unify the back end, not the UI.
Quote:
Of course where Excel and Word both fall down is in their formatting, presentation and organisation and I see this is where Apple is targeting its efforts! I've always kept formating to a bare minimum in Word cause it only ends up making things screwy and inconsistent. Writing a thesis in Word can be a nightmare.
This thread is more active than the other iWork thread, so I'm going to repost a question that I had asked over there:
Quote:
Re: Pages different modes.
I don't get the justification for two separate modes that are seemingly not changeable once a document has been created.
It seems like the Word Processing Mode corresponds closest to what existed in '06. This is confirmed by the fact that opening documents created in '06 opens them in Word Processing.
Now what exactly is the point of the new Page Layout mode? It's possible to create linked text boxes and move around graphics nicely in Word Processing view. So is the only difference that Page Layout doesn't have the in page text basis? It seems rather dumb to separate everything like this, I rather liked the original merging of the two concepts.
So is the only difference between the two modes that one has the page text and the other doesn't? Or is there something else that I'm missing? Switching a word processing document to a Page Layout could just turn the page text into a text box linked from page to page (which is what it really is, anyway).
And why can't you switch between the two modes, instead of having a document locked into one or the other?
Right. And what I'm saying is that the spreadsheets (Intelligent Tables is what they call them, for a reason) in Numbers, and the Tables in Pages are *exactly the same code* under the hood. They unified them. You can move a table from Pages to Numbers, and it automagically becomes a spreadsheet element. You can move a spreadsheet from Numbers to Pages, and it becomes a table, in that it acts like (and you can act on it as) a table, but invisibly retains all the elements of the spreadsheet you imbued it with in Numbers. Edit a number, formula cells update. It's still a spreadsheet. Copy it back to Numbers, and you can edit those formulas again.
Word and Excel do not have that unification of tables and spreadsheets, as you point out, and they are distinct data structures with two completely different implementations. Apple has, correctly, unified them into a single element that can be worked on in different ways. This is an application of the Model-View-Controller software design pattern, which is pervasive throughout MacOS X. That *is* brilliant, because no one else producing an office suite has bothered to put that much thought into it.
What are you talking about? I can paste cells from Excel into Word and have the link maintained. If I change the numbers in Excel it updates in the Word document. And you can put spreadsheets in Word. How you you even know if they did or didn't use the same code base Do you really think Microsoft would recode it from one to the other?
Your whole premises that Apple made something great that Microsoft doesn't have is wrong. Microsoft had this functionality year and years ago. It's not some revolution from Apple. It may be done better but it aint new.
What are you talking about? I can paste cells from Excel into Word and have the link maintained. If I change the numbers in Excel it updates in the Word document. And you can put spreadsheets in Word. How you you even know if they did or didn't use the same code base Do you really think Microsoft would recode it from one to the other?
This is the point -> .
This is you -> u
Notice they're not near each other. Nevermind mydo, you're not getting it.
Quote:
Your whole premises that Apple made something great that Microsoft doesn't have is wrong. Microsoft had this functionality year and years ago. It's not some revolution from Apple. It may be done better but it aint new.
Nope, still not getting it.
--------
Edit: Oh hell, let me give it one more shot.
Office supports: Link (embed) Excel spreadsheet into Word document. A spreadsheet in one is the same as a spreadsheet in the other, and use the same implementation. No argument there. That's not, and never was, what I was talking about.
Do the following: Make a table in a Word document. Copy and paste it into an Excel spreadsheet. Does the table *become* a spreadsheet, or does it stay as *solely* a table? It stays a table.
Take a spreadsheet grid, sheet, cell range, what have you, and copy it from Excel into a Word document. Does the spreadsheet *become* a regular old Word table, or does it stay *solely* a spreadsheet? It stays a spreadsheet.
Tables and spreadsheets are *two different things* in Office. They have entirely different UIs, behavior, and implementations.
Now do the above with Numbers and Pages - a spreadsheet (Intelligent Table) in Numbers *becomes* a table in Pages, and vice versa. They are the *same thing*, only a bit of the UI differs. Same behavior and implementation. It's the same data object for a table in Pages and a spreadsheet in Numbers. Same. Office does not, and never has, done this. No one's done this, to my knowledge. Every one has tried to clone Office, and haven't taken a step back and gone "duh, they're both grids/tabular data..." Apple did.
I really don't know how much more clear I can make this, on the umpteenth time through. If you still don't get it, I can't help you.
I'm a high school student, so presentations on crappy school PCs are a must, but I'm getting iWork anyway. Good to know that Quicktime works really well--I'll have to find out for sure that the school computers have it, though.
How big is a 20ish slide keynote presentation with moderate animations? I need to know if I need a bigger memory stick thingy or something like that. x.x
Perhaps it's just me, but I went to export a document I created in Pages '08 to HTML and found they removed HTML as an export option. In the past, HTML was one of the export options. Now only PDF, Word, RTF, and Text are options. Did they change something?
I had to export to a Word document and then use Word to export to HTML.
Please don't tell me they removed the HTML export option from Pages.
I haven't looked at Numbers yet, its probably good (I like Pages so far), but its not going to kill Excel, not in a millennium of Sundays - and to pick on Excel like that, is a bit out there....
And I never said it would kill Excel. I'm saying that for a 1.0 release, it puts Excel (which is on it's 12th release at the very least) to shame.
It's not 'a bit out there' to pick on Excel...Excel is garbage when you think it's had 20 years of development behind it. Tell me it isn't garbage with a straight face...go ahead.
Perhaps it's just me, but I went to export a document I created in Pages '08 to HTML and found they removed HTML as an export option. In the past, HTML was one of the export options. Now only PDF, Word, RTF, and Text are options. Did they change something?
I had to export to a Word document and then use Word to export to HTML.
Please don't tell me they removed the HTML export option from Pages.
There's something called "Send to iWeb" that wasn't in the old version- but the options were grayed out for me. I don't use iWeb so I couldn't try it. I'm guessing that Send to iWeb as Pages document will convert to HTML.
Right now I have only two real issues with iWork '08. Otherwise, I'm extremely happy with what Apple came up with.
1) When doing bulleted lists, the buttons to move the tab level are not on a toolbar by default.
2) Opening word documents is seamless, but saving them is not. To save the original document back as a word document instead of a pages document, you have to select export. I'd much prefer the export options as a menu in the save box.
So that is what you do. And now you expect version 1.0 of a consumer spreadsheet app to cater to your needs
Sorry, but I find your expectations of this app to be a bit, well, funny
I for one really like numbers and yes, I also work with large datasets with lots of calculations and the need to create publication grade graphs from data with dimensions up to 1000000 x 20, but it never once occurred to me that numbers might be the app for that. Yesterday I used numbers to create a financial overview for myself and today I'll be happily using igor pro and origin to create graphs...
I don't feel it's a helpful argument to ascribe the lack of features or functionality to Numbers being a "consumer" software app. Why should Microsoft retain the monopoly on "professional" software across a plethora of industries (my field of education being just a small one of these!)
As Mac users, I think we've waited long enough to break free of the bondage of Microsoft development times. I love Office (but passionately dislike Microsoft) but would so much rather get out from under its thumb in favor of a compatible Apple branded software suite.
As loyal users, it's our responsibility to tell Apple what we need, and to expect they give it to us. We're the customers - so we're always right! They don't have to listen, of course, just as we can choose to continue using Office instead of iWork.
(By the way, I ordered iWork and plan to give it a good try - but I don't plan to justify anything I don't like by saying it was designed for someone other than me!)
So can Numbers beat Excel's limit of 65,536 rows? I work in Science and have often needed more than that.
Anyone working in my lab that gets caught using Excel will get shot on sight.
Seriously, Excel is not a tool for scientists, and Numbers is certainly not suitable for science. It pains me to see people banging their heads agaist brick walls trying to get Excel to produce professional quality scientific graphs and data analysis. If you want a serious data analysis tool, use somthing like Igor Pro (www.wavemetrics.com) - an app written specifically for scientists. It blows excel out of the water in every single department (especially the user support - I recently found a bug in Igor, e-mailed the company, and they e-mailed me back a fixed version within 4 days!). Other options are Mathematica, MatLab, etc. Anything but Excel (you'll thank me for it)!
I'm very impressed with Numbers so far, it zips along nicely and the table 'styles' are a doddle to use, it usually takes forever to format a table in Excel exactly the way you want it. Excel's days are definitely numbered in our office. Boom boom.
I just tried it, and numbers can't import more than 65533 rows. It gives a warning and truncates larger files. But to be honest I wasn't expecting it to either because it obviously is not meant for needs like these....
I work in (neuro) science as well and can recommend igor pro for working with files like these. It does have a bit of a learning curve but produces great graphs and is very well suited for automating your analysis/graphing needs. I also work with origin, which is a bit more spreadsheet-oriented but windows only and has a 'not-so-intuitive' UI.
256 columns is the max too. Sucks. Excel '08 will have the ability to go beyond that and for me, that is a deal breaker.
Quote:
Originally Posted by magnetomac
Anyone working in my lab that gets caught using Excel will get shot on sight.
Seriously, Excel is not a tool for scientists, and Numbers is certainly not suitable for science. It pains me to see people banging their heads agaist brick walls trying to get Excel to produce professional quality scientific graphs and data analysis. If you want a serious data analysis tool, use somthing like Igor Pro (www.wavemetrics.com) - an app written specifically for scientists. It blows excel out of the water in every single department (especially the user support - I recently found a bug in Igor, e-mailed the company, and they e-mailed me back a fixed version within 4 days!). Other options are Mathematica, MatLab, etc. Anything but Excel (you'll thank me for it)!
Cheers
Rich
While I somewhat agree with your stance, you can't totally dismiss Excel in the scientific community. I am sure that a lot of people do not need the extreme features offered by WaveMetrics (for example) where Excel is good enough and that is enough to keep people coming back.
True, but most of us are stuck on PCs at work and have little to no say in the software available to us! I'm aware of some of the better graphing programs, was simply asking out of curiosity that's all. There must be a reson Excel is limited to that number (which is 2^16 by the way!)
Quote:
Originally Posted by magnetomac
Anyone working in my lab that gets caught using Excel will get shot on sight.
Seriously, Excel is not a tool for scientists, and Numbers is certainly not suitable for science. It pains me to see people banging their heads agaist brick walls trying to get Excel to produce professional quality scientific graphs and data analysis. If you want a serious data analysis tool, use somthing like Igor Pro (www.wavemetrics.com) - an app written specifically for scientists. It blows excel out of the water in every single department (especially the user support - I recently found a bug in Igor, e-mailed the company, and they e-mailed me back a fixed version within 4 days!). Other options are Mathematica, MatLab, etc. Anything but Excel (you'll thank me for it)!
I just 'bought' iWork today and after experimenting with pages and numbers a bit, I can say that I like it much better than MS Office. This is my first time using iWork ever and I have used Office forever. I was even able to do routine things that I couldn't figure out in Word previously that I did in pages.
I just 'bought' iWork today and after experimenting with pages and numbers a bit, I can say that I like it much better than MS Office. This is my first time using iWork ever and I have used Office forever. I was even able to do routine things that I couldn't figure out in Word previously that I did in pages.
Numbers puts Excel to shame. How is it that Apple can produce an amazing spreadsheet app on the first release and MS has garbage on its 20th release?
Sure Excel is still more powerful. It's almost a programming language in some way. It's got macros (aka trojan/virus back door). But that's it's only redeeming quality...and hardly anyone uses this stuff.
Numbers actually offers things most people *will* use. And puts all the most important stuff a single click or drag away.
This is so embarrassing for Microsoft.
Numbers can't open non-XML Excel spreadsheets...too bad. Still though. Numbers is incredible for a 1.0 release. I haven't used it extensively yet...I'm sure I'll find some bugs. But, so far this thing is solid.
As for Keynote...well, it's always been light-years ahead of PowerPoint...the two apps aren't even in the same ballpark.
I had the iwork demo installed for all of 10 minutes. Once I realised that it couldn't open a simple Excel spreadsheet that I use for our household budget (and have used for years), everything was uninstalled. Thanks, but I'll stick with the power of Excel, Powerpoint (although Keynote is nice) and Word (and thus be able to share without converting). iWork is for those who are relatively isolated from other users (or Windows users), although I still struggle to figure out what the average family of four, who could use Pages to do letters and Numbers to track their budget, would use Keynote for?
256 columns is the max too. Sucks. Excel '08 will have the ability to go beyond that and for me, that is a deal breaker.
While I somewhat agree with your stance, you can't totally dismiss Excel in the scientific community. I am sure that a lot of people do not need the extreme features offered by WaveMetrics (for example) where Excel is good enough and that is enough to keep people coming back.
I cringe when I see a graph in a journal article that came from Excel. You can do some great number crunching in Excel but I think the journal editors should reject anything that comes from the default Excel graph tool. Which goes for Numbers too because Numbers' graphs are a exact copy of all of Excel's mistakes.
Comments
Of course where Excel and Word both fall down is in their formatting, presentation and organisation and I see this is where Apple is targeting its efforts! I've always kept formating to a bare minimum in Word cause it only ends up making things screwy and inconsistent. Writing a thesis in Word can be a nightmare.
Widely used, I'll grant you. Well regarded???!!! I have not met anyone who does not complain about Excel usability, no matter how much they enjoy its feature-set.
From a purely data processing perspective it's not that bad and is nearly everyone (I know) first choice for data storage/processing.
Usually because:
1) it's on their machines
2) it's dictated by their employer
3) well, golly, everyone else is using it, so it must be good
Only when you run into limitations in Excel do you tend to go for more powerful data processing/graphing or statistical packages.
Or you realize you can make a buttload of money as an 'expert' and secretly thank Redmond for making it hard to use.
I think the limitations in Excel are more due to the Spreadsheet model itself as a method of data storage when compared to a proper database. Access has and always will be a nightmare and is not that intuitive or user friendly. If Microsoft had any sense they should merge/redevelop Excel and Access into a database/spreadsheet hybrid offering the entire feature set of both in a user-friendly fashion.
Or make a reasonable database app at *all*, and strip out the DB features from Excel - mashing together grid and DB features into one app has *never* made sense to me. While they superficially look the same, their implementations are utterly different. Tables and spreadsheet grids have much more in common, to be honest.
Now, that's not to say that you couldn't map tabular data to a DB - that's pretty easy to do. What might be truly interesting is to see cells/rows/columns in Intelligent Tables be able to be imbued with DB query/store features that can access backend DBs. Provide a third app to work with the DB elements of the ITs. Copy/paste the ITs from Pages, Numbers, or Datum (
ie, unify the back end, not the UI.
Of course where Excel and Word both fall down is in their formatting, presentation and organisation and I see this is where Apple is targeting its efforts! I've always kept formating to a bare minimum in Word cause it only ends up making things screwy and inconsistent. Writing a thesis in Word can be a nightmare.
No argument here.
Re: Pages different modes.
I don't get the justification for two separate modes that are seemingly not changeable once a document has been created.
It seems like the Word Processing Mode corresponds closest to what existed in '06. This is confirmed by the fact that opening documents created in '06 opens them in Word Processing.
Now what exactly is the point of the new Page Layout mode? It's possible to create linked text boxes and move around graphics nicely in Word Processing view. So is the only difference that Page Layout doesn't have the in page text basis? It seems rather dumb to separate everything like this, I rather liked the original merging of the two concepts.
So is the only difference between the two modes that one has the page text and the other doesn't? Or is there something else that I'm missing? Switching a word processing document to a Page Layout could just turn the page text into a text box linked from page to page (which is what it really is, anyway).
And why can't you switch between the two modes, instead of having a document locked into one or the other?
Right. And what I'm saying is that the spreadsheets (Intelligent Tables is what they call them, for a reason) in Numbers, and the Tables in Pages are *exactly the same code* under the hood. They unified them. You can move a table from Pages to Numbers, and it automagically becomes a spreadsheet element. You can move a spreadsheet from Numbers to Pages, and it becomes a table, in that it acts like (and you can act on it as) a table, but invisibly retains all the elements of the spreadsheet you imbued it with in Numbers. Edit a number, formula cells update. It's still a spreadsheet. Copy it back to Numbers, and you can edit those formulas again.
Word and Excel do not have that unification of tables and spreadsheets, as you point out, and they are distinct data structures with two completely different implementations. Apple has, correctly, unified them into a single element that can be worked on in different ways. This is an application of the Model-View-Controller software design pattern, which is pervasive throughout MacOS X. That *is* brilliant, because no one else producing an office suite has bothered to put that much thought into it.
What are you talking about? I can paste cells from Excel into Word and have the link maintained. If I change the numbers in Excel it updates in the Word document. And you can put spreadsheets in Word. How you you even know if they did or didn't use the same code base
Your whole premises that Apple made something great that Microsoft doesn't have is wrong. Microsoft had this functionality year and years ago. It's not some revolution from Apple. It may be done better but it aint new.
What are you talking about? I can paste cells from Excel into Word and have the link maintained. If I change the numbers in Excel it updates in the Word document. And you can put spreadsheets in Word. How you you even know if they did or didn't use the same code base
This is the point -> .
This is you -> u
Notice they're not near each other. Nevermind mydo, you're not getting it.
Your whole premises that Apple made something great that Microsoft doesn't have is wrong. Microsoft had this functionality year and years ago. It's not some revolution from Apple. It may be done better but it aint new.
Nope, still not getting it.
--------
Edit: Oh hell, let me give it one more shot.
Office supports: Link (embed) Excel spreadsheet into Word document. A spreadsheet in one is the same as a spreadsheet in the other, and use the same implementation. No argument there. That's not, and never was, what I was talking about.
Do the following: Make a table in a Word document. Copy and paste it into an Excel spreadsheet. Does the table *become* a spreadsheet, or does it stay as *solely* a table? It stays a table.
Take a spreadsheet grid, sheet, cell range, what have you, and copy it from Excel into a Word document. Does the spreadsheet *become* a regular old Word table, or does it stay *solely* a spreadsheet? It stays a spreadsheet.
Tables and spreadsheets are *two different things* in Office. They have entirely different UIs, behavior, and implementations.
Now do the above with Numbers and Pages - a spreadsheet (Intelligent Table) in Numbers *becomes* a table in Pages, and vice versa. They are the *same thing*, only a bit of the UI differs. Same behavior and implementation. It's the same data object for a table in Pages and a spreadsheet in Numbers. Same. Office does not, and never has, done this. No one's done this, to my knowledge. Every one has tried to clone Office, and haven't taken a step back and gone "duh, they're both grids/tabular data..." Apple did.
I really don't know how much more clear I can make this, on the umpteenth time through. If you still don't get it, I can't help you.
How big is a 20ish slide keynote presentation with moderate animations? I need to know if I need a bigger memory stick thingy or something like that. x.x
I had to export to a Word document and then use Word to export to HTML.
Please don't tell me they removed the HTML export option from Pages.
I haven't looked at Numbers yet, its probably good (I like Pages so far), but its not going to kill Excel, not in a millennium of Sundays - and to pick on Excel like that, is a bit out there....
And I never said it would kill Excel. I'm saying that for a 1.0 release, it puts Excel (which is on it's 12th release at the very least) to shame.
It's not 'a bit out there' to pick on Excel...Excel is garbage when you think it's had 20 years of development behind it. Tell me it isn't garbage with a straight face...go ahead.
i will be getting iLife 08 & Leopard with new iMac once Leopard released
Perhaps it's just me, but I went to export a document I created in Pages '08 to HTML and found they removed HTML as an export option. In the past, HTML was one of the export options. Now only PDF, Word, RTF, and Text are options. Did they change something?
I had to export to a Word document and then use Word to export to HTML.
Please don't tell me they removed the HTML export option from Pages.
There's something called "Send to iWeb" that wasn't in the old version- but the options were grayed out for me. I don't use iWeb so I couldn't try it. I'm guessing that Send to iWeb as Pages document will convert to HTML.
1) When doing bulleted lists, the buttons to move the tab level are not on a toolbar by default.
2) Opening word documents is seamless, but saving them is not. To save the original document back as a word document instead of a pages document, you have to select export. I'd much prefer the export options as a menu in the save box.
So that is what you do. And now you expect version 1.0 of a consumer spreadsheet app to cater to your needs
Sorry, but I find your expectations of this app to be a bit, well, funny
I for one really like numbers and yes, I also work with large datasets with lots of calculations and the need to create publication grade graphs from data with dimensions up to 1000000 x 20, but it never once occurred to me that numbers might be the app for that. Yesterday I used numbers to create a financial overview for myself and today I'll be happily using igor pro and origin to create graphs...
I don't feel it's a helpful argument to ascribe the lack of features or functionality to Numbers being a "consumer" software app. Why should Microsoft retain the monopoly on "professional" software across a plethora of industries (my field of education being just a small one of these!)
As Mac users, I think we've waited long enough to break free of the bondage of Microsoft development times. I love Office (but passionately dislike Microsoft) but would so much rather get out from under its thumb in favor of a compatible Apple branded software suite.
As loyal users, it's our responsibility to tell Apple what we need, and to expect they give it to us. We're the customers - so we're always right! They don't have to listen, of course, just as we can choose to continue using Office instead of iWork.
(By the way, I ordered iWork and plan to give it a good try - but I don't plan to justify anything I don't like by saying it was designed for someone other than me!)
So can Numbers beat Excel's limit of 65,536 rows? I work in Science and have often needed more than that.
Anyone working in my lab that gets caught using Excel will get shot on sight.
Seriously, Excel is not a tool for scientists, and Numbers is certainly not suitable for science. It pains me to see people banging their heads agaist brick walls trying to get Excel to produce professional quality scientific graphs and data analysis. If you want a serious data analysis tool, use somthing like Igor Pro (www.wavemetrics.com) - an app written specifically for scientists. It blows excel out of the water in every single department (especially the user support - I recently found a bug in Igor, e-mailed the company, and they e-mailed me back a fixed version within 4 days!). Other options are Mathematica, MatLab, etc. Anything but Excel (you'll thank me for it)!
Cheers
Rich
I just tried it, and numbers can't import more than 65533 rows. It gives a warning and truncates larger files. But to be honest I wasn't expecting it to either because it obviously is not meant for needs like these....
I work in (neuro) science as well and can recommend igor pro for working with files like these. It does have a bit of a learning curve but produces great graphs and is very well suited for automating your analysis/graphing needs. I also work with origin, which is a bit more spreadsheet-oriented but windows only and has a 'not-so-intuitive' UI.
256 columns is the max too. Sucks. Excel '08 will have the ability to go beyond that and for me, that is a deal breaker.
Anyone working in my lab that gets caught using Excel will get shot on sight.
Seriously, Excel is not a tool for scientists, and Numbers is certainly not suitable for science. It pains me to see people banging their heads agaist brick walls trying to get Excel to produce professional quality scientific graphs and data analysis. If you want a serious data analysis tool, use somthing like Igor Pro (www.wavemetrics.com) - an app written specifically for scientists. It blows excel out of the water in every single department (especially the user support - I recently found a bug in Igor, e-mailed the company, and they e-mailed me back a fixed version within 4 days!). Other options are Mathematica, MatLab, etc. Anything but Excel (you'll thank me for it)!
Cheers
Rich
While I somewhat agree with your stance, you can't totally dismiss Excel in the scientific community. I am sure that a lot of people do not need the extreme features offered by WaveMetrics (for example) where Excel is good enough and that is enough to keep people coming back.
Anyone working in my lab that gets caught using Excel will get shot on sight.
Seriously, Excel is not a tool for scientists, and Numbers is certainly not suitable for science. It pains me to see people banging their heads agaist brick walls trying to get Excel to produce professional quality scientific graphs and data analysis. If you want a serious data analysis tool, use somthing like Igor Pro (www.wavemetrics.com) - an app written specifically for scientists. It blows excel out of the water in every single department (especially the user support - I recently found a bug in Igor, e-mailed the company, and they e-mailed me back a fixed version within 4 days!). Other options are Mathematica, MatLab, etc. Anything but Excel (you'll thank me for it)!
Cheers
Rich
I just 'bought' iWork today and after experimenting with pages and numbers a bit, I can say that I like it much better than MS Office. This is my first time using iWork ever and I have used Office forever. I was even able to do routine things that I couldn't figure out in Word previously that I did in pages.
I know how you feel.
Numbers puts Excel to shame. How is it that Apple can produce an amazing spreadsheet app on the first release and MS has garbage on its 20th release?
Sure Excel is still more powerful. It's almost a programming language in some way. It's got macros (aka trojan/virus back door). But that's it's only redeeming quality...and hardly anyone uses this stuff.
Numbers actually offers things most people *will* use. And puts all the most important stuff a single click or drag away.
This is so embarrassing for Microsoft.
Numbers can't open non-XML Excel spreadsheets...too bad. Still though. Numbers is incredible for a 1.0 release. I haven't used it extensively yet...I'm sure I'll find some bugs. But, so far this thing is solid.
As for Keynote...well, it's always been light-years ahead of PowerPoint...the two apps aren't even in the same ballpark.
I had the iwork demo installed for all of 10 minutes. Once I realised that it couldn't open a simple Excel spreadsheet that I use for our household budget (and have used for years), everything was uninstalled. Thanks, but I'll stick with the power of Excel, Powerpoint (although Keynote is nice) and Word (and thus be able to share without converting). iWork is for those who are relatively isolated from other users (or Windows users), although I still struggle to figure out what the average family of four, who could use Pages to do letters and Numbers to track their budget, would use Keynote for?
256 columns is the max too. Sucks. Excel '08 will have the ability to go beyond that and for me, that is a deal breaker.
While I somewhat agree with your stance, you can't totally dismiss Excel in the scientific community. I am sure that a lot of people do not need the extreme features offered by WaveMetrics (for example) where Excel is good enough and that is enough to keep people coming back.
I cringe when I see a graph in a journal article that came from Excel. You can do some great number crunching in Excel but I think the journal editors should reject anything that comes from the default Excel graph tool. Which goes for Numbers too because Numbers' graphs are a exact copy of all of Excel's mistakes.